Speaking on the Louis Theroux Podcast, the chef said he had declined to renew the option on the film, which was intended to chart his rise from a council estate in Leeds to becoming the first British-born chef to be awarded three Michelin stars.
In 2019, it was revealed that the biopic was in development, with Russell Crowe attached to play Pierre White.
Around the same time, the chef travelled to Australia to visit the Gladiator star at his home. Shortly afterwards, Crowe and Scott reportedly fell out.
“I’m on the fence and I have to make a decision,” Pierre White told Theroux. “Russell or Ridley. I’ve just spent 10 days with Russell. His mother and father were very kind to me. They all looked after me and made my stay very comfortable and enjoyable. So I went with Russell.
“And then it’s time to renew the option. They want to renew the option and I said no. I’d had time to think about it. I think it’s better they make a movie about me when I’m dead.”
The film has reportedly been in development since around 2015. Michael Fassbender and Tom Hardy have also been linked to the project at various stages.
The 2015 drama Burnt, which starred Bradley Cooper as a talented but troubled London chef, was said to have been partly inspired by Pierre White.
During the podcast, Pierre White also discussed the long-circulated story that he once made Gordon Ramsay cry.
According to Pierre White, the incident took place during a service shortly before Ramsay, then a sous chef in his early 20s, was due to leave Harvey’s.
When asked by Theroux whether he had made Ramsay cry, Pierre White replied that Ramsay had “made himself cry”, adding that he had been chopping onions at the time.
Theroux challenged the account, citing a detailed New York Times article which described Ramsay burying his head in his hands and asking his then boss to hit him.
Pierre White responded by noting that he had previously sued the New York Times for defamation after it claimed he had problems with drugs and alcohol.
“What’s true is Gordon cried,” he said. “And it was his last night, or second-to-last night. It was highly emotional for him.”
Over the course of the hour-long interview, Pierre White disputed a number of comments and stories attributed to him in books and interviews, claiming they had been created by ghostwriters using “poetic licence”.
The full podcast can be found here.