8 Great Moments Of Total Insanity In Celebrity Interviews
It's easy to forget that celebrities are just like the rest of us: awkward, clueless, and perpetually making it up as we go along. It may not look like it while they're singing harmonies or reciting someone else's carefully crafted words on a giant screen, but that's why we have interviews. Painful, excruciating, head-explodingly idiotic interviews. (WARNING: The following article contains debilitating amounts of douche-chills. Consult your physician before reading any further.)
John Mayer Calls His Dick A "White Supremacist"
When he isn't running one of the most self-centered Instagram accounts ever (which is saying something), John "Your Body Is A Wonderland" Mayer thinks about sex. More specifically, he thinks about what he thinks about during sex. Which is to say, other, different sex. When Playboy interviewed him in 2012, he declared that masturbation is just as good as boning to him:
Yes, Mayer would rather stay home and high-five his genitals than go out and meet people. He went on to say that the best days of his entire life were when he dreamed about sex with a previous partner. When he awakens after the dream, he simply cannot keep his hands off of himself. Yes, the tables have turned -- his body has become his own wonderland. But when discussing one's own wang, why not add a little bristling racism out of nowhere?
So Mayer effectively knows what it's like to walk in a black person's shoes because he's played and recorded with several of them. The interviewer circled back around to sex (this is Playboy, after all, not Der Sturmer), asking Mayer how black women viewed him. He instead unnecessarily referred to his dick as a racist:
To be fair, David Duke does look exactly like an anthropomorphic dong.
The ever-suffering Mayer has enough to worry about, what with having to visualize previous conquests while trudging through sex with beautiful women; now he was to worry about a Mr. Hyde boner that's just lying in wait to hurl an epithet at any approaching woman of color. He is a man of struggle.
The Media's Been Printing Insufferable Lena Dunham Quotes For Decades
Lena Dunham is the embodiment of the out-of-touch, privileged liberal who can't help putting her foot in her mouth in every interview, but let's be fair: she was never given a chance to be normal. Least of all by the NYC media, which has been lapping up her bullshit like a dehydrated cat since she was literally in the sixth grade. For starters, a 1998 Vogue story cast the 11-year-old Dunham as a tragic tween fashion martyr, since there was no Prada allowed in her household and she couldn't afford Manolo Blahnik shoes on her allowance:
Li'l Lena was so incredibly snooty, in fact, that Vogue ended up giving her a job a few years later:
This was before Teen Vogue became the last hope of American journalism.
In 2001, a New York Times article asked prominent NYC residents to reveal their favorite spots in the city. Dunham, now a worldly 14-year-old, spoke of a magical place called Under The Bridge. You may wonder if that was a trendy club in Greenwich Village, or an Upper East Side coffee shop. But nope, it was a spot ... under a bridge. Let her tell you why, as she pries the sides of her butt apart and begins to reverse-crown herself into the lower rectum:
The Times would revisit Dunham in 2003 to cover her vegan dinner party (it's not like there was a war going on or anything). Besides learning of her low tolerance for normal teen parties and love of Tofurky, we find out that the vegan get-together is "barefoot formal" for a perfectly sensible reason:
It just isn't a vegan party without a fine mist of strange body odors.
The Times and Vogue would dip into this well again in 2007 and 2009, as Dunham headed up her earliest web serials, and many more publications would follow. So maybe it's not so much her, but instead the steady stream of newspapers and magazines that trained her to say the cringey-est things possible whenever she's interviewed.
The Chainsmokers Go Out Of Their Way To Prove That Faceless EDM Artists Can Be The Worst People On Earth, Too
In 2016, Billboard magazine spoke with electronic dance music duo The Chainsmokers, because apparently they've had a few hits. Billboard wanted to clear some things up, most notably the quote in their bio on the Chainsmokers website that stated "17.34 inches ... think about it ..." If you guessed that 17.34 inches is the length of a major league pitching mound, you haven't been reading this article carefully enough.
How they got such a pinpoint measurement is unclear to anyone outside of the space program. Point is, they say they're packin'. And that's important to them. After all, they're in this game for the fringe benefits. One half of the group boasts about their priorities:
"Number two is breakfast, then regular oil changes."
And what did they make of the other EDM acts lavishing them with praise? The Chainsmokers immediately interpret that as jealousy, saying that now everyone copies them. But really, they're planning on staying modest. "We're just frat bro dudes, you know what I mean? Loving ladies and stuff." That's the stuff that stuff is made out of, right there.
Miles Teller Is Way Too Confident For Someone Who's Just Miles Teller
After his acclaimed performance in 2014's Whiplash, Miles Teller briefly became Hollywood's new golden boy, and when has that ever gone wrong? Well, in 2015, Esquire magazine took Teller out to lunch, and here's literally the first line in the article:
The interviewer casually mentions that the champagne glass they are holding is said to be shaped like the left breast of Marie Antoinette. Teller volleys back, stating that highball glasses are modeled after his dick, then makes sure to repeat that to the presumably delighted waitress. He then admits two equally embarrassing things: 1) he's aware that he thinks he's hotter than he really is, and 2) he browses message board threads about his looks.
The real fun comes when their food arrives. Scallops for him, pork belly for the interviewing party. He gazes at the pork belly with longing, so the interviewer offers him some. Let the emasculating commence:
That pork belly probably looks more like The Thing than the one in Fantastic Four.
So Teller alleges that he has the teeth and chewing power of an 18-month-old. Why he would choose that narrative after detailing his dong in grandiose terms is unclear. After namedropping influences like Christian Bale and "Joaq" (Joaquin Phoenix, who he's never met), Teller parts ways with the article writer and orders her an Uber. When she mentions offhandedly the recent spate of sexual-assault allegations Uber drivers have had directed at them, he assures the interviewer he's specifically ordered the "Do not rape" service.
To answer the question in that opening line: Yep.
Vin Diesel Loses His Shit Because His Interviewer Is Too Attractive
Vin Diesel was someone we really, really wanted to like. From voicing the Iron Giant to being a giant Dungeons & Dragons nerd, he just sounded like someone we'd enjoy hanging out with more than the average Hollywood musclehead.
That impression lasted until Brazilian YouTuber Carol Moreira attempted to exchange words with Diesel during the promoting of his thinking-man's film, xXx: Now With Less Ice Cube. Immediately, Diesel chose to drop his voice down an octave or two, which never, ever adds a sleazy, potentially murderous vibe to whatever is going on.
No, this is not a Barry White music video.
As she began trying to ask questions, Diesel simply could not handle that this woman happened to be attractive, cutting her off multiple times to remark on it. To him, it was not important that she was trying to establish herself as a journalist, or that she was visibly uncomfortable with his remarks, because DAMN GIRL.
As she awkwardly repeats "thank you" with the same enthusiasm displayed by dungeon prisoners, he turns incredulously to off-screen people, utterly dumbfounded that such a creature even exists. Diesel (who, incidentally, is married with three children) declares his love for her and suggests they drop the interview and go have lunch, because she obviously can't just be there to do a job. She redirects, bringing up previous acting gigs he'd had with Tom Hanks, and trying to even humanly connect with him about a shared love for D&D, to no avail.
By the end, Diesel is literally looming over her, casting a shadow across her, shouting nonsense about being trapped in "beautiful world." So, future note to pretty girls: Sitting down in front of shallow douchebags is in fact enough to break them. Use this knowledge wisely.
Mel Gibson Was Already A Paranoid, Anti-Gay Lunatic In The '90s
Mel Gibson has a reputation for being Hollywood's golden boy who suddenly went from zero to Hitler, but that's inaccurate. Let's set the record straight: The guy was always a kooky asshole, it's just that he used to be dreamy enough to get away with it. Take his Playboy interview from 1995, for example. For some reason the interviewer asked about women becoming priests, and Gibson was happy to give his take:
This is immediately followed by him going on about how feminists are out to get him for some mysterious, unknowable reason. After expressing his skepticism about evolution ("How come apes aren't people yet?") and talking about how there's definitely a secret cabal deciding/killing U.S. presidents, Gibson moves on to the subject of gay people. Specifically, how they're wrong to hate him simply because he said they're "unnatural":
Yes, he did just suggest the gays are trying to drive him off the road, like out of some surprisingly compelling Mad Max reboot. And then there's this:
Spoiler: He would not learn to keep his mouth shut.
Kevin Costner Is A Big Fan Of "Sluts"
Kevin Costner's penchant for on-screen "aw shucks" monologues makes him seem like your simple, friendly uncle who is full of sage advice (mostly about baseball, horses, and Sherwood Forest). His early interviews, however, reveal that he's more like that other uncle who isn't allowed at family dinners anymore because he'd get handsy with your cousin's girlfriend.
In a 1987 GQ interview, the heroic star of The Untouchables reveals that his mother once told him to never date a girl he wouldn't consider marrying, which college-age Kevin took to mean "just fuck everything and everyone." He explains that other guys "went into a panic if they didn't have a date and I never went through that. I just picked up girls. I was kind of used to sluts." Don't worry, he later clarified what he meant by "sluts":
Considering his self-described taste in women, the female reporter probably wasn't terribly flattered when this interview turned into a subtle game of seduction:
If that doesn't make your heart flutter, we can't help you.
Costner's quiver of Cupid arrows wasn't quite empty yet. He went on to profess his love for his longtime wife in such a profound way that he basically admitted to banging complete strangers:
And just in case you wanted some existentialism to go with that entree of seared romance, the GQ interview also includes this gem: "I'm not a prick, not a nice guy. I just am." That's poetry right there.
Val Kilmer Thinks He Understands The Horrors Of War More Than People Who Have Actually Been To War
Val Kilmer is an actor's actor. You could tell him to pretend to be a pork chop for five months, and he could probably pull it off. That's why noted author Chuck Klosterman was drawn to Kilmer, and actually visited the actor at his ranch in New Mexico. During their chat, the subject of acting arose ... and that's when Kilmer took a deep breath and stepped off the ledge of any kind of sanity.
Kilmer believes that actors are way more intuitive than most people -- almost supernaturally so. According to the third cinematic Batman, because actors can hone in on whatever they're portraying on camera, they know what it's like to go through, say, the trauma of Vietnam:
Yes, Kilmer not only understands murder, but he understands it more than a person who has taken a life. By his logic, a Vietnam veteran riddled with PTSD and health issues from communists-killing pesticide ingestion doesn't really know what it's like, because they haven't read a script about it. And as we all know, the U.S. war draft that sent many young folks to fight on the other side of the world only targeted broke-ass delinquents. Klosterman made really, really sure he was hearing Kilmer right:
"I know more about volleyball too than fighter pilots. Much more."
You heard the man: Fighter pilots are too bogged down in their pride to be aware that they are maneuvering a billion-dollar piece of equipment meant to kill people. The author tried to turn the scenario against Kilmer by asking what if another actor played him in a movie, but Kilmer would have none of it. He surmised that if an actor was going to play the part of Val Kilmer, he still wouldn't have that magic Kilmer-esque way of becoming the part, because Val Kilmer is an actor. It's just simple math.
Klosterman then decided to open the asshole of the universe and ask, "what if it was a movie about your teen years?" Kilmer then conceded that yes, he would suppose that actor would know Val Kilmer more than young Val Kilmer knew himself. He then opened his mouth and swallowed Klosterman, like a Sphinx displeased that you actually solved its riddle.
Justin writes more here. He has a podcast, a Twitter, and a bitchin' riding mower.
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