Several days after Leonardo DiCaprio listened at the Golden Globes to co-star Brad Pitt joke about his character’s watery demise in “Titanic,” news emerged that the actor helped rescue a man from suffering that same fate in real life.
DiCaprio, while vacationing in the Caribbean last month, helped in the search for a man who had spent 11 hours treading water, the Daily Mail and The Sun reported.
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A source told the Daily Mail that the “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” star was cruising on a boat off the coast of the island of St. Barts on Dec. 30. The Daily Mail published photos of DiCaprio on the boat that day, showing that his actress girlfriend, Camila Morrone, 22, was with him.
The boat’s captain came to DiCaprio, 45, and said he had heard that a French man, 24, had fallen off a cruise ship. The Sun said the man worked on the Club Med ship and been drinking when he fell overboard.
Leonardo DiCaprio saves drunk man 11 hours after he fell overboard in Caribbean https://t.co/5wshyBPblQ
— The US Sun (@TheSunUS) January 9, 2020
The Oscar winner immediately agreed that the vessel should aid in the search, the Daily Mail said.
Apparently, hours had passed since the man had fallen overboard. By that time, DiCaprio’s boat was the only vessel looking for him, the Daily Mail and Sun said.
People on DiCaprio’s boat looked for the man for hours in rough seas. Then, just before nightfall and as a rainstorm moved in, the crew spotted the man in the water, waving his hands, the tabloids said. The crew was able to pull the man out of the water, with the captain describing the rescue as a “one in a million shot.”
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The Sun reported that the severely dehydrated man, known only as Victor, sobbed as he was hauled on board. “I should have died,” he said. He was given food, drink and clothes before being passed off to authorities.
Like many celebrities, the Oscar-winning actor was spending part of the Christmas holidays in the Caribbean. In fact, on New Year’s Eve, the day after playing hero, DiCaprio and Morrone were photographed together in their swimsuits frolicking on on a beach on St. Barts.
The following Sunday, DiCaprio was in the audience at the Golden Globes, where he had been nominated for best actor in a comedy or musical for his performance in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”
He didn’t win, but his co-star Pitt did, earning a supporting actor statue for the same film. In thanking DiCaprio as “an all-star” and as “a gent,” Pitt said, “I wouldn’t be here without you man.” He then quipped, “I would have shared the raft.”
"Still, I would have shared the raft [in 'Titanic']." – Brad Pitt to Leonardo DiCaprio#GoldenGlobes pic.twitter.com/O8uPwBq0BS
— Lights, Camera, Barstool (@LightsCameraPod) January 6, 2020
That was Pitt’s “Titanic” joke. In the 1997 blockbuster, which catapulted DiCaprio to global fame, he played Jack Dawson, a passenger on the doomed transatlantic ship.
While romancing Kate Winslett’s Rose, the ship hit an iceberg and started to sink. Jack and Rose find a makeshift raft that may just allow one of them to escape the freezing Atlantic water. Jack sacrifices himself and subsequently perishes.
