I half-way like Jeremy Renner and I half-way think he’s a total sketchball. Considering my “type” is “dirty sketchballs,” this explains a lot about me. But even I chuckled a bit at this Men’s Journal cover, wherein Renner looks like he’s “the cool theater teacher” doing a middle school production of Grease. Renner covers this mag because he’s promoting Wind River, a movie I actually want to see. The actual Men’s Journal interview is pretty epic, and you know you’re in for a wild ride in the opening, when the magazine notes the “rules” written above the bar at Renner’s LA home: “Do not f–k with Ava; No social media; No photos; No glass by the pool; Nothing in JR’s butt.” Noted. You can read the full piece here. Some highlights:
Why the “butt” rule? “That’s a joke. But also, don’t put anything in my ass. I really don’t want that.”
His life if he hadn’t discovered acting: “I still would have left Modesto — unless I got somebody pregnant. I had a lot of friends who did that. Who knows? If I didn’t find the acting thing, I might have three divorces and a mullet, driving a forklift.”
Working so much after The Hurt Locker: “I was f–king exhausted. In four years, I slept in my own bed maybe two months. I didn’t see my family, didn’t see my friends. I spent four birthdays in a row with my assistant. It was a glorious time — but it was a long, long run. By the end of it, I was toast.” Not that he has any regrets. “It was all things I wanted to do. But I wouldn’t do it over again.” He looks down the hill at Chris Pratt’s house. “Chris is kind of on that train right now. I couldn’t go on that train again.”
His schedule revolves around his daughter: “I try to get all my work stuff done when I don’t have the baby. Because when I have the baby, everyone else can f–k off.”
The birth of his daughter: “It was like seeing The Matrix. In a second, everything just opened up and made perfect sense.” He named her Ava because it’s “a classic Hollywood name” but also because it’s a palindrome, like Renner. He has custody every other week, he says, and the rest of the time she’s with his ex-wife, Sonni Pacheco…Pacheco lives down the hill from him, and Renner says they’re cordial enough to do the handoff with no drama. “That’s my number one thing as a parent. Continuity and consistency.” I ask him the most fun parts of having a daughter. “Everything’s fun, man. Especially at this age.” She loves dance, gymnastics, musical instruments, swimming. Renner tries to keep her from being too girly: “Like this Christmas, she got a princess castle, but she also got a tool set.”
The custody & divorce fight between he & Sonni: “It was awful. Airing dirty laundry, the mudslinging. I don’t give a f–k about my feelings. But do what’s best for the baby.”
He wants more kids: “I’d like to have eight running around. A gaggle, a little clan.” He thought about having another girl and naming her Hannah, also a palindrome. “But at this point that’s not in my future.” I tell him you never know, but he shakes his head. “It takes two. Doing it alone is not fun. You want to share the experience. You kind of want a partner. I’ve done so many amazing, cool-ass things in my life — but I think as we get older, there’s more value in doing something with somebody.”
He needs his Ford F-150 Raptor for his Tahoe place: “I love that big, ol’ truck. It’s a beast of a rig — the thing is just silly. But I need it for Tahoe. It’s essentially a work vehicle for the ranch.” The ranch is Renner’s biggest toy of all. He bought it three years ago and just finished renovating it: a stone-and-timber cabin on six acres near Lake Tahoe, across the Nevada state line. (Officially, Renner’s a Nevada resident, which he admits is partly “a business decision.” Nevada has no state income tax.) “It’s like Camp Renner up there. All these little outbuildings and trees, clean water and air.” He’s been teaching Ava to ski. And, of course, there are more toys: ATVs and UTVs, motorcycles and snowcats — all the goodies a working-class kid from Modesto could want. “I always wanted that sh-t as a kid, and I could never afford it. So I just said, ‘F–k it. I deserve it.’”
There’s a lot of talk about Renner’s house-flipping business and all of his money-making schemes which do, in fact, make a lot of money. For years, most of Renner’s income came from his side-business, flipping houses, and you still get the sense of the poor, working class kid from Modesto who still knows how to hustle. That goes for his media relations too – he knows how to be “open” with a journalist – inviting Men’s Journal into his home, giving the guy an extensive tour, opening up about his daughter – but making sure that it all furthers the narrative Renner wants, which is that he’s just a guy who wants everything for his daughter and that maybe Sonni was the one driving the divorce drama? Who knows at this point?
Photos courtesy of Men’s Journal.
His Instagram is mostly great pictures of Ava, but he doesn’t show her face. It’s Ava doing stuff. And the tool kit is a great gift. Girls do need to know how to fix things too.
I love that balance. Give her the princess stuff, but also give her other things, let her play with lots of different types of toys, and as she grows up, she’ll gravitate to the things she likes because *she* likes them, not because you’re making her like them.
It’s good he’s protective of his child’s privacy.
That’s the only positive I have. He shows up drunk to too many events. There’s something amiss with him. The guy is clearly a diva and very clearly doesn’t want to be, which is why he oevrcompensates playing ‘macho.’
The butt comment? Huh, What was that about? Is that so the macho men’s magazine will note or infer in the piece that you’re as straight as straight can be because you say and do straight douchey guy things like proclaim your aversion to a nal? Lol so obvious and ham handed.
He’s such a try hard, but it’s sometimes entertaining to watch him when drunk to see the pathology come out: he overdoes it with dashes of toxic masculinity on occasion- the sexist comments about women, women’s bodies- inappropriate touching and looks (his falling all over Elizabeth Olsen at the espys was just…weird)- catch him at a game and he will try to sound like sport center so we will definitely understand that he’s straight.
Oh and did I mention JR is sooo straight? Totally.
:-}
Mariel, you’ve just said (and well, I might add) everything I’ve always thought about Jeremy Renner.
I agree. I’ve said it before about him and I will say it again: Renner strikes me as a deeply closeted gay man who blames women for him not being attracted to them. Hence the rage and misogyny. He always has this angry edge to him – even his dude-bro manliness is angry. The sign thing is a dead giveaway, who in the world would come up with putting “nothing in my butt” on a sign in their home?
hmmm ……….. Maybe someone whose mates take the p**s out of him because of all the gay rumors? Just like when Colin Farrell stood up the oscars and told all those tens of millions of people that he and Renner once shared a pillow in Mexico, but only spooned. Both are just jokes and exactly the sort of thing that ‘blokes’ would do.
thanks @pam! 🙂
And nail hit @hnmmom! That’s it! Like he blames women, and is angry about it. The supposed threats to the Huffpo writer who allegedly dated someone who sounds like him, seals it.
That would also explain why he’s incredibly judgemental of women and their sexuality deeming then promiscuous and “sluts” if they don’t pass his arbitrary purity test. Smells like jealousy. When he called Black Widow a slut, it seemed more envy than anything else.
Also @jellybean, i don’t get that theory – he’s not a frat boy, he’s closer to 50. I doubt he’s got 20yr old dude bros over partying non-stop just waiting for him to fall asleep to draw a d* on his forehead. Or maybe he does.
Colin’s remark seems more like a man who’s very comfortable in his sexuality, unlike Renner.
Jellybean, about 4 or 5 years ago Matt Damon was asked in an interview why he never denied the gay rumors about him and if he was bothered by the rumors. He said he believes that to complain and deny the gay rumors would imply there is something wrong with being gay and would be an insult to his gay friends.
It’s as simple as saying something like that, but Renner always seems to have a cow over even a hint of a rumor about him being gay.
I like that not too girly point
I am as girly a girl can get, the dress up, make up and yet i am equally happy and comfortable at my work. I am an engineer in automobile industry. It is because growing up I was not specifically told you can do this and that as a girl. I loved my kitchen set an I loved playing with my dad’s calculator.
Same here. There was never a very specific line dividing men and women’s stuff in my house. Now my son loves make up (he seems to be rather gender fluid and has a girlfriend), my other son loves clothes to the point where he spends hours talking about them with his best friend and his girlfriend. My daughter is a disaster in the kitchen whereas my older son is quite good with cooking, cleaning etc. I think things are becoming more of a spectrum.
On the other hand, I think culturally things are still a bit behind though: I’ve noticed my older son being a bit rough with his younger brothers as a “joke”. That’s something girls don’t do for instance. There is this pervasive idea of masculinity where you grunt to your friends on the phone instead of talking. On the other hand, I have heard that the rate of success in maths and science are bigger in girls only schools because teachers will automatically stimulate boys in sciencific areas and not really girls. So one of my neighours enrolled her daughter in a girls only school because she loves science and wants to be an engineer.
🤷🏻♀️
We had four girls, one boy, a bad ass mom, and a dad who was raised by a single mom. No waiting around for a guy to do it. I’m probably the least handy in the family and I still own more power tools than most guys I know. A girl can’t have too many circular saws.
I work in IT. Mainly with male nerdy types. Some of them are surprisingly handy, but for the most part, I’m a lot more capable than the majority. One guy who’s a couple years older than I am (I’m 27) didn’t know how to figure out his tire size. I can CHANGE a tire, change my oil, use power tools, fix a toilet… etc etc. My dad didn’t teach me these things – his father was in the airforce and wasn’t home much when he was growing up, so nan would either fix stuff herself, or hire someone. And you can’t really ask the plumber or electrician to teach your kid how to wire into a panel or replace pipes.
I am now married to a plumber though, and when he was studying for his license, he’d ask me random questions – some of which I could answer just because I’m a) not an idiot and b) I know a lot of random things. It always freaked him out when I could answer things that some guys he knew that were taking the course couldn’t figure out. Proud freaked out though haha.
He told me he was at a job yesterday that he had been at a few days before but needed parts to come in to finish up. They had a 4 or 5 year old boy and another one that was probably only around 1 or 2. The older brother came rushing in with a picture he had drawn him because he knew he’d be back (kids love him). He was pointing to different parts of the picture telling my husband “that’s a sump pump, and that’s a water heater, and that’s a drain…” which he found hilarious. He asked him how he knew all those words and the kids just like “I’m just a curious kid”. I laughed so hard when he told me.
I like the gifts. 🙂
I hear this guy’s name all the time but I don’t remember him in anything I’ve seen.
I was a daddy’s girl and daddy was a Master Carpenter and I grew up on a small, working farm/ranch.
I went from Homecoming Queen to military woman almost overnight and I’ve never looked back.
You can be girly and tough at the same time and I admire a woman who can do some DIY around the house, help haul hay, feed the cattle, cut ice and still do her ‘nails, hair and make up.
Apparently, my husband of 30 years and my married son and two daughters do as well.
nancypants, He’s a good actor but[ for me] the least interesting of THE AVENGERS. But you would have seen him doing publicity with all those guys. PS. You sound awesome and a great role model.
my dad still gives me tools every year for christmas and I’m a child of the 70’s. It’s awesome. My friends are all so jealous.
I love him, shady bro that he is. I cannot help myself.
Oddly enough he’s related to Jennifer lawrence. Some show did back history on his family and found out he’s her cousin twice removed. I find he’s very good actor though.
I looovveeee this guy. My black ass enjoys his accent and movies. I saw The Town for the first time just last week and the other thing I noticed apart from having no black people in it is that Ben Affleck has nice legs
I love his face on this cover, because it’s the same one I make when I’ve asked someone to repeat themselves twice and I still can’t understand them, so I just nod.
Oh my god. Luckily I had just finished my tea otherwise… poor keyboard! That is so true. Cannot not see it now.
This is so funny because it is so true!
I’ve weirdly liked him since he was on that reality show “The It Factor.”
That’s where I first saw him too. Weirdly like is a good way to describe it.
I saw “Wind River” last night in NY – it is an amazing movie.
Wait. How on earth does a state NOT collect income tax? Why? Is that for real?
Several states don’t. In Nevada it makes a lot of sense because I’m sure the gambling revenue makes up for a lot.
My state doesn’t, although our other taxes (sales, fuel, etc.) are probably shockingly high compared to other states that do have income tax.
STATE income tax.
Alaska doesn’t collect state income tax. Neither does Texas, Nevada and I believe 3 or 4 other states such as Florida and Washington….I think.
ALL states collect federal income tax.
The states that do not collect state income tax or lessen the burden for certain groups (Alabama and Colorado for military retirees) believe they will attract more and better citizens but you have to do your research before loading the U-Haul.
Some of these states have higher costs of living and higher taxes on property, sales, etc.
I do not really have a strong opinion on Renner. I am a big Marvel fan, however, and he’s done fine work in many films. I just wanted to mention the best toy we ever bought our daughter. It was a Little Tykes medieval castle [not a princess one] It had knights and a drawbridge and little plastic barrels and a catapult. The joy of this was the many things our little girl and her friends could do with it. If people liked dolls, then dolls could inhabit the castle;if kids preferred soldiers, they could fight with the knights. Small animal toys also made it into the castle. Kids played with this thing from about ages 3 to 7 or so. Our daughter liked to have an animal army [did anyone’s kids read the REDWALL books?] and pretend to pour boiling oil on the enemies. Anyway, it was the best toy investment ever!
That sounds like an awesome toy that I would play with right now.
I have always believed Sonni Pacheco drove their divorce drama. The gross stuff always started with her side, and left on his own, Renner is good at keeping his private life out of the magazines. It was only with her that it seemed like we heard from him every other day.
Oftentimes when one person is famous and the other isn’t, they will have the power of the press and PR at their disposal. The reality is he was a guy in his early 40s and she was early 20s, had barely left her teens.
Whether it was an arrangement between them for her to have a child and ‘present’ to the public the image of a couple, if only for a little while, or whether it was genuine- bottomline is that she may have felt he was going to smear her and take her kid away (didn’t he try for full custody at first?) – do something to gain the upperhand. She being the anonymous person with no power has to be extra to keep him in line.
I thought it was a skeevy coupling anyway given the age diff, then when he tried to take full custody of this non-famous young woman’s child he came off as Triply skeevy.
To settle the age thing, she celebrated her 29th birthday on instagram this year, which means she was 25 when she had the baby and there is nothing to suggest that they were seeing each other for more than a year before that. She asked for full custody and for the prenup over turned, he always wanted shared custody and the prenup upheld. Eventually It all went his way. The thing that makes me doubt her the most is that days after news came out that she had filed for divorce The National Enquirer was passed details of an old conviction of Renners, details of which had been printed off in the first few weeks of the pregnancy. To me that looked like a shot across the bows, ‘do as I say or I will drag you through the press’. he was actually remarkably quiet as the accusations came out right up until a week or so before the court date, then he let her have it and the whole thing settled his way before it reached court. So I pretty much agree with Algenon, Sonni probably drove the divorce drama to improve the settlement.
I agree it was always sort of off about the coupling. Older actor + younger, mediocre bikini model. JR could probably have his pick of just about anyone in HW, so it didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. (Same could be said about the string of women Clooney used to date). It’s just a major power imbalance.
I understand the power imbalance and usually I would side with the disadvantged partner, but she had a power play, too, which is that she could have taken the kid to Canada, where they have a bad track record with non-native parents. I think her ability to take off with their kid and make it exponentially harder for him to see her, neutralizes his fame benefit. Also, as Jellybean points out, she made him look way worse than he made her. I remember only one really bad rumor about her that seemed to come from his camp, and that is that she was leaving the kid to party. Meanwhile, she threatened to release “intimate tapes,” which if a guy did that, everyone would have gone ballistic. And in the end, when it was all settled, the court ordered to her to take parenting workshops. The press can be manipulated, but a court is a little harder to play, and given the accusations flying, I believe they were both investigated, but she was the only one ordered by a judge to take classes on how to be a decent parent. To me, that says a lot.
The important thing is they now seem to have sorted things out, to the point where the three of them have been photographed coming out of a theater and a restaurant together. In interviews Renner has always seemed proud of the fact that when his parents divorced his dad moved in across the road and was always present in his life. They might have got married thinking divorce was likely, if not certain, but I think Ava staying in LA and 50/50 custody was always part of the deal and Sonni filing for divorce and demanding full custody was a bit of a shock.
I’ve liked him since I saw The Hurt Locker. I can’t put my finger on why, but I do.
He has the creepiest looking face
I agree. If I saw him looking at me in public I would go the other way.
It’s nice that hes working on providing his daughter with equal opportunities.
The sad part is that his overall attitude of toxic masculinity will end up producing a greater impact that giving her the right toys. You can give her all the dump trucks you want, butwhen you refer to a female coworker or her character as a slut… you need to examine some baggage.
Yea something’s not at all right there.
I went to that Huffpo link to read the blind item piece (which has GOT to be him, Lol) and it was so horrifying. I felt really bad for that woman – it was a powerful piece, and if true, he’s deeply deeply…troubled. Grade A misogynist too. Not a good example for his kid to see.
This guy is late 40s so almost 50 and telling her he wants to experience dating someone not in their early 20s? Then proceeds to play mind games and treat her like sh*? Ugh. Pass me the sanitizer for my eyes.
Who does that? Someone very very angry. He doesn’t seem to like women. Which I’m not surprised about.
Ew, yeah, the actor described in the article is exploitative and abusive. (The journalist author needs an editor, though; good grief, the typos):
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_592065f5e4b0e8f558bb26e8#
I read an observation by another blogger a several years ago; “He looks like he can shake the hell out of a toner cartridge”.
He’s nothing special. I can’t throw a rock without hitting someone just like him, except better looking. Without his Hollywood paycheck, he’s just another Office Depot employee. His statement about the mullet and three divorces tells me he knows that as well.
Well actually, he made his money before he made it big in Hollywood. Unlike most actor/house flippers his business wan’t a hobby, he says he started it with $200 in his bank, a contract for a modestly paid film role and a friend with a little bit of cash. They were already flipping multi-million dollar properties before The Hurt Locker. So he might be ordinary looking, but I doubt he was ever going to be an Office Depot Employee. But isn’t it good that brains, hard work and talent paid out rather than just good looks?
I agree Jellybean. He is very strategic.
A “modest” studio paycheck is still more than the average person makes in a few years.
Sure, he may have been strategic, just like every other person who’s made money flipping houses or property using other people’s money or simply outwitting the former owners. Those people are a dime a dozen where I live.
Wanna meet an average looking short male house flipper who drives a Ford Raptor, can mimic accents, and acts like a frat boy douche bag? Come to Oklahoma.
He is the only actor that I will make a point of seeing in the theater. Even if the film isn’t great (Hansel and Gretel – oh boy) he is good in it. He did fantastic work in The Town. And I liked him allot in Bourne Legacy.
I wonder if the name Hannah in Arrival (and how it is a palindrome which was pointed out in the movie) was his idea or if he only picked up on that during filming
Just a random thought.
So…no one else thought the cover read “Men Urinal”?