Nearly twenty years ago now, Stepmom was released into theaters. Starring Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandon, the movie took a look at the changing nature of families and also what happens to families as they go through a tough time. The movie was a modest hit, but it is remembered just as much for a perceived feud between Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandon as it is for being a box office winner. Recently, Susan Sarandon finally revealed what actually went down with those Stepmom rumors and her answer may be a bit surprising. Apparently, Sarandon's own publicist was involved. Here's what the actress noted:
Press printed that Julia & I hated each other during Stepmom. Found out it was my PR person creating rumors.
Celebrities have to deal with a lot of nonsense simply for being famous. Among this is speculation about who they may or may not be dating, rumors about problems on sets and plenty more personal life nonsense. Sometimes there are grains of truth to those rumors; other times there are none. However, I don't think most celebrities are anticipating their PR person is behind a bunch of rumors that crop up related to a movie. Susan Sarandon took too Twitter recently to clear up any misconceptions about Stepmom, and her wording is interesting, as it seems she also found out after the fact that her PR person was responsible for all the rumors related to the 1998 flick.
At the time that both Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandon were busy promoting the movie, they did address the rumors, calling them "boring." Sarandon even went so far as to note female actresses often get accused of fucking their male co-stars and of fighting with their lady co-stars, so it's a lose-lose situation. Although they denied the rumors, that didn't stop them from persisting, and now that Susan Sarandon is promoting her FX series Feud, which in fact follows a famous feud between actresses Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, she's nodding back at the days when she heard about her own perceived feud.
It's fascinating how rumors can persist in Hollywood even when the actresses themselves deny there is a problem. It's not as if the Stepmom feud rumors were so volatile we are still talking about them all the time today, but there are doubtless fans of the movie who remember these rumors when they first came out. Susan Sarandon stays classy and doesn't expressly out the public relations person, here, but she really did cause a lot of trouble over a whole lot of fluff, provided there really was absolutely no truth to those rumors.
Stepmom will be turning 20 soon. If you haven't caught the movie in a while, give it a watch, but be sure to keep a box of tissues handy. Doubtless you'll need them.
