Natalie Portman Knew Jared Kushner at Harvard and Says He's a "Super Villain"

They were friendly in college.

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What is it about Natalie Portman? She just always seems so sweet. It’s the main reason why her Saturday Night Live gangster rap skits are so iconic—they're just such a reversal of expectation. I mean, the woman even gets a 100 percent Nice rating on Meanstars.com, a website I just found out about while writing this article but which I nevertheless trust implicitly!

So when she says something mean about someone, you get the sense they deserve it. Especially when the person about whom she says the mean thing is Jared Kushner.

On a Thursday night appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Portman said that she and Kushner had gone to Harvard together and even “were friendly.” Past-tense, obviously. She confirmed rumors that Kushner was a bad student in school, and then added, “Unfortunately there’s not a lot funny to say about somebody you were friends with becoming a super villain.” Ouch.

She continued, “He said in an interview that the friends he’s lost because of politics, is like exfoliating.” Colbert joked that Kushner’s comment would make her a dead skin cell. “Proudly,” she replied.

It’s rare to see a celebrity rag on another—would we call Kushner a celebrity? Well, another well-known person. But when it comes to telling the truth about a member of the Trump administration, Portman was clearly willing to make an exception.

My only hope is that this in no way affects her niceness rating on Meanstars.com.

Here’s the full clip of her Colbert appearance:

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Behind the Scenes with Natalie Portman

Cady Drell

Cady has been a writer and editor in Brooklyn for about 10 years. While her earlier career focused primarily on culture and music, her stories—both those she edited and those she wrote—over the last few years have tended to focus on environmentalism, reproductive rights, and feminist issues. She primarily contributes as a freelancer journalist on these subjects while pursuing her degrees. She held staff positions working in both print and online media, at Rolling Stone and Newsweek, and continued this work as a senior editor, first at Glamour until 2018, and then at Marie Claire magazine. She received her Master's in Environmental Conservation Education at New York University in 2021, and is now working toward her JF and Environmental Law Certificate at Elisabeth Haub School of Law in White Plains.