There’s a battle behind the scenes of “The Walk” — about Philippe Petit’s midair balancing act between the Twin Towers — with one of the movie’s subjects saying Petit walked a tightrope to fame and then dropped the friends who helped him make it to the top.
Jean-Louis Blondeau — who was Petit’s official photographer and helped him execute his death-defying stunt — blasted the movie to Page Six as “a fantasy about Philippe’s book . . . they promote it as the true story, and that cannot be.” He also claims of his former pal, “When it comes to fame, nobody else can have even a bit, 1 percent of light. It’s already a competition for him.”
Blondeau, who was absent from the glittering New York Film Festival premiere Sept. 26, still hasn’t seen the movie. “I saw the trailer and from what I see . . . there is nothing that is showing me what is true,” he told Page Six. “It’s a fairy tale. Good for them, but it’s not the true story.”
He also criticized an Oscar-winning 2008 doc on the feat: “How do you say bulls - - t politely? . . . He’s the hero of this thing. There is no doubt about that. But there are two things. The walk and the planning of the walk. The planning and the making of the walk is me, and the guy walking the walk is him . . . but Philippe wanted to get all the credit.” And, “It’s his dream. His poetry. My part was to plan the whole thing.”
Blondeau claims he had a falling out with Petit when he was not invited to the premiere of the documentary. “He wants all the credit for himself. I don’t care [about] being famous, that’s not what I’m after. I’m after friendship,” he said.
But Petit’s rep tells us Petit did invite Blondeau to the doc premiere, and Blondeau didn’t come because his father was ill. The rep said, “This is turning into a travesty and it’s unfortunate . . . Let’s just say his memory is distorted by the fact that he’s not the star, he never was . . . It’s unfortunate that he never did anything with his life.”
She added: “These guys were friends for 40 years, and in Philippe’s heart they are still friends. No one knows what turned Jean 180 degrees into such a spiteful human being, but it’s tough.”