How can it be possible that the actress with the most nominations in Oscars history isn't
also the most beloved?
Once you become a big fish in Hollywood, you're sure to run into a few sharks who'd like to
chomp down on your sweet success.
Professional rivalry, politics, and good old fashioned jealousy all play a part.
Here are some of the celebs who've had issues with Meryl Streep.
They say if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all, yet that
hasn't stopped Susan Sarandon from airing out her grievances to the press.
The Thelma & Louise star got a little salty when talking about Streep in an issue of Fame
magazine — but she doesn't want you to think it's because she's jealous.
According to the mag, Sarandon was peeved at what she perceived as Hollywood's worship
of the Into the Woods star.
She explained,
"Everything goes to Meryl first.
It's the law.
I am one of those who think Meryl is a great actress.
I don't elevate her to the goddess level, but she does get first crack at all the women's
roles.
If other women had the same shots she's had, they could equal her."
Sarandon then decided she wanted to make a personal dig, too, adding,
”If her household runs as perfectly as her press would have us believe, I'll slash my
throat."
It's not like the Big Apple-born celeb hasn't had a successful career of her own — Sarandon's
been nominated for 81 awards and has won 55 of them.
Not a bad track record.
The Harvey Weinstein scandal shook the world in 2017, causing numerous Hollywood starlets
to speak out against the once-powerful producer.
One of the actresses leading the charge was Rose McGowan, who claimed the Shakespeare
in Love producer assaulted her back in 1997 at the Sundance Film Festival.
Naturally, emotions were running high among all those involved.
Cut to the 2017 Golden Globes, where according to Variety, Streep, along with numerous fellow
actresses elected to wear black in a silent protest against sexual harassment.
Apparently, that wasn't enough for McGowan.
The Planet Terror star, in a since-deleted tweet, wrote,
"Actresses, like Meryl Streep, who happily worked for The Pig Monster, are wearing black
[at the Golden Globes] in a silent protest.
YOUR SILENCE is THE problem…
Maybe you should all wear Marchesa."
Her final sentence was particularly cutting in an already seething message, considering
Marchesa is a fashion line co-created by Weinstein's ex-wife, Georgina Chapman.
Streep knew she needed to speak out.
She released an exclusive statement to Huffington Post via her publicist, revealing, in part,
"It hurt to be attacked by Rose McGowan in banner headlines this weekend, but I want
to let her know I did not know about Weinstein's crimes, not in the '90s when he attacked her,
or through subsequent decades when he proceeded to attack others.
I wasn't deliberately silent.
I didn't know."
Thanks to her 2017 Golden Globes speech, Streep became a target of one of Donald Trump's infamous
Twitter-rants.
According to The New York Times, the award-winner used her opportunity to bring up a speech
given by Trump in 2015.
When he was on the campaign trail in South Carolina, Trump allegedly mocked a disabled
reporter in front of an entire crowd.
Speaking at the Globes, Streep said,
"There was one performance this year that stunned me…
Not because it was good; there was nothing good about it…
It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country
imitated a disabled reporter.
It kind of broke my heart when I saw it, and I still can't get it out of my head, because
it wasn't in a movie.
It was real life."
As for the president's response, he immediately went to Twitter, writing,
"[Streep is] one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood."
He then claimed that she doesn't even know him.
An interesting fact to pick up on during Trump's outburst is that he may actually know the
A-list celeb after all.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter back in 2015, he was asked about any actresses
that he loved.
His answer?
"Meryl Streep is excellent; she's a fine person, too."
It's no surprise the president's son, Donald Trump Jr., ran to his father's defense after
Meryl Streep's controversial 2017 Golden Globes Speech.
Much like his dad, the entrepreneur hit Twitter shortly after the ceremony, accusing the A-lister
of, quote, "sickening hypocrisy."
Trump Jr. was referring to a different speech of Streep's, given at the 2012 Golden Globes
when she won the award for best actress in a motion picture drama for her role in The
Iron Lady.
She thanked "God" in the speech, but the star was actually referring to Harvey Weinstein
— causing the now-seething Trump Jr. to bring up the past.
His tweet went on to say,
"She tries to be a moral compass for others…
No thanks."
To add insult to injury, the business mogul then linked a Snopes article which includes
a video where Streep supports even more of Hollywood's controversial celebrities.
According to The Guardian, her 2012 acceptance speech caused an outcry among right wing supporters,
allowing for posters to pop up around Los Angeles with Streep's face covered by the
words "She Knew."
It seems Trump Jr. only added fuel to the fire.
Sharon Stone gave Meryl Streep a bizarre, backhanded compliment that left people scratching
their heads as to what she possibly could have meant.
Speaking to Tatler magazine in 2010, the Basic Instinct star revealed her thoughts on why
Streep gets so much work in Hollywood, saying,
"Because she looks like a woman we can all relate to.
I look at her and I think, 'I'm chasing my kids, I've moved my parents in with me, I'm
coping with food spills — that looks like me in real life.'"
That all sounds fine, but then Stone added,
"Meryl looks like an unmade bed, and that's what I look like.
To me, that looks true."
Naturally, Stone's statement made ripples in the tabloid circuit, causing the celeb
to explain herself.
Speaking to Us Weekly, Stone clarified,
"It is not OK with me for someone to take a statement I made with good-natured intent
and to try and make it into something politically incorrect.
My love and support for what she represents for women right now is extraordinarily important."
Regardless, it's hard to view Streep as an "unmade bed."
"Everybody wants to be us,"
It's been a while since Meryl Streep and Dustin Hoffman have been on good terms.
So long, in fact, their feud traces back to 1979, when the now-iconic actress landed her
first major role alongside Hoffman in Kramer vs. Kramer.
The details of their quarrel were pretty hush-hush until 2016, when an unauthorized Streep biography
called Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streep by Michael Schulman was published, along with
a subsequent Vanity Fair piece.
Hoffman is a well-known method actor — something Streep found out firsthand.
First, he allegedly slapped her across the face during filming.
If that wasn't enough, he then decided to mock the death of Streep's late partner.
You'd think maybe he’d get a clue that he took things too far, but his on-screen persona
started translating into real-life, also.
After Streep tried re-structuring a scene, Hoffman shot back at her,
"Meryl, why don't you stop carrying the flag for feminism and just act the scene."
Needless to say, the two went their separate ways after filming came to a close.
"It wasn't the most fun I've ever had on a film."
The Julie & Julia star finally addressed the slap in a 2018 interview with The New York
Times.
When asked about it, she revealed,
"This is tricky because when you're an actor, you're in a scene, you have to feel free…
this was my first movie, and it was my first take in my first movie, and he just slapped
me…
It was overstepping."
"When I see the movie I see the imprint of his hand, not in the take that they used,
but I still see the hand from the previous take."
Bret Easton Ellis isn't exactly a stranger to controversy.
The Less Than Zero author made waves in the early '90s for his portrayal of yuppie culture
— even receiving death threats after publishing American Psycho, according to The New York
Times.
In more recent years, he's had a lot to say.
Usually going on tirades on his Twitter account, Ellis decided to talk about Meryl Streep's
2017 Golden Globes speech in a different way: via podcast.
According to The Wrap, the author accused Hollywood liberals of, quote, "childish meltdowns"
— including Streep.
He added,
"Instead of talking about all the filmmakers she had worked with, […] Streep used this
moment to go on an anti-Trump rant for 10 minutes on national TV.
[…] For some reason I started thinking about the cost of Meryl Streep's gown at the Golden
Globes and the $30 million apartment she had recently put on the market in Greenwich Village.
[…] Liberalism used to be about freedom but now is about a kind of warped moral authority."
Naturally, his criticisms picked up steam, with the public suddenly viewing him as a
Trump supporter.
Ellis, who's admitted that he's never voted for a president, decided to go live, yet again,
on another podcast and clarify his sentiments.
Per Yahoo!
Entertainment, the Los Angeles native declared,
"I want to state that I am not a Republican.
[…] I am not interested in politics.
[…] Because I make fun of hysterical liberals — and why shouldn't I?"
In what may have just been a serious case of jealousy, iconic Hollywood star Katharine
Hepburn apparently couldn't stand fellow actress Meryl Streep.
While she apparently took this animosity to her grave in 2003, the juicy secret eventually
came to light when Pulitzer-prize winning biographer A. Scott Berg published a best-selling
book about The Philadelphia Story star called Kate Remembered, based on two decades of conversation
with her.
According to The Sydney Morning Herald, Hepburn had some strong thoughts about Hollywood's
biggest heavy-hitters.
Among her, quote, "admiration for John Travolta [and] fascination with Michael Jackson," the
silver screen delight also reportedly had an "intense dislike for Meryl Streep as an
actress."
While she approved of actresses such as Julia Roberts and Melanie Griffith, Hepburn allegedly
said Streep was her least favorite.
She apparently explained,
"[She's] too cerebral and over-reliant on technique."
Another actress the diva couldn't handle?
Fatal Attraction star Glenn Close, musing that she had, quote, "big, fat, ugly feet."
Talk about harsh.
Considering Streep already had 13 Academy Award nominations under her belt up until
Hepburn's passing — compared to Hepburn's equally impressive twelve noms, including
four wins — perhaps the legendary performer just couldn't handle passing the torch to
a new leading lady?
At the end of the day, there's only one person who does the best job at mocking the Oscar-winning
actress: Meryl Streep herself.
When you have 21 Academy Award nominations under your belt, you probably become aware
of how irritating this could be for your fellow A-listers who are green with envy.
When the iconic starlet went on stage in 2012 to accept her Oscar for best actress for her
role in The Iron lady, she started off her speech by joking,
"When they called my name I had this feeling I could hear half of America going, 'Oh no!
Oh, come on why, her!
Again!'"
She then took a page out of her Devil Wears Prada character Miranda Priestly's book and
waved her hand nonchalantly, adding,
"But, whatever."
It's Streep's ability to poke fun at herself that makes her so endearing to the rest of
the world.
A true legend with a career that's spanned decades, the sheer thought of seeing Meryl
Streep on the big screen makes fans giddy with glee — it doesn't even matter who she's
playing.
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