A Former Exec At The 'Wolf Of Wall Street' Firm Has A Few Bones To Pick With The Story
In the Wolf of Wall Street, Martin Scorsese's upcoming adaptation of a book about criminal excess in finance, Daniel Porush is an executive at Stratton Oakmont. It's a hedonistic, morally bankrupt business, and in the book and the movie, Porush (played by Jonah Hill in the movie) is a ringleader.
The real Daniel Porush told Mother Jones that he takes issue with some of 'Wolf of Wall Street's' scenes - the issue is that they didn't happen.
...Porush says he never heard anyone at the firm refer to Belfort as the "wolf." And while sex was nearly as integrated into office life as the scams that made the firm's owners millions, Porush strongly denies a long-established piece of Stratton lore detailed in the book, and dramatized in the film adaptation: that brokers became so debauched that Belfort was forced to issue a memo declaring the office a "f**k-free zone" from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. on workdays.
Porush also takes issue with the massive office party, complete with dwarf throwing and a monkey on roller skates:
"There was never a chimpanzee in the office," Porush maintains. "There were no animals in the office...I would also never abuse an animal in any way." And while Porush admits the firm hired little people to attend and mingle at at least one party, "we never abused [or threw] the midgets in the office; we were friendly to them," he emphasizes. "There was no physical abuse."
Porush did, however, once tell a trader to shape up, or he'd eat the trader's goldfish. When the trader's performance wasn't up to snuff, Porush at the goldfish as promised.
So there's that.