Leonardo DiCaprio has faced renewed criticism for environmental hypocrisy after posting about conservation efforts on Monday, just days after attending Jeff Bezos’s extravagant Venice wedding.
The 50-year-old Oscar winner took to Instagram to announce that Chile’s Guafo Island had been purchased by a private owner and would be protected from coal mining and logging.
He described the island as “critical to global biodiversity and the overall health of our planet.”
The timing of his post sparked immediate backlash on social media. DiCaprio had flown to Venice over the weekend with girlfriend Vittoria Ceretti for the three-day wedding celebration of Bezos and Lauren Sanchez.
According to The Guardian, more than 90 jets flew into Venice airport as celebrities attended the £20 million nuptials.
Reddit users were quick to condemn the actor’s environmental advocacy in light of his attendance at the wedding.
“Leo is a great actor but I never believed that nonsense about him caring about the environment,” one user wrote on the platform.
Another commenter was more direct: “Because he’s a hypocrite. He wants us to believe that he’s environmentally frugal so that he can fly his private jets and use his private yachts. Leonardo DiCaprio has always been a hypocrite and a phony.”
The criticism extended to DiCaprio’s association with Bezos, with users highlighting Amazon’s substantial carbon footprint.
“Wealthy/famous people like this assume their influence on others outweighs the damages they cause personally. As if they are carbon neutral on the backs of others personal sacrifices,” another Reddit user observed.
One user expressed frustration at the environmental impact of private jet travel, writing: “The way any good done by one person recycling for a year is undone by a private jet flight (of which many were probably taken to get to this wedding) makes me feel so cynical and jaded tbh.”
“Anyone who uses a private jet and a private yacht everywhere they go does not care about the environment.
He wants us to limit our usage so he can continue with his extravagance,” another critic added.
“Wow. But he’s always been a hypocrite about environmentalism,” one user simply stated.
It is not known whether DiCaprio took a private jet to the Bezos-Sanchez wedding.
DiCaprio has long positioned himself as an environmental advocate, founding his own foundation 20 years ago to address what he calls a “planetary crisis.”
In a 2022 interview with Deadline, he stated: “I’ve had two great passions in my life. That has been acting, and the protection of the natural world and getting the message out about the climate crisis.”
He added: “I think there’s a worldwide sense of anxiety about the fact that the powers that be, the private sector, governments, are not making the transition fast enough. We literally have a nine-year window.”
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This is not the first time DiCaprio has faced criticism for his travel choices. In January, he and Ceretti flew on a private jet to Mexico during the deadly Los Angeles wildfires.
