Newly-Resurfaced Interview Reveals Actress Mischa Barton Was Encouraged to Sleep With Leonardo DiCaprio to Help Her Career At Age 19

Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP

A resurfaced interview revealed actress Mischa Barton was encouraged to sleep with a much older Leonardo DiCaprio to help her growing career.

In recent weeks DiCaprio has made headlines after a rumor circulated that he was courting 19-year-old model Eden Polani. Many articles have pointed out that DiCaprio tends to only date his girlfriends until their 25th birthday.

According to Page Six, when Dicaprio’s odd dating history made news, so did a resurfaced interview with Barton in 2005.

Barton, an actress known for her roles in The O.C. and The Sixth Sense, told Harper’s Bazaar back in 2005 that at the young age of 19, she was encouraged by her publicist to sleep with Dicaprio to boost her career.

Barton and her publicist Craig Schneider had run into Dicaprio at a photoshoot in Malibu, California. At the time, he had just called it quits with longtime girlfriend Gisele Bündchen, who was 24 at the time.

Barton recalled that Schneider told her, “for the sake of your career, go and sleep with that man.”

She disagreed with the idea, noting that Dicaprio was nearly ten years older than her, telling the magazine, “Isn’t Leo, like, 30 or something?”

Last year, the Titanic star ended his longterm relationship with 25-year-old model Camila Morrone and has since been linked to Gigi Hadid and actress Victoria Lamas, per TMZ.