Hollywood screenwriter Aaron Sorkin has been forced to deny rumors he is having an affair with “poker hostess” Molly Bloom, whose book he is currently adapting for the big screen.
The speculation has been the result of emails stolen from Sony Pictures by a group of hackers calling themselves The Guardians of Peace, who have suspected connections to North Korea.
The hackers are demanding that Sony shelve the forthcoming Seth Rogan movie The Interview, a comedy about a plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Among the leaked emails was a conversation between Sony co-chair Amy Pascal and producer Scott Rudin in which Pascal, apparently enraged that Sorkin had shelved a biopic of Steve Jobs in favor of the Bloom project, blasted the screenwriter.
“He is broke,” she wrote. “He wants to get paid… We paid him his insane fee on Flashboys… When the poker movie came around we didn’t want to not be in the Aaron business so we wanted that too… I don’t care if Aaron is sleeping with the girl or not… I don’t care if it becomes a best seller… They are treating us like sh*t.”
Sorkin Slams the Media
Sorkin came to Pascal’s defense in an op-ed for the New York Times as the leaked emails became an increasing embarrassment for the Sony boss; in particular a conversation in which she speculated that President Obama’s preferred films might be Django Unchained and 12 Years a Slave, both of which deal with themes of black slavery.
Sorkin, the much celebrated creator of The West Wing and The Newsroom whose film credits include A Few Good Men and The Social Network, first slammed the media for reporting the hacked emails, accusing it of being “morally treasonous and spectacularly dishonorable,” and of “doing the criminals’ job for them.” Then he took the opportunity to deny the various implications of the leaked conversations.
Molly’s Game
“The widely published documents that were stolen include an email to Ms Pascal in which I advocated going to Tom Cruise for the lead role (I did), a second email from one executive to another speculating that I’m broke (I’m fine) and a third that suggested that I might be romantically involved with a woman whose book I’m using as source material for a new script (I wish),” he wrote.
Molly Bloom was a high-stakes Hollywood poker hostess who presided over a legendary game involving stars such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon Ben Affleck and Tobey Maguire before the FBI shut it down.
In May 2013 she was charged and was fined $125,000 and sentenced to a year’s probation. Her memoir Molly’s Game, the subject of Sorkin’s project, is a tell-all account of her role in the most star-studded poker game of recent times.
