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Being famous has its perks but it also means being constantly in the spot light and enduring the flashbulbs from the ever-present paparazzi. Paparazzi have an inexcusable history of invading the privacy of celebrities, whether it be waiting outside their homes or cars or sneaking into their hotel rooms. They taunt them verbally, asking them inappropriate questions to provoke reactions that will yield controversial photos or videos. On the other hand, celebrities have done their fair share of assaulting the paparazzi. See which fed up celebs have gone on the attack against the paparazzi.
New dad Alec Baldwin has been accused of yet another violent temper tantrum involving a freelance photographer. The “30 Rock” actor grabbed and shoved veteran photographer Paul Adao along a Greenwich Village street in front of several witnesses on Tuesday (August 27). According to celebrity website TMZ.com, Baldwin and his wife Hilaria were grabbing something to eat when the “overzealous” photographer started taking pictures. However, the photographer insists he did not approach the couple aggressively. This isn’t Baldwin’s first run-in with the paparazzi. In June last year he was accused of hitting a photographer.
Jude once slapped a female photographer across the face after leaving a London restaurant. She told reporters, “He hit me full on the face, it was a real stinger, it was very sore… It was deliberate— you could see it in his face. Maybe he didn’t realize he was hitting a girl, but he could at least apologize.” Law’s people claimed that he was just putting his hand up and her face got in the way and he apologized.
Short-fused actor Sean Penn probably has the longest and most sinister history of paparazzi abuse. He once said, “I still think photographers should be lashed out at. They should be put in a cage where you can poke them with a stick for a quarter. But not in a hostile way, just for giggles. They really are on the attack against mankind; it’s a disease.” Back in 1986, Penn returned to his hotel in Shanghai to discover a reporter in his room, so of course he hung the guy out of a 9-story balcony. Apparently, Penn was arrested for attempted murder. The actor also confronted paparazzo Jordan Dawes in Los Angeles in October 2009 and then proceeded to kick him in middle of the street. Penn was put on 36 months probation and ordered to perform 300 hours of community service following the attack.
When Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake were dating in 2004, they were known to physically and verbally attack any paparazzi who threatened their privacy. Cameron Diaz was photographed taking the camera of a paparazzi. Shortly after the incident, she told W magazine that she was considering a move to New York City so she could escape them.
Hugh Grant has had numerous physical altercations with the paparazzi. In 2007, he was arrested for an attack in London, where he threw a container of baked beans at and kicked the videographer, saying that “he hopes his children die of cancer.” Those charges were eventually dropped, but in 2009 he greeted a New York paparazzo by kicking him in the groin (apparently after the TMZ photographer suggested a good place for Grant to hail a cab).
Gerard Butler was charged with misdemeanor criminal battery after punching a paparazzi several times and giving him a bloody lip in October 2008. The photographer was supposedly trailing Butler’s limo for hours and verbally harassing him. The charges were eventually dropped, but the incident hasn’t stopped him from having other altercations with the paparazzi since then.
In June 2010, Shia LaBeouf was caught on tape grabbing a paparazzi’s camera equipment, but the “coffee incident” is likely more fresh in people’s minds. Shia was sitting at a coffee shop in Washington, D.C., while a paparazzi was taking photos of him. He went inside the coffee shop, got a cup of hot coffee, threw it on the man, and ran away. The entire thing was caught on camera but seems to be absent from the Internet now.
