Michael Moore has claimed that he takes a lot of abuse because of the subject matter that his movies tackle.
He shot to fame in 2002 when he released Bowling for Columbine, which looked at the causes for the Columbine High School massacre and gun culture in America, the film won the Best Documentary Oscar.
He followed this up with Fahrenheit 9/11 and then Sicko, which looked at the state of the American health service.
In an interview with Parade the filmmaker said: "Taking these positions has not made life easy for me and I've had to take a lot of abuse as a result of that, but I'm just me and I have to just say what I think is true, even if it's a bit ahead of where the people are at.
"I don't think we move the ball down the field if we play it safe and run with the pack. So I step out of the pack sometimes and create an unsafe situation for myself. I live with threats and things."
"I keep hearing, 'Michael Moore is Godless and he hates America'. In reality, I've been nothing but somebody who loves this country, who still goes to mass, who's an Eagle Scout, who is married to the same person that I met when I was 17.
"I mean, I have such a conservative life. I'm really a conservative person, so I just try to kind of laugh at this Michael Moore character that [Rush] Limbaugh and Fox News create. But, after a while, you kind of go, 'Whoa, people are starting to believe this stuff'."
His latest movie Capitalism: A Love Story focuses on the financial crisis of 2007-2009 and played at the Venice Film Festival.
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