He was eventually allowed to walk the red carpet with wife Sibi as adoring fans screamed his name—unaware what had happened just hours earlier. But the next morning Bale voluntarily went to a police station in the posh Belgravia district of London to be questioned.
Different reports claimed different reasons for the row with everything from Christian being depressed over Ledger’s death, to his marriage to Sibi being on the rocks, to his sister Sharon begging him for money.
The evening was supposed to be a happy night out before Christian’s premiere. Jenny, Sharon, and Christian’s three young nieces made the four-hour journey from Bournemouth to see Christian and Sibi in London. His nieces, all under twelve, had been looking forward to the premiere for months and had saved up their own money to buy dresses for the premiere. In particular, Christian’s eldest niece, Ruby, eleven, worshipped her uncle as a hero. Ruby had dreams of being an actress as well and was hoping to visit Christian on the set of Terminator Salvation.
The Sun newspaper claimed that Christian had flipped out after Sharon, forty-three, asked him for £100,000 to help bring up her own three children. But when he refused, a row broke out in the hotel suite and Christian was alleged to then have pushed mum Jenny, who, sources claimed, inflamed the situation by hurling insults about his wife, Sibi.
Sharon tried to set the record straight in early 2010 when she was forced to file for bankruptcy. She refused to reveal how much debt she was in but gave an interview along with Jenny to the Daily Mail newspaper in which they revealed, they decided to report Christian to police because they were “so terrified” of his temper—especially in front of his nieces.
Jenny said in the same interview: “He just exploded with anger like I have never seen. He never gave us a chance to find out what it was all about before he frogmarched us out of his suite. We hadn’t all been together for about a year. I was dying to see him and his family, especially his little girl. He’d e-mailed a few times. In the last one he signed off saying: ‘See you at the Dorchester for the premiere, perhaps we’ll have dinner.’ So that’s what we were expecting.
“I know getting arrested annoyed him and I know that being all over the papers annoyed him too, but I don’t think that’s why he’s not talking to us. He was furious with us before we’d even opened our mouths. Probably before we walked into the suite. We just don’t know why.
“He’s not talking to us now. It’s not the other way round. He has changed his phone numbers and he ignores letters, e-mails, and birthday cards I send. As awful as that night was and although I rack my brain every day about what could have made him behave like that, I’d happily forget it happened if we could go back to being a family. That’s the most important thing. We miss Christian terribly. But it’s been more than 18 months now and it’s hard to see how this will ever end.”
Sharon added: “We walked into his suite and he didn’t say much. It was clear that he was angry for some reason. He left the room to take a phone call, so we sat down as I took out some muffins that I’d made. Then he walked in and immediately started shouting at us. He was saying how angry he was that we had left arrangements to the last minute—which made no sense as we’d been planning it for weeks with all the people around him. Perhaps the messages weren’t getting through, we just don’t know.
“He was screaming at mum: ‘It’s not on! It’s not on!’ He kept saying it was rude. We weren’t being respectful. Despite what the papers said afterwards, this was not a two sided argument. We have no idea what set him off. He was filming Terminator Salvation at the time, so he was huge and muscular, the girls were terrified. They were screaming and crying.
“He had his face to mine and was bellowing and swearing about how I never called or e-mailed. His wife, who I have met a few times and always got on with, was standing across the room. I kept asking her: ‘Why is he doing this?’ but she just shrugged. I was shaking. It was so frightening. I said: ‘But Christian, we call you all the time.’ It didn’t make any sense. It probably went on for about ten minutes before he physically marched us out of the room and into the lift.
“Living on opposite sides of the world makes things especially difficult. Over the years, he has become harder and harder to contact. We would leave messages and never be sure they were getting through. We wanted him to have more to do with the family but accepted that he was very busy and very involved in his work. The more work he did the more strained our relationship became. It’s not true, I’ve never asked Christian for a penny. We have never spoken about money—his or mine. It was completely untrue.
“I was incredibly angry but I can see now that I was naïve too. I expected to get a phone call the next day saying he’d calmed down, explaining what went wrong, but we waited and there was nothing. It was clear we were expected to leave.
“I went to the police hoping that some big policeman would go round there and have a quiet word with him. I just wanted someone bigger than him to tell him that what he’d done was wrong. A slapped wrist. It was clear his wife wasn’t going to do that. But there were two things I hadn’t realized. First, that the police would arrest first and talk later. Second, that it would be such a big deal. I hadn’t taken into account the fact he is such a big star now and the news got out fast.”
While Sharon and Jenny professed to the Daily Mail that they had no idea what caused Christian to fly into such a rage that day, they had privately told friends a different story.
Just days after Christian was arrested, Sharon confided in a family friend that they believed the reason for Christian’s terrifying outburst was over his wife, Sibi. She revealed that both she and Jenny had withdrawn their statements just two days after the incident because of the ongoing publicity their actions had caused.
She also said that while she had never “begged” her brother for money she did once ask him to invest £100,000 in a property business venture but that he never agreed and believes that the e-mail she sent him asking about the investment opportunity was leaked to the press.
Sharon told the friend: “The police have confirmed that the Crown Prosecution Service has agreed with us on dropping any further proceedings. Mum and I actually both withdrew our statements two days after the event as we realised that family members, friends and neighbours were suffering as a result.
“Money was not even mentioned by Mum or myself and we were not arguing about money and had no intentions of doing do. We went there to see family and go to the cinema.
“Mum put the phone down on Sibi about four months ago because Sibi was being confrontational. Sibi then phoned and apologized. On the night we met, Christian began an argument with Mum over never putting the phone down on his wife again. We have all been getting on fine, there was no need for an argument at all. We were really looking forward to an evening together after so long.
“I went to the police and asked them to talk to Christian before he left as we felt his verbal and physical actions and no show of remorse afterwards, especially in front of three children under the age of 12 years, needed to be pointed out to him as wrong. Normally the police would do this but the media intercepted the police files and were already making their own assumptions of what took place even before Christian spoke to the police.
“The next day—as this all happened at 11pm at night—we took the kids shopping to try to alleviate the sorrow they were feeling after this trauma, I then drove them home, a four hour journey and then went out on my own to the police station.
“We are all very sad about the press accusations of us wanting money off him. We have never asked for money ever. The 100K must have come from an e-mail I sent Christian asking if he wanted to invest in a property investment via a property broker/investor and the solicitors dealing with the investments. I gave him an example figure of what the returns were if he were to invest 100K. How he ever thought I was asking him to lend me money for myself is beyond me, I would however have gained commission from his investment just like I do other investors I intr
oduce to this organization. I even sent him an e-mail a few month ago asking if he wanted me to assist him financially with the £450 he pays monthly for the house he owns that Mum lives in, that Sibi seemed to be upset about but I never heard back from him.”
“We do not know why Christian got so angry over nothing that night, it has had a lot of knock on effects with the children as well which is upsetting us all greatly.”
The reaction in the media to Christian’s alleged assault ranged from confirming his rumored temper to attacks on estranged relatives hitting him up for money. In particular, Christian’s hardcore fans naturally assumed Christian could do no wrong. And the damage his late father, David, had done to his ex-wife, Jenny, was coming back to haunt her. Cruel jokes about Jenny being a circus clown (a job she held for just one summer) were on the Internet. And even when it was revealed that Christian had exploded in front of his three young nieces, nasty commentators snickered that Sharon was a welfare mom who should not have had children she could not afford.
Christian was due back at the police station in September 2008, but before he could even think about the charges he might be facing, the curse of Batman struck again, taking the heat away from him.
This time on August 4, 2008, Morgan Freeman, who played Wayne Enterprises’ CEO Lucius Fox in both Batman films, was involved in a horrific car accident and had to be cut from the wreckage.
The then seventy-one-year-old actor was listed as critically ill after he was airlifted to the hospital after the late-night crash on a road in rural Mississippi. His car became airborne in the smash and flipped over several times before landing in a ditch.
The Hollywood legend’s injuries were listed as several broken ribs along with arm, leg, and shoulder wounds while a female passenger in the car with him suffered “bumps and bruises.”
The female passenger in the car later sued Freeman for negligence. She claimed he had been drinking the night of the accident and that he was driving her car when it veered out of control. She claimed the accident ruined her life because following the crash, various reports claimed she was Freeman’s mistress.
The crash and Freeman’s recovery were still dominating headlines when just ten days later the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) quietly announced it would not be filing charges against Christian.
A CPS statement read: “We can confirm that we have advised the Metropolitan Police Service that the actor Christian Bale should not face any charges following an incident which occurred in relation to his mother and sister at the Dorchester Hotel on July 21 this year.
“Whilst the CPS treats all incidents which take place in a domestic context seriously, it is important that the views of the complainants are also taken into account when making decisions in such cases.
“Taking all the factors into consideration, the decision had been taken that there is insufficient evidence to afford a realistic prospect of conviction and accordingly the police have been advised that no further action should be taken against Mr Bale.”
So thanks to Jenny and Sharon who had already withdrawn their statements, the CPS did not have enough evidence to charge him. This time the matter quietly disappeared with just a few paragraphs in a few papers reporting Christian would not face any charges.
But it wouldn’t be long before Christian’s temper once again reared its ugly head. Only this time it was caught on audio tape for everyone to hear.
[15]
The Fighter
“Listen, I know I have a potty mouth. Everyone knows this now. I was out of order beyond belief. I was way out of order, I acted like a punk.”
—Christian Bale
By the time Christian had apologized for his “punk”-like behavior and expletive-laden rant on the set of Terminator Salvation, practically everyone around the world had heard him let rip. Shocked fans busily remixed the rant into a number of hit club songs, scoring millions of hits and views on YouTube. Video mashups featured Christian yelling at babies and a remixed Newsies trailer had become a viral hit. During the blowup on the set, Christian dropped an astonishing thirty-six F-bombs in just four minutes.
Christian became enraged on the set of Terminator Salvation in the summer of 2008, when the Director of Photography, Shane Hurlbut, entered the actor’s sight line, removing some lighting equipment while the cameras were still rolling. The star exploded with curses and even threatened to walk off the set if the error was repeated.
As he let rip, the sound crew let the tape keep rolling and caught the entire rant on audio. Existence of the tape was covered by TMZ on July 22, 2008, but the actual audio of the tape was leaked several months later on Friday, January 30, 2009 (Christian’s birthday), and made headlines around the world.
Bale can be heard screaming: “I will kick your ass. I want you off the f****** set. No, don’t just be sorry. Think for one f****** second. What the f*** are you doing? Am I going to walk around and rip your f****** lights down in the middle of the scene? So why the f*** are you walking right through? You do that one more f****** time and I’m not walking on this set if you’re hired.”
By the following Monday, the Today Show hosts Matt Lauer and Meredith Viera asked their crew on the air: “What would happen to any of us if we were to say to you, or treat you in the way that Christian Bale treated a member of his movie crew?” The crew collectively shook their heads.
The BBC, the largest broadcasting network in the world, then accidentally broadcast Christian’s rant uncensored and without any bleeps on BBC Breakfast News. They quickly had to apologize to the astonished public.
The rant left both fans and industry insiders stunned. Even though it is usually acknowledged that movie sets can be tense places to work with many actors deeply immersed in their characters, long hours, and sometimes dangerous stunts, no one had ever heard of an actor behaving so irrationally before. Actors blow takes all the time, so why was Christian so angry?
Even Christian’s fellow British actor Gerard Butler acknowledged he had stepped out of line in an interview in March 2010 while promoting his movie The Bounty Hunter. Butler revealed to the BBC: “I’m pretty good on set and I think I have a reputation for that. But I do play pretty heavy roles sometimes. It’s not that I go as far as the Christian Bale outburst but I can get a bit into it sometimes. It doesn’t make me the nicest person but I always try to be.”
It was a sad vindication for Christian’s mother, Jenny, and sister Sharon. After the Dorchester Hotel incident, cynical press and fans called them gold diggers. But now the world could finally hear what Christian’s temper sounded like.
In a Daily Mail interview, Sharon said: “What most people don’t know is he has a brilliant sense of humour. He’s funny and used to laugh a lot. You never see that now. All you see is this po-faced guy in a cap and sunglasses, pushing the paparazzi away.”
Added Jenny: “I watch him giving interviews on the TV and I think: ‘Come on Christian, give us a smile.’”
For many of Christian’s fans, it seemed like the actor had finally gone too far. First he had allegedly attacked his own mother and sister in a hotel room and now this.
It didn’t help that it took Christian four days to publicly apologize for the rant, and even then he didn’t issue an apology directly to Shane Hurlbut but instead went on a local Los Angeles radio show to talk about the incident.
He started off by telling the show’s hosts, Kevin Ryder and Gene “Bean” Baxter: “It’s been a miserable week for me.” He continued: “The thing that I really want to stress is I have no confusion whatsoever. I was out of order beyond belief. I was way out of order. I acted like a punk. I regret that. There is nobody that had heard that tape that is hit harder by it than me. I make no excuse for it. It is inexcusable. I hope that is absolutely clear. I’m embarrassed by it. I ask everybody to sit down and ask themselves, have they ever had a bad day and have they ever lost their temper and really regretted it immensely?”
Despite Christian’s apparent contrition for his outbur
st, the damage was already done. The movie performed disappointingly at the box office. While the production cost of Terminator Salvation was estimated at $200 million, it grossed only $125 million domestically. Adding insult to injury, the much anticipated reboot of the Terminator franchise failed to open at the top of the box office on its opening weekend—instead, beaten by Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. In just a couple weeks, Terminator Salvation would drop off the Top Ten movies, beaten soundly by the similarly budgeted Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. A survey taken by respected trade publication Ad Age went as far to suggest that Christian’s drawing power at the box office may have taken a hit because of the incident.
He even acknowledged himself that he was worried his behavior would overshadow the movie. Christian revealed just before the film opened in summer 2009: “I was worried that it could completely overwhelm the movie itself. There’s so much hard work that’s gone into this. We had 77 days of smooth running and four minutes of me just going too far—and that shouldn’t characterize the making of the movie. My concern was that people would unfairly judge the movie based on my bad behavior.”
It was also a film that Christian had initially had his own concerns about and had even been warned against taking. Christian revealed he was sent the script while he was still working on The Dark Knight in London, and he immediately vowed it would be a movie he would never make.
The movie franchise was being resurrected by director McG—not a huge name in Hollywood with just a couple credits to his name—the TV show The OC and two Charlie’s Angels movies with Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, and Lucy Liu.
Christian Bale Page 24
