No, Clint Eastwood did not say he’s leaving Hollywood to fight against ‘traitors’ with ‘real America

Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan would probably despise fake internet quotes almost as much as we do.

And there’s no shortage of them on the internet.

Now, a bogus quote is being shared on Facebook and misattributes the words to Dirty Harry himself, Mr. Clint Eastwood.

The post displays a picture of Eastwood with text above that says:

"Actor Clint Eastwood makes massive announcement: ‘Hollywood is the place of traitors and pedophilians, this morning I’ve decided to leave this awful place and fight against traitors with real American patriots with president Trump.’ Do you stand with Clint"

The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

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We could not find any instance of Eastwood saying this statement. It appears to have come from a March 15, 2018, post from the NY Evening News, a questionable website that posts fake news and information about UFOs and conspiracies. We found the article using the web archive tool Wayback Machine as it has since been deleted from the website.

The post, which is basically one long paragraph, repeats the spurious quote and then goes on to claim Eastwood said it at the Cannes Film Festival during the 25th anniversary screening of his film "Unforgiven."

That screening took place nearly a year before the post, in May 2017. While answering questions by Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan, Eastwood did speak about how political correctness has changed since his 1971 film "Dirty Harry" came out. But he said nothing about leaving Hollywood or that the industry is full of "traitors and pedophilians." Here’s what he said, according to the Hollywood Reporter:

"It was far-out at that time, so I brought it to (director) Don (Siegel), and he liked it," Eastwood recalled Sunday during a visit to the Cannes Film Festival. "A lot of people thought it was politically incorrect. That was at the beginning of the era that we’re in now with political correctness. We are killing ourselves, we’ve lost our sense of humor. But I thought it was interesting and it was daring."

A Facebook post claims Eastwood said Hollywood is "the place of traitors and pedophilians" and he’s decided to "leave" it to "fight against traitors with real American patriots with president Trump."

There is no evidence that Eastwood ever said this. We tracked the fake quote to a fake news website that referenced an interview the director and actor gave during the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. But he said nothing in that interview about traitors, pedophiles, or leaving Hollywood.

We rate this bogus quote Pants on Fire!