It just keeps getting uglier for Hollywood bigs — who have now been caught in leaked emails trashing a top filmmaker for allegedly “feeling up” his transgender niece.
Mocking “American Hustle” director David O. Russell, top Columbia Pictures exec Michael De Luca writes to Amy Pascal, co-chairwoman of Sony Pictures Entertainment: “David’s a loon, talented, but geez once I saw him bring Sally Field to a party and reduce her to tears. Plus remember when he got in trouble for feeling up his transgender nieces [sic] boobs?”
The Russell blast was included in the latest in a barrage of emails stolen from Sony servers by hackers, according to the Daily Beast.
The newly revealed emails also include conversations that suggest “Spiderman’’ actor Andrew Garfield will be booted from the web-slinger movie series.
The emails reveal that Sony — which has already reportedly not been happy with Garfield — might be willing to give up creative control of the franchise to comic book giant Marvel. And Marvel reportedly prefers to start from scratch with the series.
The emails also mentioned talk of a Kanye West biopic movie starring — of course — Kanye West, and another about the singing group Destiny’s Child.
But the most shocking of the new emails involved Russell, whose failure to win any major awards for “American Hustle” disappointed top movie executives including Pascal of Sony, which made the film, and De Luca, whose subsidiary distributed it.
According to The Smoking Gun website, Russell’s transgender niece filed a complaint accusing Russell of coming on to her at a Florida gym, squeezing her breasts amid questions about the transgender transformation process.
At the time, Russell confirmed that the incident happened, according to the Chicago Trubune, but told police that his niece was “acting very provocative toward him” and invited him to feel her breasts. He also admitted to being “curious about the breast enhancement.”
Cops closed the case without filing charges.
Russell’s rep denied wrongdoing on the director’s part at the time.
A group calling itself Guardians of Peace has said it stole thousands of computer files from Sony’s servers, including already released emails from executives that called Angelina Jolie a “spoiled brat” and Kevin Hart a “whore” and made racist jokes about President Obama’s movie preferences.
One batch said an entire early screenplay of the new James Bond movie “Spectre” was leaked.
Reeling Sony execs tried to bounce back Sunday by warning news organizations not to publish the stolen material.
The studio “does not consent to your possession, review, copying, dissemination, publication, uploading, downloading or making any use” of the information, the company said in a three-page letter signed by top attorney David Boies.
The Sony hackers, meanwhile, offered to hold back on releasing selective email correspondence of Sony employees, provided that they write in and ask.
“Message to SPE Staffers,” the group said in a post. “We have a plan to release emails and privacy of the Sony Pictures employees. If you don’t want your privacy to be released, tell us your name and business title to take off your data.”