How Did Drudge Fuck Up His Bear Rape Scoop?
Earlier today, the reclusive online aggregator Matt Drudge reported that the upcoming thriller The Revenant contains a scene in which the actor Leonardo DiCaprio, playing the 19th-century American fur trapper Hugh Glass, is brutally raped by a forest-dwelling bear:
The explicit moment from Oscar winning director Alejandro Inarritu has caused maximum controversy in early screenings. Some in the audience escaped to the exits when the Wolf of Wall Street met the Grizzly of Yellowstone. The story of rural survivalism and revenge reaches new violent levels for a mainstream film. The bear flips Leo over and thrusts and thrusts during the explicit mauling. “He is raped — twice!”
According to multiple individuals who attended a recent screening of the film, DiCaprio is actually mauled—not raped, twice or otherwise—by a bear. One such individual, Brian Abrams of Death and Taxes Magazine, wrote on Tuesday afternoon:
I feel obligated to inform you moviegoers that this is simply not true. ... Last week, I attended an advanced screening of The Revenant, scheduled for theatrical release January 8, and, while admittedly had to pee the entire time, was completely engrossed in the bear attack sequence — not because it involved any sort of bestiality ... but because the bear, an incredible work of CGI, was so convincing as it mauled DiCaprio’s neck, crushed his spine, gnawed into his backside, and tossed him around the woodlands as if our A-lister were a mere bearded Raggedy Andy. But, again, there was no rape in the sequence whatsoever.
A few hours later, a spokesperson for the film’s distributor, 20th Century Fox, confirmed the lack of a bear-rape scene to Entertainment Weekly:
“As anyone who has seen the movie can attest, the bear in the film is a female who attacks Hugh Glass because she feels he might be threatening her cubs,” a Fox spokesperson told Entertainment Weekly in an exclusive statement. “There is clearly no rape scene with a bear.”
Huh! So where did the bear rape story come from?
It’s unclear, on re-reading Drudge’s original item, whether Drudge himself attended any screening of the Revenant. If he did attend one, how did he mistake a violent mauling for a violent rape? And if he didn’t attend a screening, who characterized the scene to Drudge as bear-on-human rape—or, for that matter, described audience members fleeing for safety?
We’ve emailed Drudge for comment, but if you have any theories, do get in touch.
