Richard Dreyfuss’ Alleged Transphobic, Sexist Rant Is Peak ‘Old Man Yells at Cloud’

Instead of spending the night talking about Jaws and his career at a special event, Richard Dreyfuss apparently said “Time to get on my soapbox.” Dreyfuss was at the Cabot Theater in Beverly, Massachusetts for “An Evening With Richard Dreyfuss + Jaws Screening.” Attendees were likely not prepared for what they got instead.

Dreyfuss reportedly used this time to get on stage to rant about every conservative grievance under the sun, saying that women shouldn’t talk and yelling about trans youth. According to one X user’s paraphrasing, Dreyfuss said, “that he didn’t want to listen to 8 year olds saying that they were born in the wrong body.” From all of the footage and the social media posts about the event, it is giving “old man yells at cloud” energy. Dreyfuss just seems furious that the world has moved on and he’s not part of it.

One X user shared that their girlfriend’s parents were at the event and reported back on what happened. “Went off the rails talking about how Barbra Streisand is a genius but he didn’t listen to her because she is a woman and women shouldn’t have that power. Then started sharing his views on the me too movement and started down the road on how you shouldn’t be listening to some 10 year old who says they want to be a boy instead of a girl… Jesus Christ what an explosion. Crowd was shouting at him and most walked out before the movie even started. Talk about the movie asshole… We never made it to that. “

Everyone should have been clued into the weird event when Dreyfuss came out in a dress dancing to Taylor Swift’s “Love Story” and let the song go on for way too long.

Another video included Dreyfuss talking about his book, One Thought Scares Me… and he went on to say that 50 years ago they took civics out of our school curriculums. I don’t know about you but I remember taking civics in high school!

The venue apologized

Things were so bad that people reportedly left and booed him in the venue. In the video featuring Dreyfuss talking about his book, there are people still cheering him on but it is not a loud crowd. The venue has since apologized for the event.

The Cabot issued an apology, obtained by The Hollywood Reporter: “We are aware of, and share serious concerns, following the recent event with Richard Dreyfuss prior to a screening of the film Jaws at The Cabot. The views expressed by Mr. Dreyfuss do not reflect the values of inclusivity and respect that we uphold as an organization. We deeply regret the distress that this has caused to many of our patrons.”

The apology goes on to state their original intentions with the night. “We regret that an event that was meant to be a conversation to celebrate an iconic movie instead became a platform for political views. We take full responsibility for the oversight in not anticipating the direction of the conversation and for the discomfort it caused to many patrons. We are in active dialogue with our patrons about their experience and are committed to learning from this event how to better enact our mission of entertaining, educating and inspiring our community.”

This isn’t new for Dreyfuss

In 2023, Dreyfuss was complaining and yelling about the Academy’s new Inclusion Rules. “They make me vomit,” he said on Firing Line. “No one should be telling me as an artist that I have to give in to the latest, most current idea of what morality is. What are we risking? Are we really risking hurting people’s feelings? You can’t legislate that. You have to let life be life and I’m sorry, I don’t think there is a minority or majority in the country that has to be catered to like that. … This is an art form. It’s also a form of commerce and it makes money, but it’s an art. And no one should be telling me as an artist that I have to give in to the latest, most current idea of what morality is.”

Dreyfuss has always been hard to deal with. Robert Shaw and Dreyfuss famously fought a lot on the set of Jaws over their conflicting views and it is clear that even back then, Dreyfuss would force his opinions on others no matter how wrong they were.