Vanity Fair runs a new report on Ezra Miller's downward spiral
New: Ezra Miller’s arrest earlier this year was just one turn in a troubling downward spiral. For the last two years, the actor has been endangering not just their career but also their safety-and allegedly that of others-in increasingly plain sight. https://t.co/9TXFdCQWoN
- VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) September 18, 2022
• The new article, which was published Sunday morning, includes interviews with more than a dozen people who have had significant interactions and relationships with Miller over the past few years. Most sources VF spoke to, “described Miller’s spiral as a conflagration of the mental health issues the actor has acknowledged, along with drugs, guns and outlandish claims, that has raged for more than two years.”
• The article breaks down multiple incidents (the choking video in Iceland, the multiple arrests and harassment claims in Hawaii and Vermont State Police attempting to remove three children from Miller’s farm), and explains how desperate Miller is to keep playing the Flash.
• Trigger warning for discussions of grooming, abuse and child endangerment as well as descriptions of violence and firearms.
[March 2020, Iceland]
• The main source quoted in this section is described as someone Miller became close with three years ago. The source says that Miller was very open about their, “ebb and flow relationship with mental health,” but noted that Miller’s issues and partying were exacerbated when the actor wrapped projects and had a free schedule.
• The source tells VF, “the thing is, with Ezra, there’s absolutely no plan. It’s complete chaos. I didn’t even know that we were going to Iceland until they said, ‘Let’s go to Iceland.’”
• The first choking incident in Reykjavik was dismissed as simply a drunken altercation, but the second incident was filmed and went viral in April 2020. Variety’s report on the incident claimed that a woman in a bar joked about fighting Miller and then Miller reacted by putting their hands around the woman’s neck and pushing her to the ground. The bartender responded by locking Miller out of the bar.
• Miller’s rep refutes this claim and says that Miller was baited by a “group of teens” and that the choking, “was not a choking but a ‘spontaneous reaction’ during which the actor ‘went at her collarbone.’”
• Following the incident, the source claims that she overheard Miller on a call with Warner Brothers where Miller was claiming to be the injured party. “It was [Warner Bros.] listening and Miller spewing [their] poor-me speech: ‘I’m the one who was hated on.’ So you have this almost 30-year-old who is a partier telling Warner Bros/ that [they were] the victim.”
• In Iceland Miller was accompanied by a 55-year-old North Dakota medicine man, Jasper Young Bear, who Miller hired as a spiritual advisor. A second source claims that Young Bear was, “telling Ezra that [they weren’t] part of a movement, [they were] the movement-that [they were] the next Messiah.” Young Bear did not respond to VF’s request for comment and Miller’s rep called the man “a dear friend.”
• That second source says Miller grew increasingly narcissistic and picked young people for their audience because they were more malleable. “[They’d] talk about the metaverse and the medicine and how they’re the Messiah and what [their] work is here. They say their spiritual practice is to be among the people-which means party. So, when in Iceland, he was out nonstop. [Their] favorite were raves, where [they'd] go on benders for two or three days at a time.”
• Miller would promise these kids a future career in show business and claimed that they would guide their careers. Nothing ever materialized.
• Three people who have known Miller for over a decade spoke to VF and all believe that the violent Iceland incidents were partly motivated by the actor’s parents’ divorce. In 2019 Miller’s parents told their children that they were splitting up after decades of marriage and their father quickly remarried. One of the longtime friends says, “Ezra didn’t start freaking out and losing control of themselves in public until after this happened.”
• Miller’s spokesperson denies that the divorce had anything to do with Miller’s behavior but that it was all due to, “a combination of complex, stress-related issues.”
• VF attempted to interview Miller’s father but requests were denied. Miller’s mother only offered one quote when approached for a comment. She said, “the betrayal of the supposed media is stunning. It is your job to separate the false from the truth.”
[January 2022, Vermont]
• Miller has lived on a farm in Vermont, which they call “The Mountain” since 2017. The property used to be an alpaca and llama farm, has three barnes and a house and apple and blueberry orchards. Apparently Miller has goats on property and the house itself was kind of a mess.
• Friends who stayed there before Iceland said Miller was kind and generous, would share weed and cash and even buy plane tickets for friends in need. They did say that staying there meant, “abiding by the actor’s rules, and tolerating the long monologues.”
• This is where Miller included Tokata Iron Eyes into the narrative.
• Miller met Iron Eyes in 2016 at protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Miller would go on to keep tabs on Iron Eyes, a nonbinary Indigenous activist, and when Iron Eyes was 14 Miller flew them out for the London premiere of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
• Iron Eyes’ parents allege that Miller attempted to sleep in the same bed with their child when the child was 14.
• In June 2022 Iron Eye’s parents filed an order of protection against Miller. They accused Miller, who first met Iron Eyes in 2016 when Iron Eyes just 12-years-old, “of grooming, brainwashing, and emotional abusing the teenager.”
• A rep for Miller claims that the relationship between Miller and Iron Eyes has always been platonic.
• According to a source, “Ezra is Jesus, and Tokata’s an apocalyptic Native American spider goddess, and their union is supposed to bring about the apocalypse, and that’s the ‘real’ reason everyone is so opposed to them being together.”
• Iron Eye’s mother, Jumping Eagle is quoted in the piece by saying that Miller says, “they are some kind of messiah, and they’re going to lead an Indigenous revolution.”
• The article here notes that Miller does not have Native American ancestry but is fixated on native cultures. One Indigenous insider who spoke to the paper says that Miller, “professes that [they] walk through this world with an Indigenous humility and spiritual awareness. But, point of fact, [they don’t] at all. Because [they don’t] care.”
• It’s here that the article notes that Miller came out as nonbinary and polyamorous in 2018 and claiming that they had created a “polycule” for themselves. According to three sources, Miller’s polycule, “is less a democratic society than an every shifting ‘court harem’ of mostly young women.”
• One of Miller’s friend tells VF, “an openly polyamorous lifestyle-that’s not inherently wrong to me,” but that Miller’s situation, “is actually a patriarchal dictatorship where Ezra controls all the sex as the man, and plays the women against each other, screams at them, belittles them in front of the others.”
• Another source claims that Miller’s house in Vermont has an, “altar that’s home to bullets, weed, sage, and Flash figurines,” and that, “[Miller] makes the women put their cell phones on the altar when they come in, and other offerings.”
• Apparently Miller freaked out recently and demanded, “that Susan Sarandon come pay tribute to [their] altar because she didn’t invite Ezra to a dinner party.” Miller’s rep says that Sarandon and Miller are dear friends, Sarandon did not respond to VF’s request for a comment.
• Reports say that Miller is currently in a relationship with a Londoner named Rosie and Iron Eyes. “Multiple people describe the actor stranding Rosie and Iron Eyes without transportation or money and humiliating them.”
• An old friend of Millers blames “yes men.” “Even though I’ve learned that Ezra’s such an asshole, I don’t think it exonerates the people that were happy to eat off Ezra’s plate until it didn’t suit them anymore. I think they ended up probably accidentally being complicit in real weird abuses in power and celebrity.”
• Other friends and acquaintances tell VF that Miller weaponizes their gender identity in situations.
• Iron Eyes’s mother tells VF, “if somebody pisses off Ezra, they’re transphobic or a transphobic Nazi.”
• An associate of Miller who is queer tells VF, “to me, those are clear instances of manipulation, where it’s like, are you really queer? Or is that just a fun way to marginalize yourself so you can be even shittier to others?”
• Miller’s rep refutes both claims and says Miller, “stands up for civil rights, gender equality, encourages conversation and discourse, so weaponizing identity runs counter to who they are.”
• Miller is also extremely interested in guns, to the point where it has become another point of concern.
• Vermont is an open-carry state and is the only state in the US that has never required a concealed carry permit. Miller claimed to need guns for security, but several friends and acquaintances described disturbing scenes involving Miller and firearms to VF.
• One friend says Miller once picked him up in a car with an assault weapon in the center console. Another source, “remembers Miller burning sage out of the barrel of an AR15 and waving it around while singing.”
• Late last year Miller, “allegedly embarked on a meandering road trip with a small entourage, weapons, and a Kevlar vest.”
• In January Miller uploaded a video on Instagram where they threatened a North Carolina chapter of the KKK. The article notes here that Miller’s Flash ring was visible throughout the video.
• According to four people close to the situation, Miller’s friends and their mother became so concerned that they locked the firearms in a safe. Most of Miller’s “roommates” left the farm after the KKK video.
• Apparently this left Miller distraught. One friend who checked in on Miller during this time said, “we got there, and there was a big bow and arrow cocked on the table, facing the door. Ezra was lying facedown on the floor.” The house was empty, “there was just nobody there, but Ezra, sort of drunk, alone with a bow and arrow because the other people had taken the guns and locked them away.”
• VF notes here that Miller’s character in the film We Need to Talk About Kevin used a bow and arrow to murder classmates, and that in a 2018 interview the actor told a reporter they kept the weapon from the film on their property.
• During this time Miller apparently fired, “every single person starting from business people, [their] parents, just every single person, one by one,” in front of a small group of people. A person who was present says that Miller would, “kind of start giggling after the person would start crying or something.”
• Two longtime friends of Miller visited the farm a week after this incident and convinced their team to give them the passcode to the gun safe and restored weapons. “They had a flame thrower and all these huge AK-47s lying around. There were just guns everywhere.”
• Miller’s rep tells VF that all firearms and ammunition are registered, legal and safely locked away.
• Two sources tell VF that in February 2022, Miller was persuaded to get a mental health evaluation. “Afterward, Miller told them that they’d brought a gun to meet the case worked and, as a result, been escorted by police to a medical facility. Miller boasted that they passed the evaluation with flying colors.”
[March 2022, Hawaii]
• VF says that when Miller arrived in Hawaii this spring, they were, “emaciated and unshowered, subsisting on energy drinks spiked with rum, gas-station snacks, and ‘medicine,’” which was just a code word for whatever drug Miller decides is medicine this week.
• Miller’s rep denies this claim and says, “drug use is not the issue - mental health is the issue.”
• Iron Eyes accompanied Miller to Hawaii where the actor repeatedly claimed to be acting as Iron Eyes’s adopted guardian, “though the teen is alleged to have gone without a phone, money, underwear, socks, or even shelter.”
• The two lived like drifters, sometimes sleeping in a polyester tent pitched atop a volcano.
• A witness tells VF that, “there was this intensely controlling behavior of Tokata which, at first, I thought was for Tokata’s own good because they were unstable.” The witness says that their perspective changed once they saw the petition Iron Eyes’s parents filed against Miller.
• People noted that Iron Eyes and Miller were a strange pairing in Hawaii but four people claim that Miller frequently spun the relationship. One person says that Miller told them that Iron Eyes, “was fleeing a family background that was intolerant of their sexuality or gender identity.”
• Iron Eyes’s mother refutes that claim and tells VF, “we simply want Tokata to be independent, safe, and happy. We don’t want a 30-year-old man or person manipulating and/or taking advantage of her.”
• In late March Miller and Iron Eyes were at the Hilo Farmers Market when they befriended a member of a polygamous family that lived on the east side of the island. They claim that Miller told them that they, “wanted to trade their Hollywood career for a simple Hawaiian storefront, and needed merchandise to stock.”
• The family member says that, “[Miller] acted like [they were] a righteous man or man of God, and [they're] helping this woman out.”
• The patriarch of the family has four wives, including one named Ana (this will become important later), and four young children. He invited Miller and Iron Eyes to stay on their property, and says that “strange things” began to happen almost immediately.
• Miller returned to the house one day after a ‘run-in’ with cops and complained that they were being unfairly targeted. Miller also came bearing toys for the children and another wife of the man, Kaelyn says Miller, “bought Nerf guns for our children and was mansplaining about guns.”
• The actor asked the wives to help chainsaw guava trees in the backyard because they wanted to build a sauna. On another day Miller and the patriarch were just browsing through a strip make when Miller spontaneously bought him a $2,000 diamond and ruby encrusted gold lion ring from Kay Jewelers. Miller, “proposed merging families,” and according to the patriarch Miller said, “‘we should be partners forever. I want to take you all around the world.” The patriarch says he knew what kind of state Miller was in and didn’t decline the offer.
• Kaelyn tells VF that Miller “expressed that they had experienced a lot of trauma and weird shit in the Hollywood scene. And we were like, ‘hell yeah, we’ll help you out.”
• Two weeks after they arrived, Miller and Iron Eyes suddenly left the home. Family members allege that Miller also took Ana, one of the wives, and her three children with them.
• Sources tell VF that before Miller left the island, their divorced parents flew into the state in an attempt to help Miller. Miller later showed friends “an intensely awkward video they’d made of the tearful family reunion.”
• Another source says that Miller has bragged about punishing their father in the wake of the divorce. “[They were] like, ‘Nobody’s ever been treated as badly as I’ve treated Bob Miller in the past year.’ [They were] like, ‘I think it’s going to make us ultimately much closer in the future.’”
• That same source says that the situation with Miller and their parents is similar to what most people who have spent time with Miller have experienced. “The way I describe it is, it’s like you’re in a nonconsensual emotional BDSM relationship with Ezra.”
• Another source who spent time with Miller in Hawaii tells VF that, “every interaction with Ezra is an altercation.”
[July 2022, Vermont]
• Ana, a 25 year old woman who Miller had met in Hawaii where she was part of a polygamous family, joined Miller’s “strange caravan” and eventually ended up at Miller’s farm in Vermont.
• Ana had become the subject of social-media attacks and took to Instagram Live to defend Miller. Ana had previously turned to sex work to make ends meet and was in an abusive situation before Miller saved her life by taking Ana and her three children in.
• In early August Vermont State Police were sent to Miller’s farm with an emergency order from the Department for Children and Families. Miller’s farm was still gun-ridden and unsafe for children.
• A longtime friend who visited the farm in May tells VF that that last time they visited, “I saw more guns than ever, and three little kids running around among them. The youngest girl picked up a bullet and put it in her mouth.”
• The order was issued on August 5, and it demanded that custody of Ana’s kids be immediately transferred to the state. When police arrived to the farm, Ana and her children were gone. The father tells VF that he has not spoken to his kids since April.
• After this incident Miller began working with a crisis management PR firm.
• VF reports that even though Miller had an array of arrests in different states with different precincts, most of Miller’s legal problems have mostly gone away.
• VF has seen at least one nondisclosure agreement and heard of a handful of others.
• Three sources describe this as, “a whack-a-mole style legal strategy of paying off alleged victims.”
• No charges were ever pressed against Miller in Iceland and Miller paid a $500 fine in Hawaii. Other allegations that surfaced in Hawaii were dropped, and no one involved those incidents commented for this article.
• Miller’s scheduled to appear in Vermont court on September 26 due to a felony burglary charge they caught after allegedly breaking into a house. Miller’s rep claims that the home that was broken into was that of a “close childhood friend” and that “Miller did not realize that the friend didn’t want to be friends anymore.”
• In another, unrelated incident earlier this year, a mother in Massachusetts requested and was granted a restraining order against Miller. The mother claims that Miller showed inappropriate interest in her nonbinary 12-year-old child in the first half of 2022. The restraining order will be enforced through June of 2023.
• Miller’s rep once again dismisses the allegation saying, “Ezra’s lack of interest clearly upset a disappointed fan when they would not engage with the fan or her daughter.”
• The local Massachusetts police department confirmed to VF that they had an active case involving Miller and the 12-year-old based on three interactions the child had with Miller in April, May and June of this year.
• Miller unsurprisingly still has fans online who are battling negative headlines by targeting those who have spoken out against Miller or supported Miller’s alleged victims. They’ve been attacked and doxxed on Twitter.
• In early August new Warner Brothers Discovery CEO David Zaslav told investors that they were going forward with a 2023 theatrical release for The Flash. At the same time a story ran in The Hollywood Reporter claiming that WB execs had discussed scrapping the film altogether.
• Four days later Miller released a statement of apology.
• Miller’s rep says, “the notion that The Flash was at risk was a wake-up call,” and Miller and their CAA agent went to WB’s Burbank headquarters to personally apologize for the negative PR and expressed their commitment to the movie. Miller is said to be working with the producers of the movie to shoot additional scenes.
• At the beginning of the article, sources claimed that Miller, who has referred to themselves as Jesus and the devil, has said that, “the Flash is the one who brings the multiverse together just like Jesus.” It’s quite clear that the character and film are now essential to Miller’s persona.
• Some friends tell VF that they have a hard time taking Miller’s pledge to seek treatment for their mental health seriously, with one friend saying, “if [they are] going through therapy, [they're] just acting through it.”
• Director Mary Harron (American Psycho) who worked with Miller on the film Daliland is one named source who tells VF that Miller was professional on set and that news of Miller's behavior was very upsetting, and that she hopes intervention needed to happen.
• Stephen Chbosky (Perks of Being a Wallflower) tells VF that he has reached out to Ezra in the hopes that the person he knew back when they made the film is still there.
• Right before the story went to press VF spoke to Miller’s former fiancé, Erin. Miller dated Erin when they first began playing the Flash in 2016 and tells VF, “the Ezra I knew wasn’t violent or physically abusive toward anyone. To think back is painful because we had a deep love and [they were] good to me.”
• Erin does admit that there was some darkness to their relationship, especially after they broke up. “For years [they] convinced me and all our friends that I was abusive…But looking back, I would be calling out [their] disrespect and [they] wouldn’t take responsibility and just call me abusive because of my reaction. I could have handled it better. I didn’t know the term gaslight back then. I was emotionally fucked up for years.”
• Erin claims Miller broke up with her after hiring a spiritual advisor who informed Miller that she was a parasite.
• Erin’s feelings are more complicated now, saying that she felt “a sick relief” when news of Miller’s abusive behavior surfaced this year because it meant that, “maybe I wasn’t the abusive one after all.”
tried my best to condense this but it's a really long and exhausting read.
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