14 DAY TRIAL // Martin Scorsese came under a lot of fire for his latest movie, “The Wolf of Wall Street,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill, because many perceived it glorified the actions of convicted fraudster Jordan Belfort, on whose story it was based.
Today, Belfort himself is making headlines after storming out of an interview with Australia’s Liz Hayes for 60 Minutes.
Below is a video of Hayes trying to make sense of what went wrong, explaining why he walked out and giving viewers her impressions at the end of the interview. Yes, Belfort eventually came back to wrap up the interview.
From what I understand, Belfort is ok with talking about his money schemes, which helped him defraud his victims of many millions of dollars, as long as he’s in a position to defend himself. One question about his financial situation today, and he flips.
What set him off now was Hayes’ question of whether he was using a firm in Australia to hide money there, when he’s been ordered to pay restitution to his countless victims (over 1,500). Belfort gets up and says he expected a “nice, friendly” interview, not one where he’d be “attacked” like this.
Quite beside himself with anger, he walks out. When he eventually returns, he asks Hayes to be “neutral,” saying this is his only condition. Hayes was clearly not impressed with him overall.
