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59 Hollywood Secrets And Rumors That Might Ruin The Glamorous Image You Have About It
Every community has its open secrets. You know, those things that are so widely known that they’re almost institutional knowledge, yet nobody ever really talks about them out loud. In a family, it might be a great uncle’s gingivitis. At work, it could be who’s really getting credit for a project. Or maybe it’s the couple everyone knows is only still together for appearances.
Hollywood has its own version of this, too, which is perhaps surprising given how much effort the industry puts into managing public image and keeping certain things out of the spotlight. Recently, someone asked Redditors, “What are some of the actual open secrets in Hollywood?” The answers touched on everything from what stars are like IRL to what it actually takes to make it big. They also got into what’s real, what’s fake, and what really goes on behind the scenes. Here’s what they had to say.
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#1
As someone who's worked with horses. Horses get treated very well on sets. Based on coat shine and ear placement, it's clear that even in scenes where the horses are "distressed" that those horses are happy as heck. They do a trick, they get apple slices and pets. The horses can also usually see their handler off camera. So always remember, no matter how disheveled the horse appears, no matter how distressed they are on screen, those horses are living the best lives possible for horses.
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#2
When a cat is in a movie they don’t train one cat to do a dozen tricks, they train a dozen cats to do one trick apiece. For example: It took 10 cats playing Sassy to film Homeward Bound. Obviously CGI will change this over time but that’s how many “old” movies were filmed with cats. They usually only credit one cat with a generic name.
#3
The streaming business model is built so that a successful show will often get canceled precisely because it is doing well. That happens because a hit brings in nearly all of its new paying subscribers during its first season, but as the show continues, its cast and production costs skyrocket because actors and crew from a hit show are going to ask for more money, but the audience becomes limited to people who are already paying anyway. Platforms make far more money by cutting that expensive hit and splitting the budget across multiple brand new shows and new actors to lure in fresh subscribers.
Nik Odongray 1 hour ago
I hate this. The Netflix 3rd season curse. They need to bring back Mindhunter!!!
#4
George Clooney is basically Julia Roberts' only friend left in the business. Few have probably a worse on-set reputation than she does throughout her career.
#5
Former agency and producer's assistant here. F that industry, here's what I can remember:
Talk show appearances are mostly staged. Very little is spontaneous anymore when it comes to celebrity appearances in public. Those candid interviews? Nah. Mostly a put-on and *at least* rehearsed.
Everyone pirates. One guy in the office knows a guy who has a screener of the next hit movie, say a rough cut of *Doomsday,* and they're expected to bring that screener to the office for ripping and duplication. I used to run one office's rip-and-burn tower.
Those diversity fellowships are almost all for show. They usually hire people who were working as writer's assistants in the first place. It's usually just hiring a POC with a rolodex. POC with great work get overlooked for lesser writers with contacts and it's called progressive. I hated it.
If you don't live in NY or LA, most assume you don't take your art seriously. They want someone they can send out to face-to-face meetings that day (this may have changed during Covid, somebody please check me on this).
Standups who do nothing else are of zero use. Virtually every comic to make it big in the United States has also been a writer, actor, improviser, musician, etc. If you're a standup and you don't have a second thing, you're probably not getting representation. Producers and agents tend to not like standups without a "slash."
Most workers in Hollywood are just blue-collar laborers. They're teamsters and IBEW and caterers and grips and PAs. These folks are usually middle-class, not connected to celebrities any more than you're connected to the brass at a big company you worked for. Work-a-day folks who just make a decent and relatively plain living. Mostly just regular folks.
It's afraid to offend because there is no guaranteed next job. It's not liberal because it's principled, it's liberal because nobody knows who their next investor or producer might be. They don't want to Tweet their way out of the next Best Picture.
#6
Reality shows are scripted.
Kerry Washington is a nightmare. A real "do you know who I am?!" Person.
Jeremy Piven steals weed from people at parties, then tries to get them kicked out.
John Goodman has not been sober since 2007, despite what his wiki says.
Kim Kardashian wasn't originally planning to marry Kris Humphreys, there was a player on the Knicks that they wanted for the sham wedding, but he wasn't into it. Original plan was also for their marriage to last a year or so and then have a big publicized divorce but she couldn't stand him.
There is a little known (though that might be changing) service where actresses who almost made it or had 15 min of fame can be hired for the evening. It's not officially what you're thinking, but it often ends up being exactly that.
Lexington is a faster street to get down than Fountain, between LaBrea and Cahuenga.
You can jaywalk in LA now.
#7
Henry Winkler is one of the nicest people around. I did personal security for him once and he was an absolute saint. Everyone I know who worked with him has said the same.
Crystal Spencer 1 hour ago
I've read the exact opposite several times...I don't know him, so I guess I will never know the truth.
#8
Whenever a foreign director or writer is given a “chance” by Hollywood, Netflix, etc, it’s usually to hire people outside of the unions (WGA, etc), so they can pay them way less.
#9
The men get plastic surgery/Botox/fillers as much as the women. And almost every dude over 30 with a decent hairline has had a hair transplant. Although some go for a less obvious upgrade, some shave their heads (typically done pre-op to "fool" the masses) and miraculously have added 3"-5" of hairline they haven't seen since high school.
Men don't "age better"- that's just standard misogyny.
#10
Steroids. Used by BIG names. It's obvious once you look at them critically.
#11
Hugh Jackman is close personal friends with Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner by his own admission.
He defends the relationship and simply says, “they don’t discuss politics.”.
#12
Sophia Vergara and Jennifer Lopez are insufferable to be around and treat crew members like garbage - and are only nice to Directors, DPs, or Photographers .
And even though everyone suspects Tom Cruise of various behind the scenes stuff - in person he’s actually the nicest, respectful and professional person, almost like it’s an act how he treats common crew so nicely. Only celeb I’ve heard of that no one can give first hand account of him being a jerk in person.
#13
If an actress is "hard to work with" it means she stood up for herself and didn't allow people to harass her on set. .
#14
All those “leaks” and “spoilers” you see from actors are fake, the studio allows them to do that for marketing/buzz.
#15
Everyone always knew Kevin Spacey was gay and preferred younger men. Think 18-21 but (supposedly) even younger.
He was always out at gay bars with loads of very young men around him at all times. My aunts best friend lived in NYC and was too old for Kevin but he was a regular at many a gay bars.
Traveled all over with an entourage of college aged boys.
#16
“Overnight success” usually means a decade of being rejected, working side jobs, networking, taking tiny roles, and being one lucky break away from disappearing entirely.
Also, a lot of “movie magic” is exhausted crews solving expensive problems at 3 a.m. so the audience never notices anything went wrong.
#17
That Benioff and Weiss took a lot of heat for ending GoT the way it did, but the production aspect and some of the cast were coming apart at the seams and a 9th season was impossible.
#18
Every male actor who gains 30 lbs of pure lean muscle mass in 4 months for a Marvel role isn't just eating "chicken, broccoli and rice." They're on massive stacks of TRT, human growth hormone and anabolic steroids with top tier Hollywood doctors monitoring their bloodwork. Everyone in the fitness and film industry knows it, but they have to keep up the natural myth for marketing.
#19
Oh I know this one! I know a famous person in Hollywood from a party. Big wedding in Spain a few years ago. Few celebs. Many of them drunk. Fun talks. I'm not famous AT ALL but some of them really opened up, I think?
One said: "All the big actors with amazing hair? Wigs. Expensive wigs. They have permanent staff employed to fit them for them. Maintenance and replenishment is done almost convert-ops-like. Most of them are bald, balding, or just wear wigs because it's part of their image to look a certain way."
Also: "They're all nerdy theater kids who made it big at some point. I treat them as such. They are very fragile, even the buff ones who play tough roles."
The guy playing Reacher, as it turns out, is quite flamboyant in real life and very sensitive. Saying nothing about his sexuality here, I have no idea about that, but he's nothing like how he acts.
Henry Cavill is just really cool and has real hair, though.
...allegedly.
Tarantino is a creep.
Cruise is... you know.
Pedro Pascal is... well, we all know.
Writers and actors care. Execs don't care, they just need tax deductibles. Profits are optional.
"But Disney is losing money and reputation!" And somehow they don't care whatsoever. That money needed to go somewhere, didn't need to be a GOOD movie or even be profitable.
Hell, many movies and shows are made to fail so they can contractually get rid of people.
Sure, the guy stating this was a clearly flamboyantly gay hair dresser for the famous, but still... actors, writers, directors. Probably millions of desperate ones looking for that ONE SHOT.
Ophelia Poe 2 minutes ago (edited)
"Cruise is... you know. Pedro Pascal is... well, we all know." NO, I don't know! Back in the day this would have been code for gay (sad that ever had to be a secret) but now it could be ANYTHING. A robot? They paid a billionaire to do who knows what with or to who knows who? What are they?
#20
Most "candid" street photos of celebrities in coordinated outfits are pre-arranged. PR teams tip off photographers with time and location to keep the star in the news.
#21
Tom Cruise's wives were on 5 year contracts and both bugged out as soon as they contractually could.
Nik Odongray 1 hour ago
The Church of Scientology very purposefully destroyed his marriage with Nicole Kidman because her father was a psychiatrist (enemy #1 of Scientology) and because he was drifting away from the “church” (cult) when he was with her.
#22
The music industry (aside from diddy) never had a reckoning. The same jerks move from label to label in the positions of power.
#23
The fact that literally everyone in the industry knew exactly what Dan Schneider and Brian Peck were doing to those kids at Nickelodeon for over a decade, and absolutely no one stepped in because the sitcoms were pulling in too much ad revenue.
#24
Most sound engineers suffer either from tinnitus or some form of hearing loss.
#26
The casting couch does and will forever exist despite the Me Too movement. There’s enough actors/actresses that will break boundaries to get noticed, and enough producers that just don’t care.
#27
Nicole Kidman got paid 5 million a year for 10 years to be married to Tom Cruise.
Katie Holmes got paid 20 million a year for 5 years to be married to him.
#28
Even before the music industry collapsed due to sites like Napster, a lot of famous musicians weren’t getting paid. Some were lucky if their record contract gave them 10 - 14 cents per album.
#31
Me Too kind of exposed the biggest ones. Ellen being a jerk, Cosby being a predator, Bryan Singer’s house being a twink factory etc.
#32
Most of the behind the scenes things like “this actor actually did this accidentally but we kept it in because it was so good” or “this line wasn’t in the script” type things are fake to get people to go back and watch the movie again.
#33
Many well known actors and actresses are struggling to book anything... it's truly a miracle when some actor from an old hit show makes a comeback.
#34
Like fifteen years ago I met this dude who was a commercial actor. He was in a pretty long running ad campaign that lasted years and just happened to be one of my friend's neighbors. He told me that in LA it was very well known that Tom Cruise was gay. I think today people would probably just say bi but at the time I guess if you did anything with a guy you were immediately just considered gay. Anyways he said that Cruise obviously does a great job guarding that part of his life from the public but I guess for people in Hollywood it's always been a pretty open secret.
#35
Studios deliberately release Black led films in about 30% fewer overseas regions Executives make the excuse that audiences in Europe and Asia will not buy tickets for movies with Black leads, but they use this claim to avoid spending millions of dollars on foreign marketing but also for a more nefarious reason: In Hollywood, pay for leads is tied directly to worldwide ticket sales, with top stars earning millions and backend profit points based on their international draw. By under distributing the movie and skipping foreign promotion, the studio guarantees the overseas receipts stay low on paper. When contract negotiations start for future franchises or sequels, studio brass point to those suppressed numbers as proof that the black actor lacks global appeal, giving the company an easier financial justification to offer lower pay, lower profit share or deny profit shares altogether.
#36
That a lot of “exclusive” Hollywood events are basically networking opportunities. People aren’t just there to party, they’re making connections, pitching projects, and figuring out who can help their career. It’s a much smaller world than it looks from the outside.
#37
That people saw Amber Herd come to work bruised from Johnny Depp and that he’d come to set and yank her by her hair and clothes.
They’re too scared to talk because anyone who did was doxxed by his crazy fan base.
I live in LA. I do not work in film anymore. Husband works in post so he never saw because this was all set stuff, but we know plenty of actresses who did and are too scared to talk.
#38
There is definite nefarious hazing that happens to professionals in the celebrity fields: modeling/acting/musicians. disgustingly, many of these rituals take place over years through university and into careers (infamous frats/sororities are deeply connected to the industry).
#39
My friend’s brother is a personal assistant to an A-lister. They don’t know how to do the most mundane, bare minimum tasks that you and I think nothing about. They’ve been coddled for so long that they lost the ability to function autonomously.
#40
That a lot of Hollywood relationships and friendships are more complicated behind the scenes than they look publicly. Also, celebrities having entire teams managing their image, interviews, and social media is pretty much an open secret.
#41
Rappers don’t like Megan thee stallion because she’s college educated and knows better than to get into some of the unfair deals the other rappers do.
#42
There are very, very few who just "make it". If you do a deep dive on 20 different actors you like, most of them are nepo babies to some extent (not always a direct child of famous actors, but more often a child of a casting director, or a studio executive, rich tech families etc etc). Sure, you can find a random few, but the story of the bright eyed kid getting off the bus and grinding and going to all the auditions until that one big break is so incredibly rare to the extent it almost doesn't exist.
With that said, plenty of actors in LA can make a living getting some good roles that the public rarely sees like corporate videos, projects that never see the light of day, commercials etc etc.
#43
I heard from a guy who used to do hair in Hollywood that will Smith is gay. Said it was a pretty well known secret.
#45
The reason Keegan-Michael Key never got fame in Hollywood and Jordan Peele did is because Key's wife is the absolute worst person to work with ever and she insists on going on set all the time and dictating all his scenes.
#46
Third hand stories, but here goes....
My former coworkers's wife had a very good friend who did makeup on big Hollywood movies. She worked on a Tom Cruise film and said one of the most logistically difficult things about being on location with him was how to get his "boys" on and off the set without being seen.
My sister's friend worked at the Beverly Hills Hotel. John Travolta called down to order a glass of iced tea with a very specific number of ice cubes, like exactly 7 or something like that. Sister's friend, who was a handsome gay man, took it up to the room and JT greeted him at the door in a bathrobe. Friend said his "gaydar" went up immediately as JT was overly friendly, whatever that meant. Yeah - not super juicy, I know, but sounds like some of the other stories.
#47
Bryan Singer and Kevin spacey had a revolving door of young men to their trailers during superman returns.
#48
I’ll probably get downvoted for this, but an open secret I’ve heard is that Chris Rock is obsessed with Jada Pinkett.
Apparently he pursued her for years and when she wouldn’t sleep with him, he got angry and started jabbing at her in his stand up. Which of course leads to him making a joke about her hair loss due to alopecia at the 2022 Academy Awards and all the kerfuffle that followed it.
Rock even picked Jada’s hometown as the location for his next standup special after the Oscars to further get her to notice him/attempt to humiliate her.
I don’t know if Will Smith is gay, straight, or bi, but it’s always been a poorly kept secret that the Pinkett-Smiths have an open relationship. It seems that the expectation was that Jada had to keep her dalliances under wraps, while Will could go on vacation with his female co-stars, invite the paps, and post on social media.
I also don’t think people appreciate how hard it was for queer people to exist decades ago. I truly don’t know what Will’s sexuality is, but I think people are going to look back on his marriage with Jada decades from now and see it differently.
#49
Awards campaigns are basically paid advertising. Studios spend tens of millions on "For Your Consideration" campaigns, screenings, and events specifically to lobby Oscar voters — it's less "the best film wins" and more "whoever ran the best ad campaign wins.".
#50
Scientology has some serious dirt on Tom cruise which is why he bends over backwards for them.
There is no way a man as cultured and traveled as he is t would just end up a Buddhist new age monk…
#51
We collectively freaked out in America at the evidence of bot farms influencing elections. Turns out, Hollywood uses them all the time to shape public opinion of celebs, movies, etc.
And no one seems to care.
#54
Aziz Ansari actually is a creep, he just played it off as him being “awkward with women” to avoid full cancellation.
#55
Di Caprio is gay and has contractual arrangements with model/actresses to be his beard. He's both very generous and very careful.
#56
I have been in the film business for many decades. I don't care if we're shooting a car chase, a love scene, blowing up a building or machinegun shootout. All of us are thinking "I wonder what catering is serving for lunch today?" Ha. It's true.
#58
Actors promoting other co-stars as the best/sweetest/bonded so well are the people who don't even talk to their co-stars much and probably hate them.
#59
I met a yachtie who broke his NDA and said a certain very popular female singer free bleeds all over yachts. Doesn't believe in tampons .
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