Ever get insulted by a celebrity?

Cafe Society
1

My friend got hold of the personal email address of a minor UK celebrity. She found it while reading through my dad’s old stuff, which included a copy of “Who’s Who On Television” with various agent and personal contact details scribbled in beside the people he would soon interview. Dad died years before email but I kept using the book myself for a while, hence the address. UK dopers who watched telly in the eighties would probably remember the lady. She was in a sitcom, but it hasn’t been revived or anything. No idea what she does now.

Anyway my friend was a little drunk one night and wrote a long, very sincere email to this woman. Being drunk, she went overboard on the emotion and how much of a support the minor celebrity’s work had been to her during those dark days. This was all nonsense, but well-intentioned and delivered with reasonable sincerity. The next day she was a little concerned to discover what she’d done, but on reading what she found in “sent mail” she expected to get no reply, or possibly a brief note saying how nice it was to be appreciated. Two days later a reply arrived. It read “Oh FUCK OFF you MORON”.

I just thought it was nice. You know. To be insulted like that. Somehow it seems nicer than just a polite reply. More honest, more real, y’know. In fact I think I’m a fan for the first time. It couldn’t be more different from her onscreen persona.

Did a celebrity ever insult you? Physical violence is acceptable too.

2

It’s always somewhat disheartening to find out one of your celebrity idols is an arrogant asshole. Unfortunately, many of them are.

3

It’s no fun if you don’t tell us who the celebrity was!

4

Many moons ago when I was young and, well, young, I worked in the same building were 60 Minutes is taped. One Friday night my girlfriend and I were going from work to the Copa and stood in front of the building to catch a cab. Also waiting for a cab was Andy Rooney.

Me and my girlfriend, being saavy New Yorkers, walked a little ahead of Andy. And being very young women all dressed up for a night out on the town, caught the eye of a cabbie rather quickly.

We get in the taxi and before we can shut the door the cabby asks, “Do you know that guy?”

Andy Rooney was toddling along on his chubby little legs waving and calling us all kinds of names-- none of which was ‘taxi-stealer’. We shut the door, blew kisses and waved.

We waited for months to hear old Andy start his 60 Minute segment with You ever try to catch a cab and two hoes steal it?

5

Circa 1974. I was a college student. Ralph Nader gave a talk, and I attended a reception afterwards. This was back when one could smoke inside, and I was smoking when I was introduced to Mr. Nader. When he was told my name, I said something stupid like, “Oh, I’m sure you’ll never remember that,” and he glared at me and said, “I never forget people who smoke.”

I didn’t tell him how close he came to be picked up at the airport by me in my Volkswagen Beatle. (At the last second, someone realized that it was a really bad idea, and a substitute driver was found.)

6

I used to work in a pet store on Clark Street in Chicago. One of our most obnoxious customers was Walter Jacobson, disgraced newscaster. (The nicest were Oprah and Joan Cusack.) He came in with his rude rich wife and their two bratty kids once, leaving his car double parked on Clark Street. Driver door hanging open, taking up two lanes of traffic. As I got them rung up and was trying to usher them out, I stood there while they climbed into their car. Traffic was backed up in both directions: cars had to let each other pass, one lane at a time, because he hadn’t left enough room for two lanes of traffic. As he’s climbing in, a passing driver shouts out, “Who do you think you are, WALTER FUCKING JACOBSON?”

OK, so it was the celebrity who was insulted, but he’d insulted a lot of drivers, so maybe this counts. But that’s got to be the funniest goddamn thing you could ever yell at a has-been anchorman.

7

I went to a comedy club years ago and the featured comic was Richard Belzer. For some forgotten reason, I was wearing bib overalls and a flannel shirt. From the stage, he said something to me like “Jesus, you look like you came here straight from the farm!” It was pretty funny.

I’ve never been dissed or anything hurtful. I guess it helps that I’m kind of large and scary-looking.

8

When I was a youngster, my Mom and Step-Dad belonged to some sort of cinema club in L.A. They’d get to see previews of movies and often the director or one of the actors would take questions afterward.

One time Step-Dad couldn’t make it. The film was High Anxiety and Mel Brooks was going to speak after the showing. It was a school night so Mom said I could go but that we would only be able to watch Mel for a few minutes and then leave. So the movie ended and Mel speaks for a bit and then takes questions from the audience. Whenever someone got up to leave, Mel would heckle them mercilessly.

We would have gotten insulted by Mel Brooks but my Mom would have been too embarrassed. We got to stay until the very end!

Haj

9

The cinematographer for The Ice Storm called me a bitch when I worked in a West Village pet store, and was trying to find the UPC number on a leash to exchange it - not CHARGE HIM MORE. I’ve never felt more like hitting someone.

And while it wasn’t directed at me, Meredith Viera pissed me off. At the Daytime Emmys several years ago, a friend was introduced to her in the aisle at Radio City and said how much she admired her, and how pleased she was to meet her. The next day on The View, Meredith Viera went on and on about the little ‘starlet’ and ‘fan’ she’d met at the Daytime Emmys who probably was just trying to snag an acting job out of her. I guess she didn’t realize that my friend was a contract player on a NYC soap - but since they don’t allow ‘fans’ into the front rows of the Emmys (aside from seat fillers, and there’s a VERY tight leash kept on them), and she absolutely knew that, I’ve had serious contempt for the woman ever since.

Ava

10

Heck, the number of people who have been insulted by Cecil Adams are legion. Me, rarely, but from time to time.

But my best celebritiy insult was back in about 1967 or so, when I was chairman of the college film society. We showed a series of films by John Ford and invited him to speak on campus. To our amazement, he accepted, and I and a few others got to spend most of a full day with him. At one point, I asked him some question about one of his films, and he said to me, “You’re a fucking bore. You always want to talk about movies. I don’t want to talk about movies.”

I asked, “What do you want to talk about?” He said, “Baseball,” so we talked about baseball for a while.

I’m quite proud of that. I took it as a compliment. (BTW, this was absolutely in his character, he rarely wanted to talk about his work/art, even though that was why we had him visit…)

When Alfred Hitchcock visited campus, he congratulated me on asking a good question that no one had asked before. But that was clearly a compliment, so doesn’t belong in this thread.

11

Seeing how civilized C K’s encounters are, I’m embarrassed to post this link about a run in I had with local newsman Chauncey Howell.

Wait a minute. I’m not embarrassed at all.

Hobbies: Being Argumentative and Lying.

12

A friend of mine was a theatre manager and previewed a Barbra Streisand movie at her theatre, and Barbra Streisand was there. She treated my friend like crap, like she was just there to serve her. Didn’t call her any bad names or anything, but was just a bitch to her. I never liked Ms. Streisand before, but that kinda sealed it.

Ed Zotti told me to eat shit and die once.

Once I won a contest and Crowded House came to my house (and I jammed with them, yay!) Nick Seymour (the bassist) signed a shirt for me with “Bill you Bastard!” Ok, I’m not sure if that counted as an insult or not.

13

Not so much an insult, but kind of embarrassing:

At a Seniors golf championship tournament, I was following Chi Chi Rodriguez for a few holes. After he finished putting at a hole, I started heading over to the next tee. He must’ve beelined it to his cart, because the next thing I know I feel a bump on the back of my legs, and Chi Chi yells, “Get the hell out of the way!”

I scurried out of his path, and figured he was just being kinda goofy. But as he passed he muttered, “Jeezits!” and looked pretty pissed.

I remembered thinking, “What’s your problem, old man? You just f*cking birdied.”

14

Yes. He decided to become the Governor of my State.

I still haven’t forgiven him. :wally

15

This is third of fourth anecdote I’ve heard about that man acting like an utter prick. A friend of my Father-in-law bought a round of golf with Chi Chi at a charity auction. The story goes that Chi Chi didn’t say a single word to him the whole time.

Haj

16

Tip O’Neil told me, when I was 22 years old, “Son, you don’t look like a Republican.”

For years I took it as a compliment. Now I’m not so sure. :smiley:

17

I work down the street from the Arizona Cardinals training facility. As I was turning the corner onto the street in front of the building, this enormous Escalade comes roaring up the parking lot towards the street I was on. The guy driving slams on the breaks, and through the driver’s side window, I see the middle finger go flying up.

Sure enough. Quarterback Jake “The Snake” Plummer.

I laughed. If I had the job of resident tackling dummy for a twelfth-rate NFL team like the Cardinals, I’d probably be pissed off, too.

They lost something like 45-9 the next weekend. I never laughed so hard in my life. :wally

You can have him, Denver.

18

1990 or so. My high school had its own radio station, and I spent 2 1/2 years as a DJ there. A good friend of my aunt’s is a professional DJ, and has an interview coming up with a certain singer. She calls me, and asks if I’d like to sit in on it.

I say sure.

She tells me that she’s already cleared this with Singer’s people, who thought that it could be good publicity, and also to help show what a nice guy Singer is, all the while also helping someone considering a job in the industry to hone his skills.

So I show up at the studio on the day of the interview, about 1/2 hour ahead of time. Leesa - the DJ - and I catch up on small talk, etc.

Right on time, the door opens. In walks…

…wait for it…

…Donny Osmond!

He comes in, shakes Leesa’s hand, exchanges a few pleasantries with her, and sits down behind his mike.

He then looks over, and sees me sitting in the corner, and takes the headphones off.

“Who’s this?”

Leesa explains that I’m there purely as an observer, and that I’m currently taking some radio/TV classes, etc. He looks at me for a long minute, then asks his assistant if she was aware that I was going to be there.

She tells him that it had been okayed through her.

He looks from her to me, back to her, and says, “Get this fucking faggot out of here.”

All of us just kind of looked at each other. I mean, how often does one hear Mister Mormon, Mister I’m-A-Little-Bit-Rock-&-Roll, call someone a “fucking faggot?”

After an EXTREMELY heavy silence, he then looked at me, and said, “Look, kid…I don’t see you moving your ass. Get out of here. Otherwise, I don’t do the interview.”

What a prick.

19

I insulted a celeb once. I saw Travis Tritt at an airport talking on his cell phone. He was carrying (uneccesarily) his guitar case with all sorts of stickers on it, trying to look cool and scanning for attention seekers (this was in '93). He looked so pathetic trying to be noticed, that as I walked past him I said, just loud enough for him to hear “I got a geetar, someone notice me!” He pretended to not hear me and promptly left.

Billy Corgan, when asked by me for his autograph (he did a good job of blending in the bar, I was the only one that spotted him) rolled his eyes at me and said “Must I?” He did though.

Les Claypool almost put up his dukes when I came running around the corner and almost head-butted him. I thought his security was gonna kick my ass, luckily I slammed on the brakes before I got too close.

I guess I can’t count the insults I’ve recieved by people who later went on to become celebrities or pseudo-celebrities. They wouldn’t make good stories anyway.

20

Sylvester Stallone flipped me the bird and told me to fuck off.

It happened while I was driving down Melrose Avenue in LA and there was some chi-chi restaurant and Sly was in a little two seater Mercedes with some blonde bimbo, he turned his car so it was sideways, blocking both lanes I was in while he was trying to see if the restaurant was open. I knew who it was and was thinking, “what an inconsiderate dick” when the car behind me honked. Stallone thought it was me honking and thus the bird and the nice wish on his behalf.

I used to work nights at a legit theater and saw lots of celebrities. 99% were very nice (so I won’t relate those stories) but notorious pains-in-the-ass were:

Christopher Reeve - royal asshole who threw tantrums, told the staff to fuck off and insulted people who waited back stage to see him.
Shelly Winters - in the audience during intermission a woman came up and politely said, “I have always been a big fan of yours” to which Shelly looked at her like she was feces and said, “who asked you?” Shelly also helped herself to a couple of cookies and a coke at the little bar there and left without paying. When the guy behind the bar went into the theater to get the money, she got nasty and told some woman sitting next to her to “pay off the little prick”.