5 Celebs Who Handed Out Trash Instead of Real Autographs
Autographs are holdovers from the days before everyone carried cameras on them at all times. If you met a celebrity back then, your only options to record the encounter were to make them sign a piece of paper or to befriend them and keep them in your home forever.
For celebrities, the pride they feel the first time a fan asks for their autograph eventually gives way to annoyance, especially when the item you ask them to sign is secretly a deed of sale. They might refuse the demand and offer you something else instead.
Kobe Bryant
Bryant’s final game with the NBA was on April 13, 2016. The Lakers beat the Utah Jazz 101 to 96, and 60 of those 101 points were scored by Kobe himself. There haven’t been that many games in history where one guy made more points than that. Though, Bryant also does hold the record for most-points-scored-in-a-game-by-someone-who’s-not-Wilt-Chamberlain, for a 2006 game where he managed 81.
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When the 2016 game was done, Bryant’s own teammates asked him for his autograph. He signed just about everything, including stat sheets celebrating the game they’d just won. Then the Lakers’ Nick Young asked him to sign some sneakers. Kobe took the shoes and threw them into a trash bin. They were Adidas shoes, and Bryant was signed with Nike.
Anyway, that was one hell of a farewell performance. There was no topping it, which is why the entire world decided to collapse shortly thereafter.
Steve Jobs
Jobs didn’t sign autographs. At least, that’s what he declared in a 1983 letter that he wrote to a fan named L.N. Varon. But we’re tempted a little to question his assertion, given that he made it a point to sign this very letter.
L.N. Varon must have sold the letter because by 2021, it was in the hands of a professional autograph collector. This collector sold it at an auction. The auction house appraised the letter at $10,000. It sold for $383,951.
You might think 1983 Steve Jobs would be pleased to learn people would one day value his correspondence so highly. But the knowledge that fans who get your autograph are just going to sell it off is exactly why so many celebs don’t like giving autographs at all.
Ian McKellen
In 1988, someone asked for McKellen’s autograph, for their children. McKellen took the offered sheet of paper and wrote, “Fuck off! I’m gay.”
New Line Cinema
The man asking for the autograph was Michael Howard, a member of parliament and future Leader of the Conservative Party. McKellen was meeting him to discuss Section 28, part of an act passed that year. Said the act, “A local authority shall not (a) intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality, (b) promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.”
McKellen sought to persuade Howard against this act that the MP had previously supported. Howard remained stubbornly unmoved by the request but still had the gall to end the meeting by asking this constituent’s autograph.
Section 28 wouldn’t be fully repealed till 2003. We can now look back at such attitudes as a relic associated only with truly backward settings, such as 1980s Britain and modern-day Florida.
Jonah Hill
Some celebrities get asked for signatures so often that they keep business cards handy to hand out in lieu of autographs. For a while, Steve Martin kept a pile of business cards on him, with these words written on them: “This certifies that you have had a personal encounter with me and that you found me warm, polite, intelligent and funny.” The card also included his signature, but it was printed, rather than written by Martin himself, which somewhat undermined its autograph status.
Jonah Hill has been known to do something similar in the past. Around a decade ago, he was handing out cards that read, “I just met Jonah Hill. It was a total letdown.”
The “Jonah Hill” in the text was written in fancy lettering, but the card offered no pretense of an autograph. You could interpret the message as ironic, but it might also have been accurate. This was 2015, when Hill was coming off of Academy Award nominations for Moneyball and The Wolf of Wall Street. By printing these business cards, he cursed the gods, and his budding career as a prestige actor never progressed from here.
Oasis
A generator crapped out at one 2009 concert that Oasis played in Manchester. The sound system stopped working, so Noel and Liam Gallagher had to leave the stage after just one song. They came back after a break, but the night had already gone off the rails, so Noel took the mic and said, “Thank you very, very much. This is a free gig — let’s have it. Anybody who has kept their ticket will get a full refund.”
Though tickets were as low as £38.30 for the cheapest seats, this was a crowd of 70,000. Apparently, the band really were legally on the hook for this promise, which added up to refunds worth £3 million.
Fans who completed the necessary paperwork did receive refund checks. But these 20,000 checks didn’t come from the band’s label, Sony BMG. They were instead issued from Noel Gallagher and Liam Gallagher, with each man’s (printed) signature on it. You could get your refund, if you cashed the check, but that would mean relinquishing this rather unique souvenir, and Oasis bet that many fans would rather keep it.
via The Guardian
Considering that Oasis broke up at the end of this tour and would remain split for 15 years, this souvenir really did seem worth holding on to. We hesitate to place an exact value on it, but we can state the exact value of keeping the check at the time, for the person who could otherwise deposit it. It was negative 38 pounds, plus negative 30 pence.
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