Sometimes meeting the one whom you admire or are very fond of can be good experience.
But sometimes the tables can turn, and the experience of meeting your celebrity crush can result in a bad experience.
From the worst to the weirdest to the wackiest, here are 24 celebrity encounters that did not go as planned.
“I was a little kid in the 70s. Like pretty much every little boy, I thought Evel Knievel was really cool. When I was about 7, I was in the airport with my mom and her boyfriend and a friend of mine. My mother’s boyfriend told us that Evel was in one of the lounges.
We both approached him excitedly and asked for his autograph. He was obviously drunk, but he picked up a couple of cocktail napkins and scratched out his signature on both of them. Then he looked at us and said, “Before I give you these, I’m going to teach you something.” My friend at I looked at each other, totally starstruck and grinning like idiots.
Evel proceeded to tap both of us on the arm. “Does that hurt?” he asked. We both shook our heads and said no. Then he poked us lightly in the chest, “does that hurt?” Again we both said no in unison. Then he made fists out of both hands with the middle knuckle sticking out and brought them down sharply and simultaneously, protruding knuckle first, onto both of our heads. “Does that hurt?” he asked. Neither of us could really answer, I was holding back tears from the pain. He waited a few seconds and said: “That’s why you wear a safety helmet,” and handed us the napkins.” (msjtx)
“I’m not really into movie stars, etc. but can get just as excited as anyone else when I meet someone famous.
Several seasons ago I was at an Islanders game when every stoppage of play people was walking up to someone and taking a picture with them. My buddy asked me who it was and I said I had no idea. The person behind me said it was Sean Astin from The Lord of the Rings movies. It looked like he had lost a ton of weight but seemed to be him so I went over and asked to take a picture with him the next stoppage of play.
He was a cool guy! I told him how I grew up with the LOTR books as a child and loved the movies, Goonies was definitely my favorite movie as a child, and how I still cry at the end of Rudy. He was a good sport about it and kept telling me how great those movies were. Anyway, I get home and I was showing my (then) girlfriend the pictures and she cracked up. I didn’t get pictures with Sean Astin. I got pictures with Kevin Connolly from Entourage – a show I have still never seen. Apparently, he’s a huge Islanders fan.
Poor guy listened to me ramble on and on about Sean Astin’s movies for two minutes and didn’t have the heart to tell me I had the wrong guy.”
“I used to wait tables at Planet Hollywood in Orlando. One day, Wesley Snipes and his family came in. The manager told me and another waiter to serve just him and his family, no other customers. There was like 10 of them, kids, grandma, etc…. Anyway, we served them for about two hours, they got their meal fully comped so they didn’t pay anything for the food, and left me and the other waiter a massive tip. Guess how much…. ZERO. Nothing, not one dollar, and they got well over $200 of free food.” (macmac360)
“I grew up in NYC, so I saw and met and hung out with a lot of famous people. But the worst was Lauren Hutton, a model/wannabe actress. I was working at a Godiva store that had a small cafe with cake and ice cream. My dad had a crush on her, so I was extra nice. I don’t ask for autographs, but I figured as she was done I’d ask for my dad.
She ordered a hot chocolate. I made it and brought it to her table. Not good enough — she wanted it literally boiling when I put it down. I smiled, apologized, heated it and brought it back with heat bubbles on top.
Again, not good enough. I boiled the damn thing until it literally burned my hand boiling over and finally, FINALLY, it was ok.
I took care of my 2nd-degree burn until I had to ring her up (she had to wait a while for the hot chocolate to cool before drinking it, which drove me nuts. Why did she need it brought boiling only to wait while it cooled?)
I don’t remember the exact amount, but she had me break a hundred dollar bill and there were coins, a few singles, and a five, plus some twenties. She dropped the coins on my burned hand and left. I wanted to punch her by that point.
So, instead of her autograph, I had a burn on my hand which, over 20 years later, is faded but still there.” (Dee Kat)
“I was a physics graduate student at Iowa. I heard from a friend who was an astronomy student that Neil deGrasse Tyson, who was going to have a public talk on campus, was also going to give a “surprise “ lecture to the intro astronomy class for which he was a teaching assistant. He told a few of us that we could show up as well, but to generally keep it quiet.
My research group was taking a 12-hour road trip to go to a conference the weekend before his impromptu lecture on campus the following Monday. We all wanted to be there for it, so we left the conference as early as possible, drove all night to get back in enough time to take a shower, and then head to intro astronomy.
He started off very pompously and stated that he would take questions, but he would move onto to the next question if anyone began their question with the word “Um”. He held to his claim without remorse. When he got to me, my voice was a bit rough from driving all night, and though I didn’t say “um”, the two words sounded quite muffled. He assumed I said his peeve and moved on.” (Brad Button)
“Johnny Carson was one of my favorite entertainers, but I stopped admiring him when my girlfriend at the time and I went for a nice Sunday drive around Beverly Hills in my spanking new SAAB.
As we were leaving the community, I slowed to make a right turn and a large white Mercedes rode up on my tail and started honking. I looked in the mirror and it was Mr. Carson. I made my turn and he followed. Still on my tail, honking continuously, I could see him laughing with his fellow passengers. There was no traffic this particular Sunday morning and he could have easily passed me in the second lane on the road we were on. But he insisted on staying right behind me honking all the way down the miracle mile. I finally pulled the curb expecting him to follow me. Instead, he drove on by and his passenger flipped me off.” (Christ DuFault)
“Keira Knightley and her plus one were at a bar / theatre / TV studio I used to work at. My manager told me to take a bowl of olives outside to her table.
My hands were shaking so hard. She’s even more beautiful in real life. I tripped on the leg of the table before hers and landed right on my face. She was ridiculously nice about it. I was mortified. Two of my colleagues were on a break a few tables over and I never heard the end of it.” (wear_my_socks)
“This is embarrassing for me. I ran into Adam Savage one time at 4 am
Strike 1: don’t talk to anyone in an airport at 4am. They’re just as delirious and tired as you are.
Strike 2: don’t say his co-host’s name when you try to say hi.
He tweeted about 5 minutes later complaining about idiots in airports trying to say hi by calling him Jamie…
Learn from my mistake.” (alphex)
“I’ve worked with hundreds of celebs and I would no more say one of them was a jerk than I would say that about my own family. As a director, they’re all my children, some better behaved than others…and the ones who really acted up were just reliving their terrible twos again. The most childish ever was a rock star on a TV commercial, someone I admired…who insisted that he knew more about lighting than my Oscar-winning lighting team…I usually pretend to agree and tweak a few things but on that day I told him, “No…the light is perfect, you look great…roll camera….action!” So at that point, no matter what he did was perfect for us. Stormoffsett? Perfect! Look mad? Perfect! Do what we told him to do? Even more perfect! Do I still admire him? No more than I admire crying babies on airplanes.” (Sorry Niven)
“I creeped out David Sedaris at a book signing. He’d been signing books for 3+ hours, and I was the last person in line. I acted like a starstruck lunatic and he gamely made small talk, and then…I stuck out my hand for a handshake. Which is a dumb, imprudent thing to do to a captive celebrity in any case, but to compound the error, anyone who’s read Sedaris’s books knows he’s a germophobe. The look of disdain on his face will haunt me forever.” (Anonymous)
deadmau5 once gave me a solid cussing when I refused to let him into the VIP area at a major festival.
Why? He was carrying a lot of expensive photography equipment, wanting to enter a restricted area without an escort from the press team.
Also, I didn’t know what he looked like without the helmet. So most of the cussing was in the line of “don’t you know who the fuck I am?!” and “I’m your motherf***ing headline artist.”‘ (b90)
“I used to run a candy store and Joe Montana lived in town. He came in one day with his wife in the early afternoon. A construction worker from across the street walked across the street and came in. He walked up to Joe and said “My family had a lot of issues while I was growing u,p but I wanted to tell you that we always sat down on Sunday and watched you play for the niners. I just wanted to thank you for those memories.” Montana turned to him and says “Sorry buddy, you’ve got the wrong guy”. He apologized, looked confused and left.
His wife used her credit card to pay for the trip, and I check her ID. Sure as hell, Jennifer Montana.” (tesoro12)
“I met George R. R. Martin at the Blaze Pizza in Evanston a couple of months back when he was in town to accept an award from Northwestern University. At the time, I was listening to the audiobook of A Clash of Kings, and he very excitedly told me, “You’ve got a ways to go to catch up!” When I told him that I’ve already read what he’s published three times, and am listening to the audiobook as a new way to experience the story, he just kind of … deflated. He let out a big sigh, and just said, “Yeah, I need to finish the next book. People won’t stop bothering me about it.”‘ (rmpriest)
“Alan Alda.
I met him at the Lord Baltimore Hotel (in downtown Baltimore, MD). Our group of 4 or 5 was having a round of cocktails, and one of our company thought that she recognized Alda.
She wanted to approach him for an autograph, but I shushed her and said to give the man his peace. Instead, I suggested we buy him a drink and send an appreciative note along with it. So the waiter was instructed to make another of whatever Alan was drinking on our tab, and deliver it with the note. If he cared to respond, it would be entirely at his own volition. The note was something like this:
Dear Mr. Alda, we just wanted you to know how much we enjoy your fine acting, and hope you are enjoying your stay in Charm City. This drink is on us. Thanks.
The waiter delivered the drink, then came back to our table, bringing the drink and our note with him. Mr. Alda does not accept your drink and has asked not to be bothered any further.
Oh, well.” (John Geare)
“Back in the early 90’s, after a dope concert, my brother and I were at the hotel that all of the acts were staying at. We were waiting for the elevator, and when the door opened, lo and behold, Big Boi from Outkast was standing there! We were huge fans, so we were super excited, to say the least. I don’t think we were too extra, but, at that time, the Dungeon Family was our new Native Tongues, and Outkast was A Tribe Called Quest…. except from the South, so we may have squealed a bit when the doors opened and we saw him standing there.
Anyway, his reaction was to not look at us, to not talk, to not react at all. Ignored the request for an autograph, ignored me telling him that my best friend had recently died and that the song he was listening to the most before he died was “Player’s Ball, and that made them even more special to me…. He was COLD! In hindsight, I may understand, but then? Our feeling were hurt.” (Ziggy Clark)
“The first movie I ever saw Ron Perlman in was his role as Hellboy, and I absolutely loved him. One day, my parents and I were taking a vacation, and we decided to spend the day at Santa Monica pier in Los Angeles. We were in one of the parking lots, getting ready to go to the pier, when my dad spied Mr. Perlman standing next to a car.
My dad was also a huge fan of Ron, and decided he would brave a confrontation to ask for a picture and maybe an autograph from him.
As my dad approached, Mr. Perlman’s face screwed up into a powerful scowl, eyeballing my dad as he snaked past a few cars. My dad approached Mr. Perlman and asked him for his autograph.
Mr. Perlman lowered his shades to look my dad right in the eye and said two simple words:
“F*** off.” (Benjamin Haney)
“In 1969, I was eleven. My father, who ran a sports magazine, asked me, my brother, and a good friend if we wanted to be in a photo shoot with Woody Allen. WOODY ALLEN. I was already a huge fan of his. I loved his movies. At the time, Woody Allen was on broadway in Play It Again Sam. The photo shoot was to depict Woody playing stickball in New York City with some street urchins (that’s where we came in).
To say I was excited to meet Mr. Allen was an understatement. He charged out of the theater and without acknowledging us said “Let’s get this s*** over with.”
We played stickball with him for half an hour or so… I don’t recall him speaking to us at all. When they’d gotten the shots they needed, he left. Not a word, not a peep.
Still a fan, but that encounter left a somewhat bitter taste in my mouth.” (
“I was at a cheese shop in the West Village (I realize how douchey this sounds) when I noticed James Spader was at the counter. I was in the middle of a massive Boston Legal binge at the time and absolutely adored his work. So I went to the counter and started looking at the cheese (this is casual, it’s a cheese shop for fuck’s sake). He was sampling cheeses and I just looked at this man whose work I so admired and respected and asked, “How’s the Gouda?” Apparently it’s delicious. Stupid. Stupid.” (talbottron)
“I have been a professional actor since age 8 (I am 57 years old now) never have I been more disappointed than working with Andy Garcia on the set of “Things to do in Denver when you’re Dead.” What a complete jerk.
The icing on the cake came after spending close to an hour choreographing a fight scene with a special extra just to see him (once the director decided the shoot it live) ignore the entire rehearsed fight and punch the guy in the face on “action”. He broke the guy’s nose!! His only response was a giggle and to say, “Now that looked real, didn’t it!”
“I have a strange “fear” of clear/bright blue eyes. They just make me really uneasy and I have trouble making eye contact. Fast forward to meeting Elijah Woods, who had literally the most terrifying piercing eyes I have ever encountered. He was so sweet, but I could barely stutter out a “hello” before I had to turn away.” (rosevest)
‘”My father was a curator in Edinburgh when I was growing up and I was fortunate to meet a few ‘celebs’ who opened exhibitions for him. The absolute worst was Anthony Daniels, a.k.a. C3PO from Star Wars.
When my father tried introducing us to him he flat-out refused on the grounds that he was “preparing for his performance” (i.e. reading a very short speech) and virtually shoved us out of the room. Later, once this scintillating and arduous ‘performance’ was over, he declared it was “Time for [the official] photos!” and clapped his hands at the guests like he was a school teacher and we were rowdy pupils. He herded us into place and physically repositioned some people, quite literally pushing them around. We were all holding little exhibition guides that had his image on the cover and he walked around adjusting each and every one so that his face was visible. Only then could the photos proceed.
What an utter arse! I’m a huge Star Wars fan and now every time C3PO is on screen, all I can think is “wanker.”’ (Anonymous)
“I was on vacation with the family in Hawaii when I was little. While in the pool, I see Pauly Shore walking through knee deep water with nothing but a red speedo on and visibly hammered. He is carrying some Hawaiian girl in his arms. He walks right past me and I state “Hey! You’re Pauly Shore!!” (my first celebrity encounter…I was young). He looks at me with drunk googly eyes and says “I am? Oh yeah. Whatever, man.” (Oh_no_hes_a_doctor)
“I was in LA for spring break and I ran into Gordon Ramsay walking with another stern looking guy into his restaurant. I flip flopped so hard over to him just to shake his hand and tell him I loved his work and all that. He was very stifled and curt with me, but cordial of course.
Turns out he was walking in to shut down a restaurant that was in a big mess of lawsuits for a few years. He’s on his way to walk into a chic Los Angeles restaurant with the Ramsay name and some dumb kid in a Hawaiian shirt runs up to him to say hi. I felt really bad.”
