People Are Just Realising What Coyote Ugly Was Actually Based On

What do the Julia Roberts 2010 flick “Eat, Pray, Love” and the cult classic Coyote Ugly, released a decade before it, have in common? It’s not the vibes, it’s definitely not the soundtracks, it’s actually author Elizabeth Gilbert.

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of bestselling books such as Eat Pray Love and Big Magic is actually at least partly responsible for the big magic of Coyote Ugly. 

That’s right, while the two might seem worlds apart, Elizabeth Gilbert was actually a bartender at the original Coyote Ugly bar in the East Village, NYC.

While in a Facebook post the writer said that she was “dancing on the bar and everything” at the time, she tended to opt for sensible shoes and long tops which isn’t quite the vibe we know and love.

How did Elizabeth Gilbert inspire the Coyote Ugly movie?

This has come to light following a TikTok creator called Alwyn Hamilton highlighting that the two films are related and, in fact, the protagonist in each movie is actually the same person, though they might seem lightyears apart in attitude and demeanour.

So, the bar-dancing, hip-swinging woman we saw in Coyote Ugly goes on to become the soul-searching, earth-wandering woman in Eat, Pray, Love. 

The two stories were based on Elizabeth’s experiences. The Coyote Ugly days of her life were detailed in an essay written for GQ in 1997 called, ‘The Muse of the Coyote Ugly saloon’ and of course, Eat, Pray, Love is a memoir of Elizabeth’s breakdown and recovery and was published in 2006.

It might not be the most obvious double-bill but the two films give an insightful glimpse into the writer’s incredible life over two decades.