Celebrity4 min(s) read
Jordan Belfort's ex-wife has confirmed that an X-rated scene in The Wolf of Wall Street was based on something that actually happened to her.
Martin Scorsese's 2013 movie tells the story of controversial stockbroker Belfort, portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio.
From extreme drug use to dwarf-throwing and the infamous pen-selling scene, plenty of what unfolds during the three-hour film can seem difficult to believe.
However, Nadine Macaluso, Belfort's ex-wife and the inspiration for Margot Robbie's character Naomi Lapaglia, has confirmed that one uncomfortable encounter really did happen.
In a TikTok video, Macaluso explained that the movie's depiction of her first meeting with Belfort was relatively close to reality.
"So you guys have been asking how did I meet Jordan, the Wolf of Wall Street," she began. "Well, it's actually pretty similar to the movie. I was, I guess, 22 years old and modelling and my boyfriend at the time, said, 'You want to go to this party in Westhampton in this house on the beach?', and I was like, 'Sure.'"
"And so we pulled up, and I remember walking into the house, and there were all these people acting really weird. Little did I know that they were all Quaaluded out, I had no idea."
In the movie, Belfort and his friends are taking drugs at the party when Robbie's Naomi first appears.
Belfort approaches her, but their conversation is overshadowed when Jonah Hill's character exposes himself and begins touching himself in front of the party guests.
According to Macaluso, the incident wasn't simply invented for the movie.
Macaluso recalled the uncomfortable atmosphere at the party and said the film did not fully capture how scared she was by what happened.
"They're with their wives and they were like, just making lewd and weird comments," she said. "And that scene where someone actually exposes himself to me was true. And I actually got terrified by that.
"I'm 22. And I said to my boyfriend at the time, 'We have to leave this party,' and we left right away."
While the incident itself made it into the movie, Macaluso has suggested the film should ultimately be viewed as Belfort's version of events rather than hers.
"If you look at it through Jordan’s lens, it was really accurate. And I think that if you look at it through my lens, it wasn’t, and that makes sense because that was actually how our marriage was," she said.
Robbie, whose portrayal of Naomi helped turn her into a household name, has previously spoken about the uncomfortable reality behind some of the movie's most provocative scenes.
Discussing a separate nursery scene with Porter Magazine, Robbie revealed that what audiences saw on screen was very different from the environment in which it was filmed.
"Although it doesn’t come across when you’re watching the movie, the reality of it was we were in this tiny bedroom with 30 crew members crammed in," she said.
"For 17 hours, I’m pretending to be touching myself. It’s just a very weird thing, and you have to bury the embarrassment and absurdity, really deep, and fully commit."
The actress also admitted she hadn't fully considered what watching the finished movie with her family would be like.
"I hadn’t really braced myself for how much things would change after the movie came out," she said on the Smartless podcast.
Robbie organized a screening for family and friends, only to suddenly remember just how much they were about to see.
"I was like ‘Oh sh** my family is about to see this.’ I organized a family and friends screening, and when the credits started, I suddenly realized 'oh my god, I’m naked, I’m fully naked, and they’re all about to see it,'" she said.
She also recalled her brother sitting beside her during another intimate scene involving DiCaprio's character. "My brother is right next to me!" she said.
Robbie's brother reportedly didn't speak to her for months after the movie's release, but The Wolf of Wall Street nevertheless became a defining role in her career.
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