Countdown to disaster: How Hollywood ignored Ezra Miller snowball now crashing into innocents
Currently, most news sites have continuously been running stories on Ezra Miller, the erstwhile Hollywood heartthrob who now has a growing list of serious allegations against them. It’s not because the actor, who uses they/ them pronouns, has done something spectacular for themselves or for young people and the LGBTQ community that used to look up to them. Miller’s name has now become synonymous with trouble with a capital T, after allegedly giving illegal drugs to teenager(s) to control, abuse and manipulate them and threatening people with a gun.
Reportedly, the 29-year-old is on the run right now with an 18-year-old activist, Tokata Iron Eyes, after her parents accused them of grooming her since the age of 12. The teenager’s parents – Chase Iron Eyes and Sara Jumping Eagle – have got a protection order against Miller but it still hasn’t been served to ‘The Flash’ star because no one knows their whereabouts.
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Miller had even allegedly made fun of law enforcement before deleting their Instagram account. Two of their cryptic messages read, “You cannot touch me, I am in another universe,” and “Message from another dimension”. In another longer, more covoluted message, they said, “I am shielded from negative people & their ill intent. My spirit, mind, body, soul + success are not altered by anyone's envy. I am protected from all negative [illegible] people attempt to throw at me. Subconsciously & consciously. I clear any & all hidden peers who are hidden enemies.” They had apparently tried to imply that they are beyond the law’s reach.
However, Miller was reportedly not always like this. Born to a publisher father, Robert S. Miller of Workman Publishing and a dancer mother Marta, they had a normal childhood alongside two elder sisters. They had a speech impediment, so “turned to opera to focus on ‘control and manipulation of the breath.’ They eventually overcame their stutter,” Vulture reported.
Miller’s career in the entertainment world began with Antonio Campos' 2008 movie – ‘Afterschool’. During a 2018 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, they had said: “That was a great film experience because of how fucked up it was and like a psychotic filmmaking process with young kids. And then I was just hooked to film.”
After ‘Afterschool’ there was no looking back for Miller as they then went on to become an indie darling because of their work in ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’ and ‘Perks of Being a Wallflower’. But during this time, they were caught with 20 grams of marijuana. Miller was charged with drug possession but later this charge was dropped by a judge, who slapped them with two citations of disorderly conduct and asked them to pay $600. It was Miller's first encounter with law enforcement. They had even told New York Magazine, “I don’t feel like there’s any need to hide the fact that I smoke pot. It’s a harmless herbal substance that increases sensory appreciation.”
The next few years went well for Miller with them coming out as “queer” while doing a press tour for ‘Perks’ and inspiring people with words, like: “I just want kids in all situations to hold on. A lot of [adolescence] left me wanting to end my own life, just give up. It feels like the whole world — because it is. It’s your whole world. But, man — life is a really, really cool ride. It’s really amazing the type of shit you can get up to if you endure. Like, you can do anything you want if you can survive.” The ‘Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them 2’ actor also reportedly talked about mental health and sexual harrassment they faced in the industry. They once told The Hollywood Reporter, “They gave me wine and I was underaged. They were like, ‘Hey, want to be in our movie about gay revolution?’ And I was like, ‘No, you guys are monsters.’”
However, things changed afterwards. The 2020s brought the first serious allegations against Miller for violent behavior and speech. The first accusation was made against them in April 2020 when a now-deleted tweet showed them choking a woman at a bar in Reykjavik, Iceland. Then two years later, in January 2022, Miller reportedly shared a video on their Instagram page, which is not available now, telling “members of a North Carolina chapter of the Ku Klux Klan to ‘kill themselves’ with their own guns, or else ‘we’ll do it for you if that’s what you want.’”
But that was not the end of Miller’s troubling behaviors as in March 2022, they were arrested in Hawaii for allegedly getting “agitated” and yelling expletives during karaoke night at a bar. But he was freed by a couple who paid their $500 bail amount. Later, Miller went on to attack the same pair in their hostel room. A restraining order against the actor says that they “burst into the bedroom of the petitioner(s) and threatened” the male by “saying ‘I will bury you and your s— wife.’”
The violent outburts did not stop there. In March 2022, Miller again had a faceoff with the authorities as they allegedly threw “a chair at a 26-year-old woman’s head at a home in Pāhoa on the Big Island.” The back-to-back controversies forced Warner Bros. and DC executives to have an emergency meeting. “According to a knowledgeable source, the consensus in the room was to hit pause on any future projects involving Miller, including possible appearances in the DC Extended Universe,” Rolling Stone reported at the time. But no concrete action was taken against them.
In May 2020, music producer Oliver Ignatious and rapper Ghais Guevara also came out against Miller and accused them of stealing their music. But still Warner Bros. and DC executives did nothing, despite the uproar from people, who thought Miller was being given special treatment while other actors, like Will Smith had to resign from the Oscars after the 'Slapgate' incident.
But all hell broke loose in June when Tokata Iron Eyes’ parents made allegations of abuse and grooming against Miller. The teenage girl’s uncle Lakota Chief Bear Cross disclosed shocking things about them in an interview to Last Real Indians. He said, “We were posing for a photo, and after we took the photo with my family we decided to get one with just me and Ezra. Well, Ezra just opened their big ol' jacket and pulled out the .40 caliber firearm, I asked if that’s real and Ezra said yes. Ezra also said in Vermont you don’t need a permit to conceal. It made me feel unsafe because Ezra pulled it out unannounced, I did not know Ezra had a firearm.”
“I would not have invited them into my home if I knew Ezra had a firearm because I don’t know who they are, famous or not; I don’t allow anyone into my home with a firearm if I don’t know them because of the safety of my children. I thought Ezra Miller was a famous actor for the children but they are not… Ezra is violent towards women, and that makes children unsafe,” Lakota added.
A June 16 report by The Daily Beast said that another 12-year-old child was “granted a temporary harassment prevention order against Ezra Miller after alleging that the actor menaced their family one evening in their downstairs neighbor’s home and acted inappropriately toward the nonbinary youngster.” But despite all these shocking allegations, no strict action has yet been taken against Miller by the Hollywood industry. Warner Bros. and DC executives have not released a single statement yet regarding Miller and the future of ‘The Flash’, set to release in June next year, which will see Miller playing the lead character in the solo superhero movie.
The apparent silence from the tinsel town is sending out a wrong message. Evan Nierman, CEO of crisis PR firm Red Banyan, told CNBC: “Silence is not an option. At a certain moment choosing to say nothing, you are communicating a message.”
Tony Freinberg, president at Edendale Strategies, another crisis management and strategic communications firm, added: “When you start to have a string of things, that’s a worrying pattern. It’s worrying about what it says about someone’s well-being, and it’s worrying about what it says about someone’s suitability to be the face of a large Warner Bros. franchise. Any one thing could be a misunderstanding. But when you start getting into four, five, six things, you’re starting to get into troubling territory.”