Stop the presses everyone because we have a massive reveal that’ll rock the boat: Hollywood superstar and committed environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio is actually the man behind the burning of the Amazon rainforest.
Shocker right?
This comes from *checks notes* Brazil’s wacko far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, who’s been going around telling reporters and folks on Facebook (as per The Guardian) that Leo is bankrolling the deliberate burning of the Amazon because of, uh, reasons.
No one really knows what was going on in Jair’s head when he decided to go around screaming “This Leonardo DiCaprio’s a cool guy, isn’t he? Giving money for the Amazon to be torched,” but presumably it has something to do with Jair preferring to blame Leo for bankrolling the fires instead of acknowledging the crap job he’s done on handling the deforestation of the Amazon.
Jair also really, really hates environmental campaigners, NGOs and basically anyone who have spoken out in defence of the Amazon and has criticised him for his questionable stances on the environment so there’s also that.
Then again, we shouldn’t be surprised that Jair is sprouting this sort of nonsense. After all, this is the same chap who has been called the “Trump of the tropics” and thinks “it’s enough to poop every other day” is the appropriate response to fixing the climate crisis.
To be fair though, Leonardo DiCaprio is indeed bankrolling some kind of activity in Brazil. And by that we mean he pledged $5 million in funding to help fight the fires in the Amazon rainforest.
Between Trump failing his way into impeachment in the U.S., Boris Johnson making a clot of things in the UK, Scott Morrison doing whatever he’s doing in Australia and Jair making up ridiculous lies about Hollywood stars who are doing environmental things he doesn’t like, it’s almost like every world leader is doing limbo in a desperate attempt to lower the bar.
If we are to blame Leonardo DiCaprio for anything, it’s for avoiding the question of whether Jack could’ve fit on the door at the end of Titanic.