With Morbius making its way back into the box office (and flopping again), whispers of star Jared Leto’s alleged misconduct over the years have been resurfacing.

According to The Numbers, Morbius grossed $86,000USD with the film’s new release. With it being released in over a thousand theatres, that means the average amount of money per theatre is a whopping … $83USD.

That’s about an average of five tickets sold per theatre.

Amidst all of this, Jared Leto (Morbius himself) may have very well just killed the Morbius meme by partaking in it.

In a Twitter post, Leto captioned a video with: “What time is it?” before a script in the actor’s hands revealed the new film’s title says: “It’s Morbin’ Time”.

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Leto is no stranger to allegations and controversy. Most recently, on the set of Morbius, director Daniel Espinosa confirms a rumour that Leto was so immersed in his method acting that he refused to break character — even just to go to the bathroom.

His character had chronic pain, so “he would use his crutches and slowly limp to get to the bathroom”.

Uproxx writer Mike Ryan added: “it was taking so long between for pee breaks, that a deal was made with him to get him a wheelchair so someone could wheel him there quicker and he agreed to that”.

While that’s not necessarily bad behaviour per se, it does waste a lot of time and money for the cast and crew.

However, Leto has been at the centre of allegations for quite a few years.

Four years ago, Dylan Sprouse sent a tweet alleging that Leto has tried to hit up every female model aged 18-25. At this time, Leto was in his mid-40s.

The Suicide Squad director James Gunn then commented on the tweet with: “He starts at 18 on the internet?”

Gunn isn’t a stranger to commenting on the Morbius star, making similar claims in his 2015 livestream. He also posted a (now deleted) tweet where he said he was “driving home from Vegas trading stories about what a d*ck Jared Leto is.”

There’s even been a New York Post article written in 2005 that opens with: “Jared Leto likes ’em young.”

This article claimed Leto was “aggressively pursuing many of the teen models shacked up at the Maritime Hotel” while he was in town with his band. A source was quoted as saying: “He is constantly texting these 16- and 17-year-old girls. It’s really kind of creepy.”

In a separate message board that was also from 2005, users who claimed to be as young as 15 posted about allegedly having sex with Leto, who at the time was in his mid-30s. Some alleged a lack of consent, coercion and sexual activities they were not comfortable with.

In 2015, an abandoned pop culture site Contemptor published an article rounding up some of their stories. There is also a Tumblr thread posted around that time sharing similar themes.

While Leto hasn’t commented on any of these sexual misconduct allegations, he has commented on his ‘cult’.

For years, Thirty Seconds to Mars leaned into the idea of their fanbase (called Echelon after a song on their first album) as a cult on social media, merch and music videos. Leto has said that it was “a joke, a response to journalists saying, ‘You have such a cult following’,” in a NYT interview in 2013.

By 2019, the cult didn’t feel like a joke.

The band has been known to measure and encourage extreme fan dedication, requesting fans to get tattoos and even hosting a 2013 competition in which the prize was a night sleeping in Leto’s bed.

Also in 2013, Leto shared a story of a fan who sent him their severed ear.

“I poked a hole in it and wore it as a necklace,” he said, proving his statement with a photo posted on Instagram.

Moving more recently, on the set of Suicide Squad, where he starred as the Joker, he sent his co-stars ‘gifts’, such as rats and used condoms.

“All the actors were rehearsing, and this actor who plays the Joker’s kind of lieutenant, walks in and he goes, ‘Present for Ms. Quinn’. Hands her a box. She opens the fucking box, and a live, giant black rat pops out. And we’re like, ‘What the fuck is going on? That’s crazy!'” Co-star Ike Barinholtz said in an interview with Howard Stern.

Barinholtz added: “So like 20 minutes later, we’re still rehearsing, and the actor comes back in and he goes, ‘This is for the Squad from Mr. J’. And he throws a pig on the table, a dead pig, and as he puts the pig on the table, all these bullets start to come out of it.”

In a 2016 E! Online red carpet interview, the Morbius star brought up his ‘gifts’, saying he sent things such as used condoms and anal beads to “everyone”. His co-stars Margot Robbie, Viola Davis and Will Smith confirmed they received these gifts.

In 2021, however, Leto denied he ever sent anything like that and that anything he did send was simply a joke.

“I’m playing a guy called the Joker, it’s okay to play some jokes. Nothing ever crossed any lines, and it’s not up to other people on the internet to create those lines,’ he told Entertainment Weekly in 2021. “I’m an artist at the end of the day. If I do something risky and you don’t like it, basically, you can kiss my ass.”

For more on this topic, follow the Film & TV Observer.

If this post brings up any issues for you, or if you just feel like you need to speak to someone, please call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – the national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service. It doesn’t matter where you live, they will take your call and, if need be, refer you to a service closer to home.

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