'It's Unfortunate': Miles Teller Was Hurt By Fans Who Turned On Him Over Reputation Rumors

Miles Teller addressed the bad reputation gossip that came back to bite him and how it changed the way he interacts with the media. In an interview with IndieWire, the "Whiplash" star spoke about the backlash he endured after a cover article for Esquire in August 2015 painted him in a less-than-flattering light. "That was so mishandled," he told IndieWire for its May 19 piece. "It felt like such a violation of what actually transpired," Teller added, after explaining why he stopped doing profile-style interviews and instructed his "team" to only book interviews that were filmed. Teller said what was published was inconsistent with the interaction he recalled having with the writer of the 2015 piece. "So it's unfortunate that being a good person, that doesn't sell," he added.

The interview in question went viral for all the wrong reasons for the "Spectacular Now" actor. "You're sitting across from Miles Teller at the Luminary restaurant in Atlanta and trying to figure out if he's a d***," Esquire writer Anna Peele wrote in the opening sentence of the 2015 cover story. The crux of the piece was that the untold truth about Teller was that he had become laser-focused on becoming one of the greats in Hollywood at any cost. "So yeah, he is kind of a d***. But the thing is, you agree with him," Peele conceded.

When Esquire posted the article on X, then Twitter, Teller popped up in the replies to set the record straight. "I don't think there's anything cool or entertaining about being a d*** or an a**hole. Very misrepresenting," he tweeted. Despite his protestation, scores of fans believed the article was an accurate depiction of Teller's personality. Later, another interviewer shared an anecdote that did little to silence the chatter about Teller's rumored past misbehavior. 

It's possible that Miles Teller has undergone a transformation since the Esquire article, but another interviewer recalled the actor making some offside comments. After the IndieWire piece made the rounds, Jim Vejvoda of IGN told a story about interviewing Teller for a movie released in 2014. "I interviewed Miles Teller and Jai Courtney for one of the Divergent movies," Vejvoda wrote on May 21, 2026. "[I] asked them 'What's the next big thing you have coming up?' To which Teller immediately replied, 'My d***!'" the IGN personality wrote. "I laughed at the moment but on the inside was thinking WTF dude we're on the record here," Vejvoda added. That "Divergent" interview would have taken place a year before the Esquire article was published.

On the heels of the 2015 viral article, Teller went on the defensive, painting it as a hit piece. "Oh, I felt frickin' helpless, I felt extremely misrepresented, I felt a little angry," the "Bleed For This" star told The Guardian in a lengthy interview published the following year in August 2016. In an effort to show he was indeed not "an a**hole," Teller used his wife, Keleigh Sperry, as evidence that he was relatable. "I'm dating a normal girl. So I want to feel people think I'm a man of the people. Because I feel that way," he added.

A year later, the gossip about Teller's intolerable personality persisted, and he once again addressed the Esquire piece. "If how that story made me look was how I really was, I'd think I was the biggest d***hebag too," he told Vulture in October 2017, adding that he did indeed care about how he was publicly perceived.