4 Famous People Who Got More Hate Than They Deserved in 2014
Hating celebrities became really boring in 2014. On the surface that seems like a good thing, but it's really not. The truth is, we just had way bigger shit to worry about. Pick any celebrity scandal of the past 12 months and you won't have to travel too far from there to find the legitimately awful story or situation that jettisoned it from our daily conversations.
Deadly viruses were the real celebrities this year.
The world has finally reached that tipping point where real life is terrible enough that we no longer have to turn to pop culture to manufacture reasons to be outraged. Hooray?
We talk about that on this week's Unpopular Opinion podcast ...
... where I'm joined by comics Wendi Starling and Mo Mandel. And, for the record, no, probably not hooray at all. Nevertheless, it's true: putting together a list of wrongly hated famous people was a lot more difficult this year, and I don't doubt at all that it's because it seemed like the whole world was burning around us for the entirety of 2014. That's not to say that we didn't find a little time to irrationally hate the rich and famous, though. It's just that the targets we picked in 2014 demonstrate that, this year, our attention was mostly directed toward more important issues. If that's not true, by all means, tell me why we're all still bothered so much by ...
Kim Kardashian
I wrote this exact same article as my year-end wrap-up last December. Care to guess who kicked off the list the first time around? Right, Kim Kardashian. Now, here we are 12 months later and she's still the go-to target for society's irrational hatred of celebrities. It's been that way for a long time, and it's gotten to the point where us getting frothy at the mouth over her alleged misdeeds is a performance we pull off on command. You need look no further than her most recent "scandal" to prove that case. I'm speaking, of course, about her now-infamous Paper Magazine cover.
"Oh. My. God. Becky ..."
That's the one. Well, it's a slightly tamer version of "the one."
Use your imagination.
It doesn't matter which of the two you decided to lose your shit over; what matters is that it's 2014 and you're still getting mad at pictures of Kardashian's ass. Of all the things in the world that are deserving of your angry words, that ass is what you decide to waste them on?
My favorite part of this, or any, Kardashian scandal is the army of commenters who show up anywhere she's featured online to ask one simple question: "What does she even do?"
Is this not enough?
That's a pretty easy question to answer, actually. You're what she does. You are the answer to your own question. Her main job is to inspire dummies like you to flock to the various websites of the world to ask that same fucking question, as if what you're doing in that moment is any more productive or beneficial to mankind.
At least the general public had a relatively famous champion on their side of the cause in 2014. Naya Rivera, a name you probably don't recognize as the girl who plays the role of Santana on Glee ...
Yep, it's still on the air, I think.
... had some fairly harsh words for Kardashian in the wake of the Paper Magazine scandal. Specifically, she took to Instagram and reminded Kim that, somewhere, a child is expecting her to not be naked. Or something along those lines.
Keep your clothes on, moms!
So that was weird. Also, as PopSugar rightly pointed out, Rivera has recently developed an affinity for looking exactly ...
... like ...
... Kim Kardashian.
Maybe it's shitty of me, but that makes me wonder: was her comment really inspired by concern for the children of the world ...
... or is she just mad that Kardashian finally did something she'll never be able to copy?
Floyd Mayweather
Let me be clear about something right up front here: you should absolutely hate Floyd Mayweather. Just make sure you hate him for the right reasons.
Don't hate him because he talks too much. Yes, he's vocal about his abilities to an extent that does certainly merit some degree of scorn, but even then you have to contend with the harsh reality that, at the end of the day, he backs almost all of it up by being exactly as great at shit as he claims to be.
For starters, he's never lost a fight. That's a hard statistic to argue against. No, he hasn't fought Manny Pacquiao yet, but are we 100 percent sure that's his fault? After all, according to his side, the negotiations to make a fight between the two happen fell through the first time after Mayweather demanded Olympic-style drug testing for both fighters.
"Olympic" meaning "still mostly useless."
If you follow this situation at all, then you already know that, but did you hear what Pacquiao's camp had to say regarding those drug tests? If not, by all means, allow me:
We appeased Mayweather by agreeing to a urine analysis at any time, and blood testing before the press conference and after the fight. Mayweather pressed for blood testing even up to the weigh-in. He knew that Pacquiao gets freaked out when his blood gets taken and feels that it weakens him. This is just harassment and, to me, just signaled that he didn't want the fight.
Emphasis mine. I don't know how else to put this, but Mayweather won that fight. TKO before the fucking thing even started. You get "freaked out" by having your blood drawn? That's why the fight the world wants the most hasn't happened yet? Because Pacquiao gets the vapors when he gives blood? It's either that or he was hiding something, but neither of those possibilities point to Mayweather being the coward of the two.
His tendency to gamble huge sums of money on seemingly any wager put in front of him earns Mayweather a healthy amount of criticism also. Again, why? When Wes Welker won a stack of cash at the Kentucky Derby, reportedly in the midst of an Ecstasy stupor, and started passing out $100 bills, everyone except NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell thought it was the most adorable shit ever.
"At least nobody got punched."
Sure, as with anything else, Mayweather is way too boisterous about his abilities in this area, but damn if he doesn't deliver on those boasts. During a one-month stretch in November of this year, he pocketed a total of more than $4 million after winning huge three weeks in a row betting on the NFL. You're allowed to brag when stuff works out that well.
None of these things qualify as sound reasons to hate Mayweather. Again, you should definitely still hate him, but don't do it for the bullshit reasons listed above, do it because he beats the shit out of every woman he enters into a relationship with.
Well this seems inappropriate.
Over the course of a dozen years or so, he's been arrested or cited in seven different assaults against five different women. In case you're wondering, yes, of course he thinks the NFL was too hard on Ray Rice.
Does it suck that Mayweather hasn't fought Pacquiao yet? No, what sucks is that, despite his long track record of being the worst fucking person possible, he'll still get the opportunity to do it someday, and we'll pay an obscene amount of money to watch when he does. If you're in front of a television when that happens, don't hate Mayweather, hate yourself.
Ariana Grande
What the hell did Ariana Grande ever do to anybody? That's a legitimate question. Her name pops up regularly online whenever the most hated celebrities of the day are discussed, but figuring out why is a challenge, to put it mildly. I mean, people do at least make an attempt to put their feelings into words, but it usually comes out looking like this ...
... or this ...
... or even this ...
Yeah, you read that last one correctly: someone said Grande "tries too hard and thinks she's sexy," which, of course, means she "thinks she's Obama."
Just like Obama.
Good luck making sense of that one. Of course, those are all comments from Internet lunatics, surely people in real life are a bit more rational in their thinking as it pertains to Grande, right? Nah. Check this shit out ...
Just joking, I obviously don't expect you to read that entire manifesto. What you're looking at, though, is a rant from television host Giuliana Rancic ...
That's probably her.
... about the time she interviewed Grande and, despite her 13 years of experience asking famous people questions, had to stand with her "ugly" side facing the camera. According to the not-at-all-petty-as-fuck tirade, she fought long and hard for the right to decide which way she faces when in front of the camera and no newcomer is going to take that away from her. Maybe someone like Mariah Carey can get away with that shit (she actually says all this), but not Grande.
Right, except she did get away with that, because why the fuck wouldn't she? Grande is a star; Rancic is paid to talk to stars. She'll stand right damn where people want her to, and she knows that shit. Grumpy Cat could take her fucking pretty side if she wanted it bad enough.
"I do."
Also, how much gall does it take to complain about someone acting like a diva by way of a rant about not being allowed to stand on your good side?
All that said, at least Rancic didn't call Grande a whore. That puts her miles ahead of the legendary Bette Midler in the decorum department. Here's what Midler had to say:
It's always surprising to see someone like Ariana Grande with that silly high voice, a very wholesome voice, slithering around on a couch, looking so ridiculous. I mean it's silly beyond belief, and I don't know who's telling her to do it. Trust your talent. You don't have to make a whore out of yourself to get ahead.
Harsh!
Excellent point, and if anyone knows about not using skimpy clothes to sell albums, it sure as shit isn't Midler.
Evidence.
That wasn't lost on Grande, who actually responded to Midler's taunts by reminding her of that very fact.
For the record, this is the "sexy mermaid" in question.
Come on, Bette Midler, you're better than this.
Good for her. I haven't seen a youngster stand up to an established celebrity with that much vehemence since Ariana Grande made Juliana Rancic stand on her bad side that one time.
Jaden Smith
Right off the bat I suppose it's worth asking: do people really hate Jaden Smith? If what my Internet search results are telling me is accurate, then yes, they most certainly do. That's unfortunate, really, because in the race to Out of Control Teen Mountain, that kid is pacing way behind his competition.
Think about some of the nightmare teens we've had to put up with in recent years. I've defended Justin Bieber in articles like this several different times, but that kid is a special breed of asshole.
The Canadian breed, specifically.
Smith, though? He's just more weird than anything. Yeah, there's a really good chance he owes the majority of his success so far to nepotism, but hating him for that is kind of just hating him for maximizing the opportunities available to him. Plenty of famous actors' kids could be out shitting on the Karate Kid franchise, but they simply don't have the ambition for it. Don't hate Smith for wanting to stay busy in his free time. It's not like he has to.
Ugh, what about those tweets, though, right? What kind of teen spends his time posting philosophical bullshit about love and relationships on social media? All of them. Every single damn one of them. At least Smith has a delightful touch of Gary Busey crazy to his ramblings.
Are you kidding me with how he capitalizes every word? Do you get how much dedication that takes? It's like an anti-typo. Has anyone ever called him on it? If so, I don't know if there's anything I want to see more than what his response might have been. I bet it was "Because Every Word Matters The Most," or some shit like that. So great.
Also, how ironic is it that, of all the people in the world, the only ones who understand Jaden Smith are probably his parents? I sometimes like to imagine that his whole "come join my space cult" vibe is just one big test of his father's adherence to the guidelines put forth in his classic breakthrough single.
Jaden Smith: Hey dad, how can mirrors be real if our eyes aren't real?
Will Smith: Uhhhh, I don't think I understand the ...
Jaden Smith: Ha! You're just like your parents!
Will Smith: *begins weeping*
I don't care what anyone says -- that kid is the best.
You should follow Adam on Twitter @adamtodbrown.
For more from ATB, check out 4 Celebrities Who Got Blacklisted for Doing the Right Thing. And then check out 23 Insane Things Your Favorite Celebrities Believe.
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