Leonardo DiCaprio has been the first to admit that he went to some extreme lengths while filming The Revenant—the wilderness epic that may finally earn the four-time nominated actor a deserved Oscar.
To play a 19th-century frontiersman seeking revenge on Tom Hardy’s trapper, for example, DiCaprio slept in animal carcasses; submerged himself in frozen rivers, consistantly risked hypothermia during the icy, outdoors shoot; and ate raw bison liver. One activity in which DiCaprio definitely did not partake, however, was a bear rape scene, as the Drudge Report claims on Tuesday in typically tasteful headline fashion: “DICAPRIO RAPED BY BEAR IN FOX MOVIE.”
We know DiCaprio is not raped by a bear in The Revenant because, dear readers, there is simply no such scene in the admittedly grisly Alejandro González Iñárritu-directed film. Granted, DiCaprio does face-off with a bear in a showdown so violent it might deter you from the grizzly exhibit the next time you visit the zoo. But the actor is not sexually assaulted by a bear once, let alone twice, as the right-wing news outlet alleges in its bonkers story. Pull up a chair and, to correctly express the outraged incredulousness implied by the report’s punctuation, a megaphone.
DiCaprio does indeed tango violently with a bear, with the grizzly flipping the actor over and attacking his back. As if the lack of inter-species molestation is enough to disprove Drudge's report, several co-workers also point out that the film suggests that the bear attacker is female. DiCaprio's character is attacked after he makes the mistake of trespassing on bear cub turf. (“Is there such a thing as an overly-protective single father bear?” a colleague rightly inquired.)
In an interview this past October, the DiCaprio discussed filming the attack scene, which involved cables and precise choreography.
“[Those scenes]—amongst many other sequences—were some of the more difficult things I’ve ever had to do in my entire career,” DiCaprio told Yahoo!. “But the end result is going to be one of the most immersive experiences audiences will ever have with what it would be like to come face-to-face with an animal of that magnitude that is incredibly primal.”
The ridiculous report seems to have stemmed from veteran Hollywood journalist Roger Friedman, who reviewed the film on his blog Showbiz411 on November 29, and has a very different recollection of the bear attack scene than his peers.
“The bear flips [DiCaprio’s character] over on his belly and molests him– dry humps him actually– as he nearly devours him,” Friedman writes, adding that he did not entirely see the sequence as a negative. In fact, he is impressed by the technicality involved. “How Innaritu and DiCaprio did this is a movie mystery because it is as real feeling as Bruce the shark in Jaws 40 years ago. It’s as real looking as it could be, and maybe the most frightening moment I’ve seen in a film in eons.”
Although Drudge’s bear-rape alarm may not be factual, it has certainly been enjoyably ridiculous by many a Twitter user, who have spent their morning conjuring up clever digs at the conservative blog.
But perhaps the most sound reaction to DiCaprio Bear Rape Gate—and the best indicator of how overblown this report became in such a small time—is this very good point from Jeb Bush's communications director Tim Miller. (Yes, that Jeb!)
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Drudge conspiracy theorists, feel free to take a look at the bear fight footage in the trailer below.
And lastly, our thoughts go out to the media maligned bear of The Revenant, who is likely hiring a publicist, lawyer-ing up, and beginning the early stages of her defamation suit this very minute.
The Revenant opens in theaters on January 8.
