Have YOU got a story? Email tips@dailymail.com See more Daily Mail on Google - save us as a Preferred SourceBy SAMEER SURI Published: 23:06 BST, 17 July 2026 | Updated: 23:17 BST, 17 July 2026
Titanic actor Billy Zane has let loose about the wild night when scores of people on the set of the film were drugged without their knowledge.In 1996, during the shoot of the Oscars-sweeping classic, a still unidentified culprit slipped PCP into the seafood chowder being served to the cast and crew.At least 50 people including director James Cameron and actor Bill Paxton wound up high on the hallucinogenic, which is also known as angel dust.Many of them flocked to the hospital, while Cameron managed to ward off the drug's strongest effects by making himself vomit and Paxton decided to calm himself down with a case of beer after seeing the forbidding lines at the emergency room. A mystery has hung in the air ever since about who laced the soup with PCP, and when the question was put to Zane, he said slyly: 'I can neither confirm nor deny.'He clarified that he 'wasn't there,' as the scene being shot that evening took place during the 'modern day portion of the film' rather than the period sequences involving his character Caledon 'Cal' Hockley, on the Brotherly Love podcast.The Daily Mail has contacted Zane and Cameron's representatives for comment. Titanic actor Billy Zane has let loose about the night scores of people on the set of the film were drugged; Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, pictured in the movie, were not among them Zane's character Cal (left) is the wealthy fiancé of Kate Winslet's character Rose (right) and the rival of the true object of her affections, the penniless artist Jack played by Leonardo DiCaprioCal is the wealthy fiancé of Kate Winslet's character Rose and thus the rival of the true object of her affections, the penniless artist Jack played by Leonardo DiCaprio.The love triangle unfolds in 1912 aboard the Titanic and culminates with the jilted Cal chasing Rose and Jack around the sinking ship with a gun.When he was asked about the PCP incident, Zane reassured his interviewers that Gloria Stuart, the then 86-year-old actress who played the elderly version of Rose in the 'modern day' framing device, did not drink the drugged soup on the set.'And those who were fortunate enough to have recognized a, you know, early stages of coming onto a hallucinogen were like: "Okay, we're gonna ride this one out,"' said Zane. 'Those who didn't were pretty terrified. So I heard.'He joked that the fracas was the 'true secret to the success of the film,' which became what was then the highest-grossing motion picture of all time, a position it held for 12 years before it was overtaken by Cameron's follow-up Avatar in 2009.Titanic also holds the record for most Oscar wins, with 11 prizes to its name in a three-way tie with Ben-Hur and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Paxton, who played the modern day fortune hunter Brock Lovett in the film, relayed his own version of the PCP story in 2015 on Larry King Now.He recalled his and Cameron's being part of a horde of '150 crew members stumbling into the emergency room of a very small hospital' at 1am in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. At least 50 people including director James Cameron and actor Bill Paxton (pictured in the film) ingested PCP that a still unidentified culprit slipped into the seafood chowder served on set'You see some people are freaking out, some people are conga dancing, some people are euphoric,' the Aliens heartthrob remembered.'I knew I was pretty stoned on something pretty bad,' he said, explaining that he and Cameron 'thought that there was a neurotoxin in the clams. We didn't know what it was. We thought maybe the clams had been left out in the sun or whatever.'Given the throngs of his colleagues waiting to be seen at the hospital, Paxton told Cameron he was opting for a more readily available form of treatment.'But I figured, while they examine all these other 100 people, I said to Jim: "Jim, I'm not gonna hang out here. This is bedlam. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna wander" - 'cause it was only a few blocks from the set - "I'm gonna wander back down and just drink a case of beer." Which is what I did, and that seemed to help me.'
