Ezra Miller did not, to put it mildly, invoke their right to remain silent. This past March, the actor was arrested in a tiki bar called Margarita Village in Hilo, Hawaii, after shouting profanities, spitting in a patron’s face, and grabbing a microphone from a woman singing karaoke to “Shallow” from A Star Is Born. Miller claimed to have been accosted by a Nazi and to have evidence. In fact, one of the first things you hear the actor say in the three-minute police body-cam video that circulated after the arrest is something the officers had likely never heard from a disorderly dive bar patron before: “I film myself when I get assaulted for NFT crypto art.”

Once outside, Miller—sweaty and disheveled in a black suit jacket, burgundy pants, and a red tie—barks at the cops to state their full names and badge numbers. When one attempts to search Miller’s pockets, the actor says twice, rapid-fire, “I’m transgender nonbinary. I don’t want to be searched by a man.” After being called “sir,” the actor responds, “That is an act of intentional bigotry and a technical hate crime.” Miller, whose pronouns are they/them, registers their objection to being “unlawfully persecuted for a crime of no designation,” says they have preexisting nerve damage from police handcuffs, and expands on the Nazi’s assault. “You should have told us that instead of running away,” an officer replies placidly. “We could have took care of everything real quick. But you wanted to play the game.”

When the police empty Miller’s pockets, they find styrofoam Nerf bullets and place them in a plastic bag, along with the single accessory linking the person in cuffs to the movie that their acclaimed career, as well as $200 million of Warner Bros.’s money, is riding on: a ring emblazoned with their DC Comics superhero character. By now, Miller seems to have burned out their rage. “The Flash ring means a lot to me,” the actor says quietly. “It’s very valuable.”

That arrest was just one turn in a downward spiral so confusing and troubling that even old friends have difficulty parsing the chaos. What’s clear is that Miller has been endangering not just their career, but also their safety—and allegedly that of others—in increasingly plain sight for the last two years. Since 2020, the actor has been accused of crimes and abuses spanning 6,000 miles and two oceans: throwing a chair that hit a woman in the forehead, threatening a couple in their bedroom and stealing a wallet and a passport in Hawaii, on top of the incident at Margarita Village; choking two strangers in Iceland; and breaking into a neighbor’s home in Vermont to steal alcohol, which resulted in a felony charge.

In June, two protection orders were issued against Miller. The first was filed in tribal court in North Dakota by Chase Iron Eyes, a Native American businessman, and his wife, Sara Jumping Eagle, on behalf of their 18-year-old, Tokata Iron Eyes, who goes by Gibson. They accuse Miller of grooming, brainwashing, and emotionally abusing the teenager, a nonbinary Indigenous activist Miller met when Iron Eyes was just 12. The tribal court put a temporary order in place, but ultimately dismissed the request for a permanent one, and the parents say they withdrew their request for custody, believing the odds were stacked against them. The second order was requested by a mother in Massachusetts, claiming that Miller’s interest in her own nonbinary 12-year-old made her and the child uncomfortable in incidents between February and June of this year. The actor denies the allegations.

Most recently, Vermont State Police were dispatched to Miller’s farm with an emergency order from the Department for Children and Families. A 25-year-old woman named Ana had moved her three young children into the household. Though the woman has said that Ezra saved her family from an abusive situation, Miller’s farm was said to be gun-ridden and unsafe for children. “I saw more guns than ever, and three little kids running around among them,” a longtime friend who visited in May tells VF. “The youngest girl picked up a bullet and put it in her mouth.” The order issued on August 5 demanded that custody of Ana’s kids immediately be transferred to the state. But when police arrived at the movie star’s farm, Ana and the children were gone. The children’s father tells VF that he has not spoken to his kids since April. A court date concerning custody has been set for October, in Hawaii.

Warner Bros. has not commented on its marquee superhero, and declined to speak for this story. But a source close to the situation says the studio and the actor’s agency, CAA, suggested Miller work with someone in crisis PR. On August 15, Miller finally admitted that they were in the midst of “an intense crisis,” and said in a statement: “I now understand that I am suffering complex mental health issues and have begun ongoing treatment. I want to apologize to everyone that I have alarmed and upset with my past behavior. I am committed to doing the necessary work to get back to a healthy, safe and productive stage in my life.” A source with knowledge of the situation tells Vanity Fair that the work currently consists of undergoing therapy.

Over the last six weeks, VF has spoken to more than a dozen people who crossed paths with Miller in recent years, some of whom worked closely or lived with the actor on the 95-acre farm in Vermont. Most sources described Miller’s spiral as a conflagration of the mental health issues the actor has acknowledged, along with drugs, guns, and outlandish claims, that has raged for more than two years. They say the actor verbally and emotionally abused those around them and referred to themself alternately as Jesus and the devil. Three people say Miller has also wrapped the superhero they play into their grandiose speechifying. The actor, says one source, was “claiming that the Flash is the one who brings the multiverses together just like Jesus.”

All this has been a disturbing trajectory for Miller, whose critical breakthrough came at 19 with their deeply unnerving performance in the 2011 school-massacre drama We Need to Talk About Kevin. The following year, Miller proved their range with a charismatic turn in the coming-of-age story The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Since then, the actor has hopscotched from indies like The Stanford Prison Experiment to full-blown franchise stardom, appearing opposite Johnny Depp in the Harry Potter spin-off series Fantastic Beasts, which has grossed about $1.8 billion. The Flash is due out in June of next year.

In interviews, Miller has long fashioned themself as a Hollywood outsider and queer champion who blurs gender lines and seems to revel in provocation. The actor has offered journalists marijuana midinterview and spoken in gibberish to reporters at ComicCon while wearing silk lingerie as a sexy Super Mario Bros. character. In 2018, in what was intended to be a jovial junket interview promoting Fantastic Beasts, Miller recounted a childhood nightmare that involved the PATH train, Beethoven, and their mother’s and sisters’ throats being slit open as though they were pigs. (Miller’s costar mouthed “holy shit” to the camera.) Though it veered dark, the actor’s eccentricity initially struck many as endearing—a rarity in a town where most celebrities are on script even off set. Miller’s outspokenness about sexuality and gender identity earned them a reputation for empathy and progressiveness, as well as effusive internet titles like “queer icon,” “the hero we need right now,” and “our nonbinary king.” In 2018, GQ Style put Miller on its cover, and wrote, “Please God, tell us the next generation of movie stars is going to be like this.”

Stephen Chbosky, who wrote and directed The Perks of Being a Wallflower, as well as the novel on which it’s based, hasn’t spoken to Miller in 10 years. He wrote them a letter to show his support when the troubling reports started appearing, but isn’t sure he sent it to the right email address. “I hope Ezra finds the light that they shined so brightly back when we shot the movie,” he says, “because the kid I met was a remarkably magical person. And I always like to believe that that person is always in there, and I hope that they can find the help that they need.”

“Complete Chaos”

Someone who became close with Miller about three years ago says the actor was open about their “ebb and flow relationship with mental health.” The actor told The Hollywood Reporter in 2018, “I think for me, the times we live in are sort of a choose-your-own-adventure of mental illness. And millennials have been given a lot of intense information. People think we’re crazy and they’re right.” The source says that both Miller’s issues and hard partying accelerated when the actor wrapped projects and had no schedule. In March 2020, when the world shut down because of the coronavirus and Fantastic Beasts halted production, Miller suddenly faced an indefinite amount of downtime. “The thing is, with Ezra, there’s absolutely no plan,” says the source. “It’s complete chaos. I didn’t even know that we were going to Iceland until they said, ‘Let’s go to Iceland.’”

The first time Miller was accused of choking a stranger in Reykjavik, the incident was dismissed as a drunken altercation. But the second incident was filmed and went viral in April 2020. Variety reported that the trouble began when a woman in a bar joked about fighting Miller. The actor reacted so aggressively—putting their hands around the woman’s neck and pushing her to the ground—that the bartender said he locked Miller out. Later, Miller’s associate says she overheard the actor on a call with Warner Bros. claiming to be the injured party: “It was [Warner Bros.] listening and Miller spewing his poor-me speech: ‘I’m the one who was hated on.’ So you have this almost 30-year-old who is a partier telling Warner Bros. that he was the victim.” Miller’s rep says the actor was baited by “a group of teens” about their mixed martial arts skills. She claims the choking was not a choking but “a spontaneous reaction” during which the actor “went at her collarbone.”

Three people, including two who have known Miller for over a decade, believe the outbursts in Iceland were partly kindled by the emotional stress of the actor’s parents’ divorce. In 2019, they say, Miller’s parents—Marta, a modern dancer, and Robert, a book publisher—told Miller and their two sisters that they were divorcing after decades of marriage. Miller’s father quickly remarried, the sources say. “Ezra didn’t start freaking out and losing control of themselves in public until after this happened,” says a longtime friend. “The Iceland incident happened, and then it just kept going and going and going and going.”

Miller’s spokesperson dismisses the idea that the divorce was a key factor: “The matters leading up to their recent mental health concerns were a combination of complex, stress-related issues.” Miller’s father did not respond to requests for an interview for this story. Their mother, approached in her front yard in Vermont in early July, said of the coverage of Miller, “The betrayal of the supposed media is stunning. It is your job to separate the false from the true.” She then ended the conversation.

While in Iceland, Miller was accompanied by Jasper Young Bear, a 55-year-old North Dakota medicine man the actor had hired as a spiritual adviser. Young Bear seems to have stoked Miller’s outsize vision of themself. “Jasper was telling Ezra that he wasn’t a part of the movement, he was the movement—that he was the next Messiah and that the Freemasons were sending demons out to kill him,” says a source, who, like others who have been close to Miller, sometimes misgenders the actor, who is said not to insist on they/them pronouns in private. (Young Bear did not respond to a request for comment; Miller’s rep says he is “a dear friend.”) In an interview with British GQ published the same month as the Iceland chokings, Miller seemed to suggest a higher purpose, telling the writer, “My prerogative is service. I’m here to do what I can for everybody I can do it for.” The rest of the interview, per the writer, was less a conversation than a string of sermons. “I’m not sure exactly what everything means,” he wrote, “but it sounds cool, so I nod my head along.”

According to the insider, the actor has grown increasingly narcissistic, often choosing young people for their audience, because they are more malleable: “He’d talk about the metaverse and the medicine and how they’re the Messiah and what his work is here. They say their spiritual practice is to be among the people—which means party. So, when in Iceland, he was out nonstop. His favorite were raves, where he’d go on benders for two or three days at a time.”

Sometimes, Miller would extend quixotic offers to people the actor met during their travels. Says a source, “He was telling these kids, ‘You’re going to be in my band, and I’m going to produce your album and you can run my music studio.’ Whether they were visual artists, DJs, kids that were in college—or sometimes kids who might have been homeless—he would recruit them in a period of vulnerability, and promise them all of these things.” Nothing ever seemed to materialize.

The Mountain

Since 2017, Miller has lived on the farm in Vermont, which they christened “the Mountain.” The property, which is surrounded by dense woods, used to be an alpaca and llama farm, and features apple and blueberry orchards, three barns, and a modest blue-roofed house. Goats roam the premises. The house was kind of a mess but the friends crashing didn’t care. They shot arrows and went for hikes. Miller smoked marijuana, performed chaos magic, and played Call of Duty into the early morning. Before the troubles in Iceland, the actor could be kind and generous. They’d share weed, occasionally cash, and even plane tickets with buddies in need. But staying at Miller’s meant abiding by the actor’s rules, and tolerating the long monologues.

Miller is said to have woven young Tokata Iron Eyes into their narrative, claiming that the pair were fated to be together. (A rep for Miller maintains that the actor’s relationship with the activist has always been platonic.) “Ezra is Jesus, and Tokata’s an apocalyptic Native American spider goddess, and their union is supposed to bring about the apocalypse,” recaps one person. “And that’s the ‘real’ reason everyone is so opposed to them being together.” Iron Eyes’s mother, Jumping Eagle, has heard Miller’s story too: “They say they are some kind of messiah, and they’re going to lead an Indigenous revolution.” The actor themself does not have Native American ancestry, and, despite being fixated on native cultures, does not strike everyone as respectful. “He professes that he walks through this world with an Indigenous humility and spiritual awareness,” says one Indigenous insider. “But, point of fact, he doesn’t at all. Because he doesn’t care.”

The house in Vermont contains an altar that’s home to bullets, weed, sage, and Flash figurines, according to two people who visited this year. “A lot of times he makes the women put their cell phones on the altar when they come in, and other offerings,” says a longtime friend. “Ezra freaked out recently…demanding that Susan Sarandon come pay tribute to his altar because she didn’t invite Ezra to a dinner party.” (Sarandon and Miller “are dear friends,” says Miller’s rep. She adds that Miller “would probably call this [anecdote] total bullshit if asked.” Sarandon did not respond to a request for comment.)

In 2018, Miller came out as nonbinary and polyamorous, telling Playboy about the free-love environment they created for themself, calling it a “polycule,” a portmanteau of polyamorous and molecule. According to three people in Miller’s circle, the polycule is less a democratic society than an ever shifting “court harem” of mostly young women. A friend of the actor says, “An openly polyamorous lifestyle—that’s not inherently wrong to me.” But Miller’s situation, in their opinion, “is actually a patriarchal dictatorship where Ezra controls all the sex as the man, and plays the women against each other, screams at them, belittles them in front of the others.”

The young people in the actor’s orbit have included a Londoner named Rosie, who tells VF that she is Miller’s “partner,” and Tokata Iron Eyes. Multiple people describe the actor stranding Rosie and Iron Eyes without transportation or money and humiliating them. An old friend partly blames “yes men” who watched it all happen: “Even though I’ve learned that Ezra’s such an asshole, I don’t think it exonerates the people that were happy to eat off Ezra’s plate until it didn’t suit them anymore. I think they ended up probably accidentally being complicit in real weird abuses in power and celebrity.”

Some people who know Miller believe the star weaponizes their gender identity in certain situations. “If somebody pisses off Ezra, they’re transphobic or a transphobic Nazi,” says Iron Eyes’s mother, Jumping Eagle. “Because we’re trying to protect our daughter and we’re trying to point out what Ezra’s done to harm our daughter, now we’re ‘transphobic.’” A queer associate of Miller’s says, “To me, those are clear instances of manipulation, where it’s like, are you really queer? Or is that just a fun way to marginalize yourself so you can be even shittier to others?” Miller’s rep calls this “completely untrue,” saying the actor “stands up for civil rights, gender equality, encourages conversation and discourse, so weaponizing identity runs counter to who they are.”

The actor’s preoccupation with guns is another source of concern, though Vermont is an open-carry state and the only state in the US that has never required a concealed carry permit. Sources say Miller claimed to need guns for security and describe several disturbing scenes involving the actor and firearms. One friend recalls Miller pulling up to meet him with an assault weapon in the center console. Another person remembers Miller burning sage out of the barrel of an AR15 and waving it around while singing. Late last year, Miller allegedly embarked on a meandering road trip with a small entourage, weapons, and a Kevlar vest.

In January, in an incident that further alarmed friends and family, Miller threatened a North Carolina chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in an Instagram video. “Look, if y’all want to die, I suggest just killing yourselves with your own guns, okay?” the actor said, their Flash ring flashing. “Otherwise, keep doing exactly what you’re doing right now—and you know what I’m talking about—then, you know, we’ll do it for you, if that’s what you really want.” In a caption, Miller wrote, “This is not a joke and even though I do recognize myself to be a clown please trust me and take this seriously.”

According to four people close to the situation, Miller’s friends—and, some say, their mother, Marta—were so concerned about the firearms that they locked them in a safe. (One person recalls the guns being locked up after a different scare. A person close to Miller claims the actor locked up the guns voluntarily.) It was the ultimate betrayal to Miller, who saw most roommates scatter after the KKK episode as well. When two friends checked in on Miller later, the scene was pitiful. Says one, “We got there, and there was a big bow and arrow cocked on the table, facing the door. Ezra was lying facedown on the floor,” one says. The house, Ezra’s friend notes, was eerily empty. “There’s always people in the house. And there was just nobody there, but Ezra, sort of drunk, alone with a bow and arrow because the other people had taken the guns and locked them away. And Ezra was freaking out about it.” (In We Need to Talk About Kevin, Miller’s character murders classmates with a bow and arrow. In 2018, the actor told a reporter they kept the weapon from the film on their property.)

During this low point, Miller is said to have put their phone on speaker and begun calling people to fire them in front of a small audience. “He fired every single person, starting from business people, his parents, just every single person, one by one,” says someone who was present. Miller seemed to enjoy the calls: “He’d kind of start giggling after the person would start crying or something.”

When the two longtime friends returned to the actor’s home about a week later, they say Miller had convinced their entourage to give them the safe’s pass code and had restocked weapons. “They had a flame thrower and all these huge AK-47s lying around,” says one. “There were just guns everywhere.” (The actor’s rep says all firearms and ammunition are registered, legal, and locked in an out-of-the-way location.)

It was February now, and two people say the actor was persuaded to get a mental health evaluation. Afterward, Miller told them that they’d brought a gun to meet the case worker and, as a result, been escorted by police to a medical facility. Miller boasted that they passed the evaluation with flying colors.

“Controlling Behavior”

By the time Miller was in Hawaii this spring, the actor no longer resembled the style icon with chiseled cheekbones who once wore daring looks to Met Galas. Miller was emaciated and unshowered, subsisting on energy drinks spiked with rum, gas-station snacks, and “medicine,” according to a witness. “‘Medicine’ just being a code word for whatever drug they’re deciding is medicine that week,” says a second person who has known Miller for over a decade. (The actor’s spokesperson says, “Drug use is not the issue—mental health is the issue.”)

Miller was accompanied by Tokata Iron Eyes, whom the actor met at a protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016. In Hawaii, the actor repeatedly claimed to be acting as Iron Eyes’s adopted guardian, though the teen is alleged to have gone without a phone, money, underwear, socks, or even shelter. The duo lived like drifters—sleeping some nights in a polyester tent pitched atop a volcano. “There was this intensely controlling behavior of Tokata which, at first, I thought was for Tokata’s own good because they were unstable,” says someone who witnessed it. But their perspective changed when Iron Eyes’s parents petitioned for the protective order, claiming that Miller used “violence, intimidation, threat of violence, fear, paranoia, delusions, and drugs to hold sway over a young adolescent Tokata.” Iron Eyes has told Insider that their parents conducted “a disgusting and irresponsible smear campaign against Miller,” adding that the actor “in multiple cases has done the right thing and stood in protection of others.”

It was a strange pairing in Hawaii: a nearly 30-year-old Hollywood actor and a teenage activist. But Miller spun the relationship, say four people. “The story I heard was that [Iron Eyes] was fleeing a family background that was intolerant of their sexuality or gender identity,” says a longtime friend. “That’s a compelling story in 2022. I bought it.” Iron Eyes’s mother refutes this: “We simply want Tokata to be independent, safe, and happy. We don’t want a 30-year-old man or person manipulating and/or taking advantage of her.”

The situation with Iron Eyes’s family is not uncomplicated. Their father, Chase Iron Eyes, pled guilty to burglary and three other felonies in 2003. He’s since reinvented himself as a political leader and taken what some believe is a not entirely selfless interest in Iron Eyes’s activism career. In 2019, Tokata rallied thousands at the Women’s March and the Global Climate Strike, and appeared on Christiane Amanpour’s PBS series. In December 2021, they were interviewed by Angelina Jolie as one of Seventeen’s Voices of the Year.

In late March, Miller and Iron Eyes were in Hawaii at the Hilo Farmers Market when they befriended a member of a polygamous family on the east side of the island. The family has a small booth, and the actor told them that they wanted to trade their Hollywood career for a simple Hawaiian storefront, and needed merchandise to stock. Miller also mentioned that they were with a companion who needed the actor’s help, and that the pair was having issues with lodging. “He acted like he was a righteous man or a man of God, and he’s helping this woman out. ‘She needs some safety,’” says the family patriarch, who asked not to be identified by name, and has had legal issues of his own, including a domestic abuse case that is still pending.

The man and his four “wives”—including the aforementioned Ana—invited the pair to stay on the property with them and their four young children. Strange things happened almost immediately. Miller returned to the house one day following what they said was a run-in with cops, complaining about being unfairly targeted and carrying an armload of toys for the kids. (“He bought Nerf guns for our children and was mansplaining about guns,” says another wife, Kaelyn.) The actor recruited women to help them chainsaw guava trees in the backyard and build a sweat lodge. One day, while strolling a strip mall with the polygamous patriarch, Miller spontaneously bought him a $2,000 diamond- and ruby-encrusted gold lion ring from Kay Jewelers. Miller proposed merging families, according to the father. “It was like, ‘We should be partners forever. I want to take you all around the world,’” says the patriarch. “And I didn’t decline it. I knew the kind of state he was in.”

Kaelyn says that Miller “expressed that they had experienced a lot of trauma and weird shit in the Hollywood scene. And we were like, ‘Hell yeah, we’ll help you out.’” (Speaking to Playboy in 2018, Miller said, “I’ve survived abuse, for sure, in a lot of capacities, starting from a pretty young age.”)

About two weeks after they arrived, Miller and Iron Eyes suddenly left. Family members allege that the actor took Ana, the 25-year-old wife in the home, and her three children with them.

While Miller was in Hawaii, sources say the actor’s divorced parents flew to the island to try to help. Later, Miller showed friends an intensely awkward video they’d made of the tearful family reunion. They laughed as they cued it up. “He was like, ‘Isn’t this the most fucked up shit you’ve ever seen?’” says someone who was there. The source says that Miller has bragged about punishing their father in the wake of the divorce. “He was like, ‘Nobody’s ever been treated as badly as I’ve treated Bob Miller in the past year.’ He was like, ‘I think it’s going to make us ultimately much closer in the future.’”

The source says the situation is similar to what many people who have spent time with the actor have experienced: “The way I describe it is, it’s like you’re in a nonconsensual emotional BDSM relationship with Ezra.” Another source in Hawaii, asked whether he ever witnessed any altercations involving Miller, cuts to the chase even quicker: “Every interaction with Ezra is an altercation.”

“A Hornets Nest”

“What’s good? What’s good? What’s good?”

Ana was doing an Instagram Live from Miller’s farm. Since she joined Miller, she—and others in the strange caravan—had been the subject of social-media attacks, and she wanted to tell her side of the story. “Ezra fucking saved my life,” she said. She’d been stripping to pay the bills, and had started an OnlyFans account. She hadn’t even had enough money to buy diapers, she added, “Now y’all want to call Ezra a cult leader….” she said.

Before she could go on, a small voice chimed in off-screen: “Mom?”

In early August, after the police were dispatched to the Mountain with the order to transfer Ana’s children to the state, the actor began working with a publicist specializing in crisis management.

Though Miller has interfaced with police in at least three precincts in an array of arrests, the actor’s legal problems, through good luck or good lawyering, have mostly gone poof. VF has seen one nondisclosure agreement and heard of a handful of others in what three sources describe as a whack-a-mole style legal strategy of paying off alleged victims. (Miller declined to comment.) No charges were pressed in Iceland. In Hawaii, Miller paid a $500 fine after pleading no contest to a disorderly conduct charge related to the karaoke arrest, as part of a plea deal where other charges were dropped. Other allegations in Hawaii—about Miller hurling a chair at a woman, and breaking into a couple’s home, shouting obscenities, and stealing a passport and other legal documents—were subsequently dropped. A source close to that couple refused to comment, but warned VF, “Don’t poke a hornets nest because one stung a few people.”

Miller is scheduled to appear in Vermont court on September 26 for an arraignment on a felony burglary charge related to the alleged breaking and entering and theft of alcohol. (Miller’s representative says the actor was cooking with their mother, needed rice wine, and grabbed that and another bottle of wine from the home of a close childhood friend. The rep says Miller did not realize that the friend didn’t want to be friends anymore.) The restraining order in Massachusetts concerning the nonbinary 12-year-old will be enforced through June of 2023, according to a source close to the situation. The actor’s rep dismisses the allegation, saying, “Ezra’s lack of interest clearly upset a disappointed fan when they would not engage with the fan or her daughter.” The local police department confirmed it has an active case involving Miller and the 12-year-old based on three interactions the child had with the actor, in April, May, and June of this year. The actor has not been charged with any crimes relating to Ana’s children. Despite being concerned, Ana’s husband, the polygamist, still believes in the integrity of the connection he made with Miller and is still wearing the gold lion ring that the actor gave him.

Online, Miller’s fans battle negative headlines on the star’s behalf. People who have spoken out against Miller on record, or supported their alleged victims, have been attacked and doxed on Twitter. “I know Johnny Depp has a lot of fans and stuff,” says a person close to Miller, who claims that Miller’s fans are even more dedicated. “People devote their time to do this at a time when it’s needed.”

In early August, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav told investors that he was bullish on The Flash and that the movie would go forward with its 2023 theatrical release. The Hollywood Reporter, however, reported that Warner Bros. had discussed scrapping the film. Four days later, Miller released their contrite statement about addressing their “complex mental health issues.”

“The notion that The Flash was at risk was a wake-up call,” says the actor’s rep. Miller and their CAA agent even made a trip to the studio’s Burbank, California, headquarters to apologize for the negative PR in person and express renewed commitment. The actor is now said to be working with producers on The Flash to shoot additional scenes.

Some friends say Miller has been so creative with the truth in the past—and so cavalier about getting mental health treatment—that they have a hard time taking the statement seriously. “If he is going through therapy,” says one, “he’s just acting through it.” But Miller’s spokesperson insists, “They are taking their therapy and treatment very seriously.” Many people hope that’s true. Mary Harron (American Psycho) directed the actor for three days when they played a young Salvador Dalí in Dalíland. “They were very professional and nice to everybody,” she has told VF. “There was no trouble or a sign of trouble on set. So it was very upsetting and terrible to read what happened later. Hopefully they are getting help for what sounds like a very, very serious break.... It doesn’t matter how talented someone is, if they’ve done anything wrong, they have to face it. Clearly this is not just a young star acting out. This seems like something that needs a serious intervention, which I hope has happened.”

As this story went to press, Vanity Fair exchanged messages with Miller’s former fiancée, Erin, who asked to be identified by her first name and whom the actor was dating when they began playing the Flash in 2016. “The Ezra I knew wasn’t violent or physically abusive toward anyone,” she says. “To think back is painful because we had a deep love and he was good to me.” But she does remember darkness after the breakup: “For years he convinced me and all our friends that I was abusive.... But looking back, I would be calling out his disrespect and he wouldn’t take responsibility and just call me abusive because of my reaction. I could have handled it better. I didn’t know the term gaslight back then. I was emotionally fucked up for years.” She says that Miller broke up with her after hiring a spiritual adviser who told the actor that she was a parasite.

When the allegations of Miller being abusive to others surfaced, she admits she was hit with a sick relief: “Maybe I wasn’t the abusive one after all.”

Erin’s feelings are complicated now. “I can make excuses for him all day, but I don’t want to anymore,” she says. “The illusions of grandeur need to be called out. I will love Ezra always, and I don’t want him to continue down this dark road.”

Additional reporting by Anthony Breznican and Savannah Walsh