The most aggravating fake quote in existence...

“I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.”
 

-Marilyn Monroe

 

            Unsurprisingly, it took me a mere five seconds to find this quote. I had only to type “Marilyn Monroe” into Google before my laptop screen was filled with this statement repeated 100 times over. Lately, it seems that this is everyone’s favorite quote. Last spring, Nicki Minaj further legitimized it by using it as the basis for a song in which she compares her plight with that of the late Marilyn. No comment…

            I don’t know Nicki, but I do know that she made a mistake with this quote. Six years ago, I was a high school freshman only just beginning to discover a passion for films and an admiration of the wise, talented actress of today’s post. At that time, I bought into the quote that now has me sighing in frustration whenever I see it online or on somebody’s body in tattoo form.

            This quote just screams, “I’m fake!” to me. Never in my six years of reading and watching interviews and flipping through biographies have I come across this quote. And I can almost guarantee that if you asked someone in their 80s (someone who was alive when Monroe was), they’d say the same. The quote simply doesn’t have a source. Plus, the more interviews I listen to, the more obvious it becomes that it simply doesn’t sound like Marilyn Monroe. Content of the message aside, the statement is too pre-packaged. Marilyn’s interviews are fun to listen to because she didn’t speak in platitudes. She had wit, yet she spoke freely. She stumbled over her thoughts, she took long pauses and she stuttered occasionally. In other words, she spoke like an actual person rather than like the robot she’d almost have to be to come out with the above, neatly-packaged statement on a whim.

            Now let’s consider the words themselves. “Selfish, impatient and a little insecure” are all attributes that we popularly attribute to Marilyn Monroe the legend. Marilyn Monroe the woman was far too complex to be defined by any one statement, and I’m certainly not going to attempt that here. But listen to her interviews. She rarely listed off her faults without offering any context, and I can’t see her saying to any interviewer, “I am out of control.” Interestingly, that part of the quote doesn’t always appear. People will tweak these fake quotes to suit their own interpretation of the person in question.

            If you like this quote, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t. To be honest, I’d probably enjoy it much more if it wasn’t constantly attributed to someone whom I know did not say it.  To ask Nicki Minaj's question, "Is this how Marilyn Monroe felt?" I don't know. Maybe she did. But she never said so in words. As far as I’m concerned, her real quotes were infinitely wittier, wiser and more inspiring.

“Those things the press has been saying about me [are fine] if they want to give the wrong impression. It’s as simple as all that. I’m not interested in being a millionaire. The one thing a person wants most in life is usually something basic that money can’t buy. I’m not the girl next door - I’m not a goody-goody - but I think I’m human.”

        -Marilyn Monroe to George Barris in 1962