Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood: Quentin Tarantino novel reveals whether Brad Pitt’s character Cliff Booth killed his wife

Warning: the story below contains spoilers for Quentin Tarentino’s novelisation of Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood.

A new novel by Quentin Tarantino has answered one of the biggest mysteries in his film Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood.

The book, released on Tuesday, is a novelisation of the 2019 comedy-drama starring Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio.

In the movie, Pitt’s character Cliff Booth is implied to have potentially killed his wife, although the film leaves this particular plot point open-ended.

The novel, however, takes a much more definitive approach.

In the book, Tarantino clearly states that Booth got away with murder several times.

“The second time was when Cliff killed his wife two years earlier,” he writes, confirming that Booth did, in fact, commit the murder.

Before the novel’s release, Pitt had told the LA Times that he knew whether his character had killed his wife, but declined to reveal the answer.

“That, I will never tell,” he told the newspaper in 2019.

Pitt won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Booth in the film. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood was nominated for 10 Academy Awards at the 2020 ceremony, including Best Picture and Best Director.

Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, the novel, is out at HarperCollins in the US and W&N in the UK.