Leonardo DiCaprio Sued For Defamation! Subjects Of Movie He Produced Claim 'Emotional Distress' Over Their Portrayal In Film
Mar. 3 2014, Published 7:04 a.m. ET
Leonardo DiCaprio has won several awards for Wolf of Wall Street, but his movie Out of the Furnace just got him sued! DiCaprio was a producer on the 2013 film based on the Ramapo Mountain people of New Jersey. Now, RadarOnline.com has exclusively learned, a group of those individuals is suing the actor and many others involved with the film, claiming that they were unfairly portrayed as drug-using "inbreds" in the movie -- and now they're suffering from "emotional distress!"
According to court documents obtained by Radar, eight members of the Ramapo Mountain community filed a defamation lawsuit in New Jersey on January 2 over the film starring Casey Affleck and Christian Bale.
In particular, they take issue with statements in the film calling the Ramapo Mountain people "inbred mountain folk from Jersey" who "have fights" and are "nasty" and "crazy."
They insist, "Out of the Furnace characterizes the Ramapo Mountain people in an extremely negative manner," with Woody Harrelson's character Harlen DeGroat (a common Ramapo name) "characterized as the most awful human walking."
"The movie and a review in the New York Post," another defendant in the case, "places Plaintiffs and their family members in a false light," the court documents claim. "Each have had an extremely negative effect on the Plaintiff's community. It is extremely embarrassing to the Plaintiffs. Plaintiffs and their family members are harassed and discriminated against. The children are teased at school."
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"The conduct of the defendants constitutes defamation …" the papers claim, as well as false light and intentional infliction of emotional distress. "The Plaintiffs are not the worst people, do not live in trailer homes, are not involved in an underground bare-knuckle fight ring, and do not live in a self-contained world of drugs and violence."
As such, they claim to "continue to suffer emotional and psychological damages," and want a jury to award them restitutions "in an amount to be determined by a jury."
Story developing.