Jared Leto denies sending Margot Robbie a dead rat

Jared Leto has denied sending his co-star Margot Robbie a dead rat while filming 'Suicide Squad'.

The 49-year-old actor-and-singer played the Joker in the 2016 DC movie alongside Margot's Harley Quinn and, five years later, he's rebutted the tale about the bizarre gift he allegedly gave her that circulated at the time and insisted he only gave her a vegan cinnamon bun.

In an interview with GQ about his various movie roles, he said of the superhero flick: “Stepping into the Joker’s shoes is an incredible opportunity. I guess it’s this generation’s version of taking on an infamous Shakespearean character. Lots of people have played the part before, lots of people will play it in the future, so really it’s an opportunity to do something new and to explore challenging territory.”

And addressing the rat rumour, he added: “It’s funny how all this stuff takes on a life of its own. I never gave Margot Robbie a dead rat, that’s not true. I actually gave her a lot of … I found this place in Toronto that had a great vegan cinnamon bun … so that was a very common thing.”

Margot had spoken about rat-gate in an interview at the time, in which she claimed the rodent she was sent was alive.

She explained that she received a "nice love letter with a black box with a rat in it – a live rat".

The 'Mary Queen of Scots' star continued: "If Harley got something from Joker, she’d probably cherish it."

The 30-year-old actress admitted she was scared of the rat at first, but she actually kept it and grew quite fond of her pet, until she had to give it up.

She added: "But then after that … I was like, I’m not going to kill him. So I ended up keeping him as a pet. I ended up getting him like a sweet little playpen, a slide, a hammock, and a leash because I wanted to take him to set and walk him around … But then our landlord at the place I was staying found out.”

This article was first published on BANG Showbiz and is republished here with permission.