6 Baffling Robert Pattinson Stories That Raise More Questions Than Answers
We don't want stars that are too perfect anymore. They need to seem human, attainable, just a little flawed. So, is that why Robert Pattinson once told Jimmy Kimmel is likes to be spit on in "kind of an erotic way?"
You see, when Robert Pattinson got his big break, it was as a teen star. He was on the cover of Tiger Beat alongside Zac Efron and Justin Bieber, but the public personality he's cultivated post-Twilight hasn't been that of a former teen heartthrob. It's more like a man slowly descending into eldritch madness. For instance ...
The Time Robert Pattinson Lied About Seeing A Clown Explode
While promoting the movie Water For Elephants, Robert was interviewed by Matt Lauer on The Today Show. Lauer opens the interview with a softball question about how kids dream of running away to join the circus. "Did you have any of those dreams as a kid?" he asks Pattinson.
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"Uh no," Pattinson respond immediately. "The first time I went to the circus somebody died ... one of the clowns died."
"Alright, I'm not letting that go. How did the clown die?" Lauer asks, rightfully skeptical.
"His little car exploded, everyone ran out it was terrifying," Pattinson immediately shoots back
Matt Lauer, a professional who's only distracted when a twenty-year-old intern is around to harass, glosses over the whole thing and just keeps asking him questions about the movie. Of course, no one was going to let a story that bizarre go.
When a reporter brought up the story at the film's premiere in Germany, Pattinson admitted he made the whole thing up. "It's coming back to haunt me. I said it on some show. It was really early in the morning the day after the New York premiere. Someone asked me what my experience with the circus was, and I was like, I have nothing interesting to say. I don't know why I said that!"
Did he think that this exploding clown anecdote would make him, professional handsome man Robert Pattinson, more relatable? Did he think I've never been to a circus, an environment not generally known for its preponderance of dead clowns?
I don't think so. It sounds like it was 6 in the morning. He was bored, and coming up with a charming circus story wasn't computing, so, mostly to entertain himself, he said the weirdest thing he could think of. I think this happens a lot, and when you're mega-famous saying some bullshit thing because your tired has consequences, which is how stuff like this ends up happening ...
PETA Thanked Robert Pattinson For Not Jacking Off A Dog
In 2017, Robert Pattinson was in the movie Good Time which everyone was excited about because it was a Safdie brothers movie and it got a six-minute standing ovation at the Cannes film festival. So, he goes on Jimmy Kimmel to promote it, and the pleasant on-set story he's prepared to charm the audience is about a scene where his character masturbates a canine.
Robert tells Jimmy Kimmel that in the build-up to the scene, the director suggested he should, "Just do it for real, don't be a pussy." And that the dog's owner told him it was possible because the dog was a breeder dog and would, um, respond, if they massaged its thighs. Luckily, Robert wasn't interested, and a prosthetic dog penis ended up being used for the scene.
PETA picked the story up and publicly thanked Robert Pattinson for not jerking off the dog. Like, they put out a whole formal thing that said:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: RE: DOG DICK
Thank you, Mr. Pattinson. We all expected you to do it. Everyone assumed you would jerk off the dog, but you did not! Unmasturbated dogs everywhere, thank you!
You know the old film school saying, use you what you've got? They HAD a prosthetic dog penis. Were they not planning to use it? Did they need that authentic dog boner vibe for the scene? Probably not as Pattinson responded to PETA that this was actually a joke, and he wishes he'd never brought it up. Gee, I wonder why?
The Time Robert Pattinson Scared Off A Stalker By Dating Her
In 2009, Pattinson did an interview with New Zealand's version of Tiger Beat, which is unsettlingly called Creme magazine. This was at the peak of his Twilight fame, and he told a story about having a stalker the previous year while filming a movie in Spain. "She stood outside my apartment every day for weeks-all day, every day. I was so bored and lonely that I went out and had dinner with her. I just complained about everything in my life, and she never came back."
Dating a stalker is a crazy thing to do, sure, but it's an even crazier thing to admit that you did to a teen magazine. Was he not all concerned that a horde of teenage girls were going to hear, "free dates with the sparkly vampire man if you just hang around his house long enough?"
I'm guessing he was hoping this would scare teenage girls away from him. Sorry Rob, a roving pack of hormonal adolescents are not concerned with your boring dinner conversation. They just want to see your sparkly butt. All that this anecdote probably succeeded in doing was turning one perky young Twilight fan into a brooding Anne Rice fan.
Robert Pattinson's Childhood Lemonade Stand Was Selling Stolen Porno Mags
Little kids love money-making schemes. Tons of grade schools had to ban slime in recent years to squash these prospective young entrepreneurs' spirit. Young Robert Pattinson's pocket money came from a much more illegal source.
In 2017, he told Howard Stern that he had been expelled from school for stealing porno magazines and then selling them at his fancy private school. He got caught by the general store owner that he swiped them from when he got greedy and tried to steal an entire rack of magazines rather than his usual three or four.
At this point, I almost feel proud of Robert for telling that story on Howard Stern, where's it's extremely appropriate instead of busting it out on Radio Disney or whatever. His entire personality is just blurting out something and seeing whether it makes his life more or less entertaining. It's a gamble he's lost multiple times, and yet, he's still playing the game.
The Time Robert Pattinson Said He Was Once In A Rap Band Called Big Tub And The Tabby Cats
Robert Pattinson is into music and plays piano and guitar. Two of his songs, "Let Me Sign" and "Never Think," made it onto Twilight movie soundtracks, and he also played guitar and sang in the indie movie How to Be. In 2008 he told The L.A, Times, "Music is my backup plan if acting fails. I don't want to put all my eggs in one basket." But now that it appears that the acting thing has worked out pretty well, his only mention of musical aspirations in a 2014 interview with Seth Meyers is a rap band that he supposedly once had called "Big Tub And The Tabby Cats."
"I hope this is true if it's not, I want it to be true so badly just lie and tell me it is," Is how Meyers started the segment before asking Robert Pattinson if, when he was younger, he wanted to be a rapper. Folks, never give this opening to Robert "I'm going to tell everyone my middle name is Rumpelstilskin or some shit" Pattinson.
Pattinson told Myers he rapped under the name Big Tub because he was obsessed with his weight and that he had recorded an album called Big Tub and The Tabby Cats where he used his sweatshirt zipper to mimic a record scratching, which, to be fair, is exactly what I would expect from a rap album by Robert Pattinson. When given a chance to promote his very real musical ability or say some random funny shit, guess what Pattinson once again chose?
The Time Robert Pattinson Didn't Know The Plot Of A Movie He Was In
Last May, in an interview for GQ about the movie Tenet, Pattinson, claimed he couldn't explain to the GQ reporter what Tenet was about because he really didn't know. So, the reporter called up Christopher Nolan to "ask if Pattinson was fucking with me about now knowing the plot of the movie he had just finished."
In fairness, we can empathize with anyone for not understanding what the hell is happening in this movie.
"The interesting thing with Rob is, he's slightly fucking with you," was Nolan's reply. I feel like that's the answer to any questions you might have about Robert Pattinson. He's always slightly fucking with everyone, his fans, his critics, and most especially the people interviewing him.
In that same GQ interview, the magazine offered to let Pattinson photograph himself for the spread because of the pandemic. He posed on the floor with his hair unwashed, starring sadly up at the ceiling, sandwiched between an open box of Special K cereal and a can of beans. He tied socks around his arms and legs, and a scarf around his head and stood in his trashed closet. Was this an attempt at art, or was he messing with us? I think the answer is yes. It's amazing that Pattinson was cast to play Batman because the guy has the biggest Joker energy I've ever seen.
You can hear more of Lydia's Robert Pattinson opinions on Twitter.
Top image: Andrea Raffin/Shutterstock
