‘SIGNIFICANTLY DAMAGED’

Real-Life ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ Scammer Sues Film’s Producers, Claims They Scammed Him

Jordan Belfort, whom Leonardo DiCaprio played in the 2013 Scorsese film, has filed a $300 million fraud suit against production company Red Granite Pictures.

In the case of real-life “Wolf of Wall Street” Jordan Belfort, the scammer has allegedly become the... scam-ee? The scammed? Jordan Belfort, whom Leonardo DiCaprio played in the 2013 Scorsese film The Wolf of Wall Street, has filed a $300 million lawsuit against the film’s production company, Red Granite Pictures, in which he claims he had no idea the film was being financed with funds stolen from the Malaysian government—and that had he known, he would never have agreed to sell the rights to his story.

Belfort, who in 1999 pleaded guilty to securities fraud and money laundering after cheating investors out of millions, sold the rights to both his memoir and its sequel to Red Granite—but after the production company’s financial scandal, the lawsuit states, “Belfort is significantly damaged by Red Granite’s tainting of his book/story rights, coupled with Red Granite’s inability and/or refusal to exploit and maximize the rights acquired from Belfort as required by contract, due to the highly publicized scandal and amid the allegations of their direct involvement.”

Red Granite’s attorney, Matthew Schwartz, provided Variety with the following statement: “Jordan Belfort’s lawsuit is nothing more than a desperate and supremely ironic attempt to get out from under an agreement that for the first time in his life made him rich and famous through lawful and legitimate means.”