Richard Dreyfuss spent about 30 minutes trying on several dresses in a pro-LGBTQ store in Massachusetts before heading to a nearby theater where he made a series of offensive comments about women and the trans community, according to a report.
TMZ published surveillance footage from the store in Beverly, Massachusetts, and suggested that Dreyfuss’ sexist, transphobic rant at the Cabot Theater was premeditated.
The footage shows the 76-year-old Oscar winner trying on five different looks at Worthy Girl Consignment, which displays a Pride flag out front, TMZ said. The actor laughed and smiled as staff helped him in and out of different dresses before he settled on a $20.99 plus-sized floral dress that he wore onstage at the theater for a screening of “Jaws,” in which he stars.
The theater had invited Dreyfuss to participate in a Q&A before presenting “Jaws,” the 1975 blockbuster directed by Steven Spielberg. Other videos circulating online showed Dreyfuss coming on stage for the Q&A, wearing the floral dress, as Taylor Swift’s “Love Story” played and the crowd cheered.
Before even speaking, Dreyfus did a dance of sort and wiggled his rear end to the crowd, while holding a cane. Stage crew ran out to help him out of the dress, but Dreyfuss continued to dance as he put on a jacket. At one point, he held the cane like a golf club and swung it in the direction of audience members, who were still cheering though also laughing.
But the crowd didn’t laugh much longer after Dreyfuss opened his mouth and went on his headline-making rant. Video of the actor’s comments was not available but social media posts from attendees described his rant, the Daily Beast reported.
According to one social media post, an attendee heard Dreyfuss call Barbra Streisand, his producer and co-star for the 1987 film “Nuts,” a “genius.” But he also said he “didn’t listen to her because she is a woman and women shouldn’t have that power.”
According to the same attendee, Dreyfuss claimed that women “are so passive” and “that’s why the movie sucked.”
From there, Dreyfuss apparently made disparaging remarks about the #MeToo Movement, then “started down the road of how you shouldn’t be listening to some 10-year-old who says they want to be a boy instead of a girl,” according to the attendee.
“Jesus Christ what an explosion,” the attendee explained. “Crowd was shouting at him and most walked out before the movie even started.”
Dreyfuss’ rant prompted the Cabot Theater to issue an apology.
“The views expressed by Mr. Dreyfuss do not reflect the values of inclusivity and respect that we uphold as an organization. We deeply regret the distress that this has caused to many of our patrons,” the theater said in a statement, the Daily Beast reported. “We regret that an event that was meant to be a conversation to celebrate an iconic movie instead became a platform for political views. We take full responsibility for the oversight in not anticipating the direction of the conversation and for the discomfort it caused to many patrons.”
More attendees shared on the theater’s Facebook page that they walked out of the event because of Dreyfuss’ inflammatory remarks, the Daily Beast also reported. One person wrote, “Richard Dreyfuss is an embarrassment to society. I walked out tonight because of his small minded bigoted view of women and choice.”
Staff at the Worthy Girl Consignment also are furious at Dreyfuss, with one employee telling TMZ that his comments insulted their clientele in the LGBTQ community. The employee said they thought Dreyfuss was “just a cute, little old guy trying on dresses” and they couldn’t have known what he was planning to do with the dress.
Worthy Girl is now making a shirt referencing the Dreyfuss incident and will donate proceeds from sales to supporting to a local organization supporting LGBTQ youth, TMZ reported.
This isn’t the first time Dreyfuss’ statements or actions have incited controversy. For decades, the actor, also known for “American Graffiti” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” has earned a reputation for being difficult, to say the least, from his cocaine-fueled breakdowns in the 1980s to his well-publicized feud with Bill Murray, his co-star in the 1991 comedy “What About Bob?”
At the start of the #MeToo movement in 2017, Dreyfuss was among the men who faced sexual harassment allegations. According to Vulture, a writer for a 1980s TV project that Dreyfuss conceived and starred in claimed that the actor repeatedly harassed her over a two- to three-year period and at one point exposed himself to her.
More recently, Dreyfuss blasted the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences’ new diversity and inclusion rules while defending actors using blackface, the Daily Beast reported. During an interview on PBS’s Firing Line, the actor referred to the academy’s rules, saying, “They make me vomit.”
He also said, “Because this is an art form. It’s also a form of commerce and it makes money, but it’s an art. And no one should be telling me as an artist that I have to give in to the latest, most current idea of what morality is.”
