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Lots of actors have fake beefs — most notably longtime faux-nemeses Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds — but the most Mad Libs one is between Robert De Niro and Mickey Rourke. It also doesn’t appear to be a joke. Last year, the Oscar-nominee claimed that the Oscar-winner prevented him from appearing in Martin Scorsese’s epic The Irishman based on a grudge that goes back to their twisty 1987 thriller Angel Heart. Nearly a year later, Rourke took to Instagram to step that tussle way up.
Alongside a picture of De Niro from Casino, Rourke penned a lengthy tirade. It began with a reference to his iconic mirror monologue from Taxi Driver, and it went downhill from there:
Hey Robert De Niro, that’s right i am talking to you, you big f*cking crybaby. A friend of mine just recently told me that a few months back you’re quoted as saying to newspapers “Mickey Rourke’s a liar he talks all kind of sh*t”. Listen Mr.Tough Guy in the movies, you’re the 1st person that ever called me a liar and it was in a newspaper. Let me tell you something, you punk a*s, when i see you i swear to God on my Grandmother, on my brother and all my dogs,i gonna embarrass you severely 100%. Mickey Rourke “ as God is my witness”
So there’s that! Last year, Rourke told reporters that Scorsese wanted him for The Irishman — though it’s not clear as who — but that the “casting person told my manager that Robert De Niro said he refused to work with me in a movie.” Rourke said that while making Angel Heart, De Niro wound up telling him, “I think it’s better if we don’t talk.” Director Alan Parker has spoken up about working with Rourke on the film, saying he was “a nightmare. He is very dangerous on the set because you never know what he is going to do.”
Meanwhile, Rourke in the same interview said that while he once “looked up” to De Niro, now he sees “through him… I came up from the sh*t. He doesn’t know that life. I lived that f*cking life, so every time I look him in the face, I look right through his a*shole.” And now this.