Brett Ratner and I have a sordid past.
He was my first big Hollywood profile and he left a lasting impression—or depression, depending on how you look at it (see below). Last week, at the Simon Wiesenthal Center gala honoring Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, I decided it was high time we made up. After all, he’s a Hollywood director and I’m a Hollywood journalist and we’re bound to cross paths every now and then, just like a pair of estranged lovers. And wouldn’t it be better if we got along? Besides, we have history.
After I introduced myself to Ratner anew, he grabbed me by the arm, pulled me to his table, and said to Howard and Grazer sitting across from him, “You see this girl? She almost ruined me!”
If you’re curious as to why, read my 2008 profile of the ‘nice Jewish director’:
I’ve been cornered downstairs in the gold lamé disco basement at Brett Ratner’s house and he’s hitting on me.
His insistence suggests he’s accustomed to getting his way with this, and I’m trying not to think about the surroundings—a wealthy bachelor’s lavish playpen, which quite conspicuously insinuates sex.
“Can we go on a date?” Ratner asks, drawing closer. “My mom loves you.”
He doesn’t seem to care that I’m a journalist on assignment or that when he offered to give me a tour of his Benedict Canyon manse, I was thrilled to explore the architecture: a Tudor-style estate designed by Hoover Dam architect Gordon Kaufman.
I push him away and tell him I’m seeing someone, but he insists that shouldn’t matter since I’m not yet married.
“I really want to pursue you,” he says in his soft, almost effeminate voice. “When are we going out? I like you. Are you gonna make me wait? Don’t make me wait.”
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