Al Pacino claims he donated his entire paycheck to charity after making ‘exploitative’ gay film

Al Pacino revealed he donated his entire paycheck from a movie he filmed in the 1980s due to its ‘exploitative’ nature. 

The 84-year-old actor admitted that he ‘didn’t see it as that when I was doing it’ and he was not ‘as sensitive’ as he could have been back then.

In his memoir Sonny Boy, he opened up about working on the 1980 crime thriller, Cruising, which is about a serial killer targeting gay men on the leather scene. 

At the time, the film faced backlash, and gay rights advocates protested during filming. 

Four decades later, the Godfather star — who revealed how he narrowly avoided being kidnapped in the early days of his career — opened up about a secret donation he made while the movie was shroud in controversy.

In the flick, which was directed by William Friedkin, he starred as a detective named Steve Burns who finds himself deeply embedded in New York City’s gay S&M subculture as he attempts to hunt down a serial killer. 

In his tell-all, he said producers begged him to defend the movie, so he agreed. 

‘After all, they had paid me a lot of money, and I wasn’t going to just abandon them,’ he wrote before sharing his discomfort. 

‘But I wanted to go somewhere far away from the madness,’ he said. ‘I’d had enough.’ 

Behind the scenes, he made amends and donated his entire paycheck in an effort to ‘ease my conscience.’ 

‘I never accepted the paycheck for Cruising,’ he recalled. ‘I took the money and it was a lot, and I put it in an irrevocable trust fund, meaning once I gave it, there was no taking it back.’ 

He revealed that he disbursed the money, plus interest, to multiple charities. 

‘I don’t know if it eased my conscience,’ he admitted. ‘But at least the money did some good.’ 

In his memoir Sonny Boy, he opened up about working on the 1980 crime thriller, Cruising, which is about a serial killer targeting gay men on the leather scene; pictured in 1980 still from Cruising

At the time, the film faced backlash, and gay rights advocates protested during filming; pictured in 1980 still from Cruising

The actor admitted that he ‘didn’t see it as that when I was doing it’ and he was not ‘as sensitive’ as he could have been back then; pictured in 1980 still from Cruising

Four decades later, the Godfather star opened up about a secret donation he made while the movie was shroud in controversy; pictured in 1980 still from Cruising

He said that his donations were anonymous and he had never revealed that fact until now. 

‘I didn’t want to make it a PR stunt,’ he said. ‘I just wanted one positive thing to come out of that whole experience.’ 

In his memoir, Pacino also wrote about Scarface. 

The movie initially received bad reviews before the crime epic was ultimately dubbed a classic and Tony Montana became known as his most iconic role. 

‘To this day it’s still the biggest film I ever did,’ he wrote in his memoir. 

‘The residuals still support me. I can live on it. I mean, if I lived like a normal person. But it does contribute, let’s put it that way.’