The FBI interviewed Leonardo DiCaprio about his relationship with a fugitive financier

You may remember, a few years back, when Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf Of Wall Street hit a real “life imitates art” moment, when the film’s financing, and producer Red Granite Studios, were swept up in an international finance scandal involving Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). Specifically, Red Granite founder Riza Aziz, stepson of former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak, was accused of using some of the billions allegedly stolen by Razak from the fund to establish himself in Hollywood—including to pay for making Wolf Of Wall Street. (Red Granite eventually settled with the U.S. government to the tune of $60 million, and a statement of no “admission of wrongdoing or liability on the part of Red Granite.”)

Way back when, we reported that Wolf star Leonardo DiCaprio had gotten tangentially involved in the whole thing, as the FBI asked DiCaprio to return a few of the expensive gifts he’d received from some of the alleged conspirators, including Marlon Brando’s Oscar for On The Waterfront, and a first edition of The Great Gatsby. As it turns out, though, DiCaprio’s involvement in the investigation went a bit further than that: Per THR, working from a report by Bloomberg Businessweek, it’s been revealed that the FBI and the Department of Justice actually interviewed the actor pretty extensively back in 2018, inquiring into the nature of his business relationships with alleged 1MDB mastermind Jho Low.

Which did, in fact, go beyond just Wolf; after meeting in a nightclub in 2010, the actor and the money guy apparently went so far as to develop the idea of an Asian theme park based off of the actor’s movies together, which is the sort of thing we’re going to be thinking about all day. It all fell apart eventually, though, apparently after Low failed to provide a promised Roy Lichtenstein piece to DiCaprio’s environmental foundation for a fundraiser. But not before, as the THR piece notes, “They each met the other’s mother.”

DiCaprio, who apparently told a grand jury that his social connections with Low were a natural outgrowth of their doing business together, reportedly left the vetting of his new associate to his team, including manager Rick Yorn. A background check on Low was provided to the actor, but “but DiCaprio didn’t thoroughly read it.” Whoops!

Admittedly, Low—who’s been on the run from international authorities for years now, and is believed to be laying low in China—had a habit of schmoozing with celebrities, including making similarly opulent gifts to Kim Kardashian. (There’s a bit in some of the other reports, which are all pulling from the same set of documents released recently in regards to the investigations, about Kardashian flying home with a literal trash bag of money containing some $250,000 after a gambling excursion organized by Low in Las Vegas. Sometimes you don’t need to come up with your own metaphors, because the universe will provide.) Also, we should be clear that neither DiCaprio, nor Kardashian, appear to have been investigated for any kind of wrong-doing, beyond, possibly, not doing quite enough to closely scrutinize their business and social affairs with the trash-bag money man.

Apparently conscious of the optics, though, DiCaprio’s attorneys did draft a press release, asking the FBI to thank DiCaprio for his cooperation with the investigation. “The government declined the overture.” And, again we’ll say it: Whoops!