Jennifer Lopez Ripped by Real-Life Inspiration for Her ‘Hustlers’ Character

Jennifer Lopez already has Oscar buzz swarming her after her show-stopping performance in Hustlers, which recently hit theaters early this month. However, not everyone seems to be crazy about her role including the woman who Lopez’ character is based on. Samantha Barbash, the stripper whose life the movie is based on, was asked by TMZ how she feels about Hollywood making the movie and she didn’t seem pleased.

“It’s about my life, they pretty much basically stole my story, I wouldn’t sign my rights away,” she explained. “I wasn’t giving up my TV and film rights, I mean, yea, my film and TV rights for peanuts. J-Lo doesn’t work for free, why would I? I’m a business woman.”

When asked, “How do they get to make a movie without you signing off on it though?” she replied with, “You tell me. It’s Hollywood.”

Not only was Barbash not happy with how Hollywood “stole” her story, she also wasn’t satisfied with the fact that the “Dinero” singer never even reached out to her, even though she was playing Barbash as her character. She explained that audiences around the U.S. were only going to see the movie because Lopez was “on a stripper pole” adding that there’s a lack of storyline to the box office hit movie.

“J-Lo portrayed me, so she didn’t even reach out to the woman that she’s portraying. I think that’s a little, kind of, degrading, as an actress,” she expressed.

However, the dancer was reached out to by producers, but considers their efforts to be “a joke.”

“The producer hit up my lawyer, but it was a joke, I don’t even wanna embarrass them of what they thought,” she continued to explain.

Then she went on to say that she has purses worth more than what they were wanting to offer her.

“Put it this way, I have Hermes bags that cost more than what they wanted to give me,” she said taking a jab at the producers.

“She basically defamed my character,” she added about Lopez. “Which I was disgusted as a mother, there’s a part that she’s cooking drugs in a stove with her daughter there. First of all, that’s just not an accurate movie. Without J-Lo, they wouldn’t even have a movie to be honest, there’s no storyline, it’s just Jennifer.”

“People are going to see the movie because J-Lo’s on a stripper pole,” she continued, mentioning that Barbash herself hasn’t even been on a stripper pole like the character highlights in the film.

“I don’t even know how to do a trick, I’ve never been on a stripper pole like that in my life,” she claimed.