James Dean was blackmailed by a former male lover who threatened to dump him on the eve of his big screen break, according to a new book.

IN “Jimmy: The Secret Life of James Dean,” to be released Tuesday, author Jason Colavito claims the embattled Hollywood icon paid $800 to publicity executive Rogers Brackett just days before his first film, “East of Eden,” was set to open, averting a public scandal that would have cost him his career in the homophobic 1950s.

In excerpts published by DailyMailtells Colavito about the disastrous affair that left Dean feeling sexually abused.

“I didn’t know it was the whore who paid – I thought it was the other way around,” Dean reportedly said.

The $800 extortion — around $9,395 today, per Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis — was a huge sum at a time when the median salary for a man in the US was around $3,100 a year, per the DailyMail.

Dean and Brackett met in 1951, when Dean was a valet neighbor of the CBS studios, where the radio drama “Alias ​​Jane Doe”—produced by Brackett’s advertising agency—was taped.

Rich and older than Dean, Brackett was “struck by the golden beauty of the youth who took his keys,” according to Colavito. When Dean told the manager he was an actor, Brackett reportedly said he would keep the handsome youngster in mind for roles on the radio show.

Not long after, Colavito says an “infected” Brackett found a role for Dean in “Alias ​​Jane Doe”, and Dean quickly became attached to Brackett.

“Although these feelings scared Dean, Brackett unlocked something that Dean had guarded so closely that it had threatened to break him,” Colavito claims.

When a destitute Dean was on the verge of homelessness, Brackett reportedly asked the actor to move in with him. But the relationship became strained.

“Jimmy was like a child. He misbehaved just to get attention,” Brackett said of Dean years later. “(H)e was a child that I loved, sometimes parent, sometimes not parent.”

After a tumultuous romance, the couple separated and Brackett moved to Chicago while Dean moved to New York City.

Despite their distance, an impoverished dean accepted financial support from Brackett, who—with “great reluctance”—gave over $1,000 to the actor, including $450 for hotel bills and more than $700 spent on gifts and loans.

During this period, Dean saw Brackett as “increasingly desperate” and “manipulative,” Colavito writes. The advertiser allegedly introduced Dean to influential friends who made it clear they wanted sex with the handsome hunk.

Brackett reportedly continued to help Dean’s career, working with his rolodex to secure Dean a role in the 1952 Broadway play, “See the Jaguar.”

After drifting apart, Brackett came back into Dean’s life just as the actor’s career was on the rise and his rock bottom was coming.

In March 1955, just weeks before the premiere of Dean’s first film, “East of Eden”, Brackett, now unemployed and wanting to raise money for an opera he was trying to produce with composer Alec Wilder, asked Dean to give him 1 $200 cash back. for the financial support he gave the star during his first days in New York.

“Brackett pressed Dean for a drink and, in a more conciliatory tone, asked him for money — a loan, he called it,” Colavito writes.

“The frankness of the request shocked Dean, who had come to believe that his time ‘dancing’ for Brackett’s friends had been abuse.”

Colavito claims Dean told Brackett, “Sorry, Pops.”

But after a verbal barrage from Wilder, filled with the implications of the damage Brackett could do to his budding career, Dean reluctantly agreed to write an apology to his former paramour.

Unfortunately for Dean, the letter didn’t end the matter, and Brackett sent the future Oscar nominee a legal demand for the funds, filing a lawsuit in New York Municipal Court for $1,100.

“Implicit in the correspondence and conversations between Brackett’s team and Dean’s is the threat that the lawsuit could become public, which both Brackett and Dean knew would destroy Dean’s career,” Colavito told the DailyMail.

Wanting to “avoid a scandal when he could least afford one,” Dean settled with Brackett and agreed to pay $800 in weekly installments of $100, according to court documents obtained by Colavito and published in his book.

Dean’s agent also got “East of Eden” distributor Warner Bros. to pay Brackett a large “finder’s fee” to guarantee his “continued silence,” according to the author.

According to court documents, Brackett’s suit makes no mention of his and Dean’s affair, only the expenses he said he owed.

“This story has never been told before, and all parties involved worked hard to make sure no one ever found out,” Colavito told the DailyMail.

“And for seventy years, no one did. The only reason we know about it today is because Dean’s agent secretly kept copies of his papers hidden for decades.”

Dean died in a tragic car accident just six months after “East of Eden” premiered.