Samantha Barbash says JLo didn’t do ‘Hustlers’ for free
Jennifer Lopez has received backlash after the Hollywood star claimed she did her stripper movie Hustlers for free.
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Samantha Barbash, who inspired Jennifer Lopez’s character Ramona in the movie Hustlers, is slamming the star’s claim she did the film for free.
“I didn’t get paid a whole bunch of money for Hustlers,” Lopez, 50, told GQ for its 2019 “Men of the Year” issue released on Monday.
“I did it for free and produced it.
“I bank on myself, you know? That was like Jenny from the block. I do what I want, I do what I love.”
But Barbash told Fox News she wasn’t buying it.
“I mean, I just laughed,” she told Fox News. “It’s a bunch of bulls**t, excuse my language.
“She definitely got a huge sum of money upfront and on the back end. She’s stating that she bet on herself and she got money on the back end, which is not true. She got money all around.”
Barbash’s lawyer, Bruno Gioffre, sent a letter to STX Entertainment, the production company behind Hustlers, in September protesting the “flagrant violation of her rights”, and threatening to sue if a deal wasn’t made within 10 days, Variety reported. In response, STX told the outlet it was entitled to make the movie without Barbash’s permission.
“We will defend our right to tell factually based stories based on the public record and look forward to resolving this matter before a judge,” an STX spokesperson said.
A rep for Lopez, as well as STX, did not return Fox News’ request for comment.
“She made millions,” Barbash said.
“What is sad is that she failed to recognise that they took advantage of my likeness for profit without asking … Forget about all the money that she made off of my likeness. They just betrayed me in such a horrible manner … As an actress, they’re supposed to shadow the person that you’re playing … I’m a mother and the way she portrayed me, it was horrific. I literally walked out of the movie crying.
“Once they found out about the lawsuit, they tried to say that it was freedom of acting or something like that, it was all public record. I don’t know where cooking drugs with a child in the room is public record, but it was nothing like that. Nothing. The only thing that’s public record is my case, the arrest with the doctor … She just bashed me. They attacked my character for money, and I guess because it’s Hollywood they’re allowed to do that.”
Hustlers, based on the 2015 New York magazine article entitled “The Hustlers At Scores”, follows a group of Manhattan strippers as they discover they can make serious money by turning the tables on their wealthy Wall St clientele.
The story has been compared to Robin Hood in the ladies would argue they were stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.
Hustlers made more than $33 million in its opening weekend alone.
Barbash was the alleged mastermind behind a ring of strippers who drugged their clients and took their credit cards, Variety reported. She pleaded guilty in 2017 and was sentenced to five years of probation.
Barbash, along with her other colleagues, allegedly stole at least $200,000 from men, Vanity Fair reported.
Barbash told Fox News at the time of the film’s release she rejected the producers’ offer for the rights to her film because “it was a joke”.
“Put it this way — I have Hermes bags that cost more than what they wanted to give me,” she said at the time.
Barbash told Fox News she was still moving forward with her lawsuit.
“It’s not so much about the money at this point,” she claimed. “I mean, yes, she made millions off of my story. I have never wanted to be in the media at all … I wanted to be very low key (after the case) … I was dragged right back in the media … It’s just bad taste. Jennifer is definitely not for woman empowerment … As a woman, she attacked my motherhood so I do have something with her, but I’m not the villain … It’s done in Hollywood every day where they steal people’s stories and they turn people’s lives upside down.”
Despite the film’s box office success, Barbash said she was moving forward with plans to turn her life story into a TV series where she can finally reveal “the truth” she believes Hustlers failed to show.
“I am doing a series because I want people to know, especially women, what goes on,” she said.
“How women get taken advantage of every day. Jennifer was more looking at it like there’s just money for her. She doesn’t care about … any of the adult entertainers, dancers in the business. Half of them are single mothers, college students just trying to pay their bills, and this is what they chose to do. Some people don’t have a choice in life. Not everybody’s fortunate.”
This article originally appeared on Fox News and has been reproduced with permission
Originally published as Samantha Barbash says JLo didn’t do ‘Hustlers’ for free