Quentin Tarantino's old vow never to give his mother 'a penny' is making the rounds again

Quentin Tarantino stayed in the headlines this week for a reason that has nothing to do with a new movie. A story he told on a podcast five years ago, about a promise he made himself as a kid never to share his success with his mother, is circulating widely again. Fortune wrote on Wednesday that the vow “is currently going viral years later on social media.”

It lands in the same week Tarantino surprised an AFI Fest crowd with the first 17 minutes of “The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth,” which kept his name in entertainment news.

What did Quentin Tarantino say about his mother?

The comments come from a 2021 episode of “The Moment With Brian Koppelman.” As the Los Angeles Times reported at the time, Tarantino said that when he was about 12, his mother, Connie Zastoupil, scolded him about school and mocked what she called his “little writing career,” saying it was over.

“OK, lady, when I become a successful writer, you will never see Penny One from my success,” he recalled thinking, per the Times. “There will be no house for you. There’s no vacation for you. No Elvis Cadillac for mommy.”

He said he kept that promise, with one exception: “I helped her out of a jam with the IRS, but no house,” he said. “No Cadillac.”

Is the story new?

No. The interview is from 2021, and the quotes are the same ones reported then. What is new is the renewed attention: Fortune’s Oct. 28 article revisited the anecdote and tied it to Tarantino’s careful approach to money, including his advice to director Eli Roth not to buy a house too soon after early success.

What did his mother say?

Context matters here, and it was part of the original coverage. The Los Angeles Times noted that even on the podcast, Tarantino quietly acknowledged she probably just meant he shouldn’t write when he was supposed to be doing schoolwork, and he sounded only half-serious when he delivered the punchline.

His mother responded in 2021 with a statement to USA Today, quoted by the Times, saying she would not “participate in this salacious transactional media frenzy.” She added: “Regarding my son Quentin — I support him, I’m proud of him and love him and his growing new family.”

What is Tarantino working on now?

He told the AFI Fest audience that, as he gets older, “being a man of letters is more my thing,” The Hollywood Reporter reported: screenplays, books and plays, “everything except poetry.” He wrote “The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth,” which David Fincher directed with Brad Pitt returning as Booth. The film opens in IMAX on Nov. 25 and streams on Netflix starting Dec. 23, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

He is also heading into rehearsals for his first stage play, “The Popinjay Cavalier.”

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Earlier coverage: Quentin Tarantino teases 'Cliff Booth' at AFI Fest, puts his tenth film on hold for a West End play (Oct 28)