Famed director Morgan Spurlock died at age 53 on Thursday, May 23, after complications from cancer.
“It was a sad day, as we said goodbye to my brother Morgan,” Craig Spurlock shared in a statement to Us Weekly. “Morgan gave so much through his art, ideas and generosity. Today the world has lost a true creative genius and a special man. I am so proud to have worked together with him.”
Spurlock died in New York on Thursday, surrounded by family and friends, the statement continued.
The filmmaker was known for the 2004 film Super Size Me in which he ate McDonald’s every day for a month. Spurlock received an Academy Award nomination in the Best Documentary Feature category the following year.
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Over the years, Spurlock has been candid about the long-term effects that Super Size Me had on his general health — but admitted he still loved a good burger.
“I think the biggest thing that happened after that movie was that it really turned me into someone who reads labels,” he shared in a 2010 interview. “It made me a really conscious consumer in a way I never had been, and I think that’s the greatest thing that could happen.”
During the same conversation, he revealed that his “ability to gain weight” was the biggest impact from making the movie.
“I can put on four or five pounds in a weekend so easily,” he shared. “It’s incredible how my body has kind of lost its resiliency.”
Aside from Super Size Me, Spurlock also worked alongside One Direction, directing their 2013 documentary, This Is Us.
“They’re incredibly charming guys who are very likeable, and you can’t help but root for them,” Spurlock told Teen Vogue, in part, about the group — then comprised of Harry Styles, Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik and Niall Horan — in 2013. “What this film will do is show people a side of the boys that they haven’t gotten to see.”
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Years later, in 2017, Spurlock was gearing up to release Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken! At the time, he penned a blog post — which garnered widespread backlash — at the height of the #MeToo movement, admitting to sexual misconduct and calling himself “part of the problem” in Hollywood. He entered rehab for alcohol abuse shortly thereafter and eventually had a low key release for the Super Size Me sequel.
Spurlock discussed his decision to release the blog post during a 2019 interview with Deadline, noting that he regretted the impact it had on his family and those close to him.
“It started off with me thinking I needed to first talk about my depression and talk about what I’d been going through, the way I emotionally felt at the time. And then it just kind of grew into a much bigger thing for me,” he admitted. “It became this stream of consciousness emotional purge that I just had to get out. This moment where it’s like, I have to talk about this. Whether it was a moment of clarity or guilt, I felt like I needed to own up to things that happened in my past. As somebody who has made a career out of trying to find the truth and to talk about things … I wanted to say that I can do better, I can be better.”
