The outside world was very skeptical of MacPherson and DeMille's relationship, as some believed that they might have been having an affair. In 1921, MacPherson told a reporter, "I shall always be grateful for Mr. DeMille's assistance. He is a hard taskmaster and he demands that a thing shall be perfect... It was hard, but it taught me that anything worth doing at all was worth doing perfectly." It was later confirmed by DeMille's niece that MacPherson was in fact one of his three mistresses.