Actor Admits He Cut Off His Own Arm to Pose as a Wounded Warrior and Land Roles
Source – Todd Latourette, a one-armed actor in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is coming clean about his past and it turns out the true story is a real whopper.
He spoke with the city’s local news station KOB-TV recently where he admitted that he did not lose his arm while serving in the armed services. In reality, he says he sawed it off during a “psychotic episode.” Since then, he began claiming to be a veteran, which certainly helped him gain acting work in films like George Clooney’s The Men Who Stare At Goats, as well as appearing on shows like Longmire and in Better Call Saul.
“I severed my hand with a Skilsaw,” he explained in the interview. “The state of my mind was a psychotic episode.”
He later explained that he cauterized the wound himself. He also revealed that he is bipolar and this violent act occurred 17 years ago,
“The film industry took a different angle… that I was different, and so they liked that,” Latourette shared. “They trusted me that I was exactly who I said I was. I was a war veteran. I was hired because I lied …
“I was dishonorable. I’m killing my career by doing this, if anyone thinks this was for personal edification, that’s not the case,” he said. “I’m ousting myself from the New Mexico film Industry. And gladly so, just to say what I’ve said.”while he wasn’t taking his medication. But now he’s back on his meds and wants to tell the truth.
Just so you know what he’s talking about, Skilsaw is a brand name. (Side note: I’m more of a Craftsman guy.) They make table saws, handheld saws with reciprocating blades and this little number, which I’m going to assume was the implement of choice for Todd Latourette because it would get through bone without having to change blades:
Just the mental picture of that going through human tissue is nightmare fuel. Imagine doing that to yourself voluntarily to further your career. On second thought, don’t. Do not imagine that at all. And give me a moment to go stare at some flowers or the Tom Brady Fathead on the ceiling above my bed until the badness goes away. …
And, I’m back. Sweet mother of God. I want to be understanding, I really do. Todd Lautourette had a mental illness and has clearly had a Come to Jesus moment by sacrificing his career and his reputation for the truth. All of which he deserves credit for.
But the Stolen Valor thing just cannot be forgiven. Cutting your arm off to get acting jobs, while I don’t recommend it, is almost understandable. Aspiring actors starve themselves, take steroids, get boob jobs and ass implants and Botox treatments. They starve themselves to get skinny and binge to get fat. In a way, putting a circular saw to your arm is just Leonardo DiCaprio flopping around in a frozen lake to get an Oscar taken to its illogical extreme. If Daniel Day-Lewis is going to force the greatest director of all time call him “Mr. President,” who am I to say what’s crazy in show business.
It’s just that your right to hack off your own limbs ends where the claims you’re a Wounded Warrior begins. I repeat Lautourette had issues and is doing the right thing. But why not just tell casting agents he lost his arm in a ski accident? Working with a wood chipper? Sticking his arm out the car window going but a telephone pole, thus proving every mom in the world is right when they said that could happen? Hell, even saying he lost it foiling a liquor store robbery would make him a hero, but not steal from actual injured heroes.
I mean, at some point in 17 years of living this lie, he must have gotten hold of his senses. And found himself among real Wounded Warriors. Men who lost limbs and reproductive organs and faces in combat. Fighting for something they believed in, not just to get their name in the credits of The Men Who Stare at Goats or a cameo in Better Call Saul no one remembers. What did he say to them all that time? Did they tell the stories of how they were hurt and he told them his made up one? Did they share, veteran-to-fake-veteran, the pain of rehab and the anguish of trying to re-acclimate to civilian life with post-traumatic and he said “Yeah, I totally feel ya?” What did he say to the doctors who fit him for the prosthetic while they were taking time away from helping victims of roadside IEDs?
I want to be forgiving, but it’s pretty fucking hard. Mental illness or no. Hopefully this guy will continue this streak of doing the right thing by putting his efforts into helping the real men who earned the sympathy he helped himself to. That would go a lot further than just coming clean and apologizing.