Quentin Tarantino's Most Controversial Moments

He's one of the most revered filmmakers of his generation, but two-time Academy Award winner Quentin Tarantino has ruffled more than a few feathers throughout his meteoric rise. The director of films like "Reservoir Dogs," "Pulp Fiction" and "Inglourious Basterds" famously worked at a VHS rental store in California before hitting the big time, gaining a reputation locally for his encyclopedic film knowledge. He called the experience "a primer to what it would be like to be famous" in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. "Everyone in Manhattan Beach knew who I was," he said. "I couldn't walk down the street without people calling, 'Hey, Quentin!'"

Today, he's famous the world over, and with that comes extra scrutiny, both from the press and from his peers. He's known as the brains behind several modern classics, but Quentin Tarantino has also become one of Tinseltown's most controversial figures over the course of his career. Let's take a look at why.

It's rare for Quentin Tarantino to unreservedly apologize for something he's said, but he did exactly that when comments he made about Roman Polanski in 2003 resurfaced in 2018. Tarantino was speaking to Howard Stern when he adamantly defended the Polish-French director, who fled the States in 1978 while awaiting sentencing for unlawful intercourse with a minor, 13-year-old Samantha Geimer. "It was statutory rape," Tarantino said. "He had sex with a minor. That's not rape. To me, when you use the word rape, you're talking about violent, throwing them down — it's like one of the most violent crimes in the world."

Stern and co-host Robin Quivers were both aghast at what they were hearing from Tarantino, who went on to call Geimer a "party girl" who wanted to have sex with Polanski. "She wanted to have it and dated the guy," he said. "We're talking about America's morals, not talking about the morals in Europe and everything." Days after the shocking audio resurfaced, Geimer told the Daily News that Tarantino "was wrong" to suggest that she gave consent and that she "would probably feel better" if he admitted as much. The filmmaker called her to apologize in person and released a statement to IndieWire. "I realize how wrong I was," he said. "Ms. Geimer WAS raped by Roman Polanski."

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Quentin Tarantino addressed a number of his past controversies during his 2021 interview on "The Joe Rogan Experience," confirming a longstanding rumor about his 2007 film "Death Proof." Released alongside Robert Rodriguez's "Planet Terror" as part of the double feature "Grindhouse," the film stars Kurt Russell as a killer Hollywood stuntman who murders his victims with staged crashes. It's hard to imagine anyone other than Russell in the role once you've seen the film, but Stuntman Mike was originally supposed to be played by Mickey Rourke.

When prompted by Rogan, Tarantino revealed that Rourke (fresh off his appearance as Marv in "Sin City") was up for the part and some promising discussions were had, but his "agent was f*****g around with us," Tarantino claimed (via The Hollywood Reporter). "I [said], 'Here's one of the offers, you have until 9 p.m. Friday night to accept or reject,' and they let the deadline blow by." That was apparently enough for Tarantino to rule Rourke out completely. "The agents were like, 'Oh they need him, so we can do anything we want.' Whenever agents treat me like that, I pull the plug. They're arsonists disguised as firemen."

If Spike Lee thought the use of the N-word in "Jackie Brown" was excessive, it's no wonder he took to social media after hearing about "Django Unchained," in which the racial slur is utilized over a hundred times. Lee made his position on Quentin Tarantino's slavery saga clear in the days leading up to its premiere. "I'm not gonna see it," he told Vibe TV. "All I'm going to say is that it's disrespectful to my ancestors." He later went online to express his outrage over the film, stating that "American slavery was not a Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western" in a now-deleted tweet. "It was a Holocaust. My ancestors are slaves. Stolen from Africa. I will honor them."

When Tarantino was asked about Lee's comments at the European premiere of "Django Unchained," he simply said he wouldn't "waste time" by responding, the ANSA news agency said (via UPI). According to "Django Unchained" star Jamie Foxx, he spoke to Lee about the film in person when he saw him at the BET Awards. "You know Spike, he'll let you have it whether it's good, bad or ugly," the actor told Vibe. "And he said, 'I'm not going to say anything bad about this film. It looks like y'all are getting it.'" As of this writing, there is no word on whether Lee has actually watched the film yet.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy wasn't the only journalist to rub Quentin Tarantino up the wrong way during the promotional run for "Django Unchained." In January 2013, a little over a week after the film's Christmas Day premiere, Tarantino sat down for a radio interview with Terry Gross, host of the NPR show "Fresh Air." The writer-director's violent slavery epic hit cinemas not long after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, in which 20 children and six adults were shot dead by a gunman who then took his own life.

When Gross asked if tragedies like the one at Sandy Hook were making violent films less appealing, Tarantino answered with some questions of his own. He said: "Would I watch a kung fu movie three days after the Sandy Hook massacre? Would I watch a kung fu movie? Maybe, because they have nothing to do with each other." Gross, apparently aware that she'd struck a nerve, suggested that Tarantino seemed "annoyed" by her line of questioning — and he was. "I'm really annoyed," he admitted. "I think it's disrespectful to [...] the people who died to talk about movies. I think it's totally disrespectful to their memory." He added: "Obviously, the issue is gun control and mental health."

Quentin Tarantino locked horns with the police in 2015, joining protesters at the Rise Up October anti-brutality rally in New York City. The filmmaker spoke to the gathered masses about the death of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old African American boy who was shot dead by officers in Ohio. "Tamir was playing with a toy gun in the park," Tarantino said, adding that the person who made the 911 call noted that "the gun was probably a fake and the person holding it was probably a juvenile." He also said that "if you believe there's murder going on then you need to rise up and stand up against it."

The renowned filmmaker's words didn't go unnoticed by the police. Tarantino was dubbed a "cop hater" by Patrick J. Lynch of the New York City Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, who called for a boycott of his movies (via The New York Times). Police groups in Philadelphia and Los Angeles soon followed. "There is no place for inflammatory rhetoric that makes police officers even bigger targets than we already are," said Craig Lally of the Los Angeles Police Protective League. Tarantino claimed his comments had been taken out of context to "demonize" him in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. "All cops are not murderers," he said. "I never said that. I never even implied that."

While the two main characters in the 60s-set "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" — aging actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his no-nonsense stuntman Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) — are fictional, Quentin Tarantino's ninth movie also features some very real stars of the day. Margot Robbie is perfect as Sharon Tate, Damian Lewis is eerily convincing as Steve McQueen, but the best lookalike of the lot was undoubtedly Mike Moh as Bruce Lee. Moh's version of the martial arts movie icon loses a fight with Brad Pitt's Cliff Booth in one memorable scene, which angered Lee's daughter.

Shannon Lee called Tarantino out for portraying her dad as "an arrogant a–hole who was full of hot air" in a statement she gave to The Wrap. "I understand they want to make the Brad Pitt character this super bad-a** who could beat up Bruce Lee, but they didn't need to treat him in the way that white Hollywood did when he was alive." According to Tarantino, his depiction of Lee was based on actual accounts of his behavior. "Bruce had nothing but disrespect for American stuntmen and was always hitting them," he told Joe Rogan on "The Joe Rogan Experience." He also said that while he "can understand his daughter having a problem with it," everyone else could "go suck a d***."