Actor Richard Dreyfuss was one of the stars of the blockbuster movie “Jaws,” so when he was headlining a Q&A session about the movie at a theater in Massachusetts, many people rushed to buy tickets.

The show was held at the Cabot Theater in Beverly, Massachusetts on Saturday May 25, 2024; however, it did not go as planned. People bought tickets to a show called “An Evening with Richard Dreyfuss + Jaws Screening.” They were probably hoping to enjoy seeing the movie and hearing the actor’s thoughts about the movie and perhaps stories about working on the film.

Instead of enjoying a delightful evening, many people in the audience were so offended by Dreyfuss’s comments that they walked out of the theater before the show was over. After storming out of the event, many of the attendees then turned to social media to slam Dreyfuss and share how offended they were by what he said.

Some people chose to comment on the venue’s most recent social media post on Facebook. For example, one attendee wrote, “We walked out of his interview tonight along with hundred of others because of his racist homophobic mysogynistic rant.”

Other attendees chose to start their own posts about the event. For example, on X (formerly Twitter), @Mandarina65 wrote, “Came here to see if #RichardDreyfuss had been cancelled tonight after appearing at #TheCabot in Beverly.”

Came here to see if #RichardDreyfuss had been cancelled tonight after appearing at #TheCabot in Beverly.

— Rogue Mama (@Mandarina65) May 26, 2024

Several people who commented on this post feel that it would be impossible to “cancel” the actor at this point since he is already retired and kind of has nothing to lose. Others commented asking what exactly Dreyfuss said, and @Mandarina65 commented several times to give an overview of the “offensive” comments.

“Started with #BarabraStreisand and her being a genius, then twisted and said he didn’t listen to her suggestions because she’s a woman and women shouldn’t have any power, that they should be quiet and meek.”

“When asked about the #MeToo movement he said ‘those people make me want to vomit’ and that he didn’t want to listen to 8 year olds saying that they were born in the wrong body’ (I need to paraphrase I can’t remember exactly what he said, also the crowd was heckling and booing)”

“He said ‘oh so you’re going to turn into an angry mob now’. He moved on to say that he told Stephen Spielberg that he should play the part in Close Encounters instead of Gene Hackman.”

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Dreyfuss also mentioned his 2022 book called “One Thought Scares Me…We Teach Our Children What We Wish Them to Know; We Don’t Teach Our Children What We Don’t Wish Them to Know.” He explained that the book is about “the fact that 50 years ago, without telling anybody, they took civics out of the curriculum of all public schools in America, which means we have no knowledge of who the hell we are, and if we don’t get it back soon, we’re all going to die. Make sure your kids are not the last generation of Americans. And you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

Watch the video below to learn more about Dreyfuss’s comments and how the venue is responding to the controversy.