It turns out that Kathy Bates wasn’t James Cameron’s first choice for the role of Margaret “Molly” Brown in 1997’s blockbuster Titanic. American singer and actress Reba McEntire recently revealed that she was offered the role first, but decided to turn it down.
The 63-year-old “How Blue” singer made an appearance on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen and took part in one of the games titled “The McEntire Truth.” The game featured Rosewood‘s Morris Chestnut having to guess if random facts about McEntire were true or false. The final question Chestnut had to make up his mind on was whether the rumor about her turning down a role in Titanic was true. He said it was the truth, and it turns out he was right.
Reba McEntire said that rumor is “very true” and then offered an explanation for her decision.
“We were on tour and I had a lot of people on the payroll, and we had these three months already scheduled to do the movie and then they got behind on scheduling and said, ‘We’re gonna have to move it in this time,'” McEntire said. “We couldn’t reschedule all the arenas and everything.”
You can watch the entire segment in the video below.
The character of Margaret “Molly” Brown was based on a real-life person who survived the Titanic catastrophe. In the movie, we meet her as a friendly woman who borrows Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) a tuxedo so he can attend dinner in the first-class dining saloon. In real life, she played a big role in the rescue of the surviving passengers from the Titanic.
