Clint Eastwood Awaits ‘True Crime’, Praises Trump And Carson, Considers 2016 GOP Convention

Actor-director-producer Clint Eastwood, the center of online buzz regarding his 1999 film True Crime making its blue-ray debut in May 2016, has been openly supportive of Donald Trump and Ben Carson. However, Eastwood has remained noncommittal about showing up at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, in light of his controversial speech at the 2012 Convention in Tampa.

According to High-Def Digest, the 1999 classic True Crime in which Clint plays Everett, a veteran reporter trying to save an innocent prisoner on death row, is slated for release on Blu-ray by Warner Bros. for May 3, 2016. Eastwood’s character going through an identity crisis as a boozer, a skirt chaser, and a careless father, is a reflection of the actor’s own state-of-being with two daughters from different women and his reputation as a flamboyant “Republican.”

During an interview with Extra on December 24, 2015, Clint revealed his thoughts on real estate billionaire Donald Trump as a presidential contender. When Co-host Mario Lopez asked Eastwood about his feelings on Trump, the veteran Hollywood actor said he viewed the G.O.P. frontrunner as filling a desire of what people want in a candidate.

According to Breitbart, Clint thought quite a few of the GOP contenders were “really good people.” Eastwood told Lopez that Ben Carson and any of the candidates would be better than the current president, Barack Obama.

“You know, I don’t know. I think people are looking for somebody who is outspoken and who isn’t afraid. And he seems to have kind of a fearless attitude. I like Ben Carson because he is kind of a common sense guy. Anyone of them would be better than what we got.”

Though registered as a Republican in order to vote for Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 and support Richard Nixon’s 1968 and 1972 presidential campaigns, Clint has often referred to himself as a Libertarian. The self-revelation did not stop Eastwood from endorsing Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election and delivering a widely-panned prime time speech at the 2012 Republican National Convention. The Hollywood star performed a soliloquy to an empty chair, pretending it held Barack Obama, and got varied reactions from pundits, some of whom expressed dismay.

Before their marriage came apart in 2012, Dina and Clint Eastwood were a staid and quiet couple who preferred the seaside hamlet of Carmel, California, to the glitzy estates of Hollywood. Former TV anchor Dina seemed to complete the legendary actor from the time they became a wedded couple in 1996. The two were often spotted taking their daughter Morgan to school, or shopping together at Whole Foods.

According to People, their marriage meltdown began when Dina got involved in the Mrs. Eastwood and Company reality show, averaging around 1 million viewers per episode. The show which featured Dina, daughters Morgan and Francesca Eastwood (Clint’s daughter with actress Frances Fisher), though successful, seemed to run counter to his privacy rule. Even as the occasional guest star, Eastwood was visibly uncomfortable with the whole setup.

The seemingly bullet-proof marriage imploded by June 2012, with the show still ramping up its initial airing on E!. Though the Eastwoods both generally stayed at the family dwelling in Carmel, People reported them living in separate rooms, and that the aging Clint Eastwood had stopped wearing his wedding ring.

The rift between the two widened when Dina sought solace with Scott Fisher, a high school friend who had gone to Perth to play for the Australian basketball league, before returning Stateside for a job as assistant coach at the University of Hawaii. Then, Scott’s ex-wife Erica Fisher contacted Clint Eastwood in 2013 regarding Scott’s relationship with Dina, and by March Clint and Erica had their own relationship going.

According to E! Online, Clint and Dina Eastwood finally divorced in 2014. A judge’s signature rendered the 84-year-old director and his wife of 18 years officially split on Tuesday, December 23, 2014. After Dina, 49, filed for divorce in October 2013 their daughter had been a contentious issue that was resolved when the judge made them parents to 18-year-old Morgan together. No longer a minor, Morgan was spared a custody battle. Meanwhile the financial consequences of the split have been kept confidential.

During the Extra interview, Mario Lopez also asked Clint about the likelihood of his showing up at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, considering his Tampa experience in 2012. Eastwood’s reply was that he might not be wanted.

“They might not want me this year because I’ll be talking to chairs and doing something stupid.”

[Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images]