Let’s face it. Celebrities can be weird sometimes. As a result, we often brush off their creepy behavior as quirky or eccentric.
But then, when a scandal breaks, we realize that maybe we should have been paying more attention. Those old videos weren’t weird – they were creepy and showed the tip of the iceberg of a disturbing secret life.
In fact, many of the celebrities on this list have been accused of assault, either by the people in the interviews or by others in their social circles.
Here are 16 examples of celebrities whose words were analyzed in a different light years after they were spoken, revealing a more unsettling perspective.
#1 Ellen Degeneres Violates Justin Bieber's Privacy On Air
Ellen DeGeneres has regularly been in the hot seat for going too far with celebrities she brings on her show. One of the worst examples happened eight years ago with Justin Bieber.
While interviewing him, DeGeneres pulled up censored nude photos that paparazzi had snapped of the singer. Bieber obviously became uncomfortable and covered his face with his hands, but DeGeneres continued, asking prying questions about the then-21-year-old's sex life.
The interview is poignant now that numerous clips have gone viral of the pop star being sexualized by other celebrities when he was still a teenager, including being groped by Katy Perry, hit on by James Corden, and forcibly kissed by Jenny McCarthy.
While the events had a terrible effect on Bieber's mental health, they have at least brought attention to the fact that sexual harassment in Hollywood can also be an issue for men.
Image credits: TheEllenShow
#2 Justin Roiland's Weird Rant About Minors
Justin Roiland, the co-creator of Rick and Morty, who was let go from the show after domestic abuse allegations, creeped everyone out when he got on The Grandma's Virginity podcast in 2011 and went on a rant about being attracted to teenage girls.
"Look, I'll say, look, a f***ing 14-year-old that looks like she's 18 and, like, big titt** and a nice...of course, I'm attracted to that," he said.
"That's why this whole Chris Hansen thing, I'm like, f**k you, man. These girls are like...they look...they're fully developed. 100 years ago, it was little 13-year-old girls, if they were built like a woman, they were getting married and having kids. And now we're gonna be all precious about it."
It might seem strange enough to suddenly go off on a tangent like that, but it makes a lot of sense considering Roiland has since been accused of sexting with girls under 16.
Image credits: justinroiland
#3 Russell Brand's Forced Kiss
In a 60 Minutes interview with Liz Hayes, Russell Brand was filmed forcibly kissing the journalist and joking about undoing her bra.
Since then, Brand has been accused by multiple women of sexual harassment and inappropriate workplace behavior. He's denied the accusations, but this instance, at least, is there for all to see.
Image credits: 60 Minutes Australia
#4 Bill Murray Confirms Geena Davis's Accusations…over 30 Years Ago
In her memoirs, Geena Davis accused Bill Murray of harassing her repeatedly while they worked together on the set of Quick Change.
We don't have to wonder much at the veracity of her claims because Bill Murray basically admitted they were true in an interview the two did together in 1990.
While Davis recounts the story of Murray touching her during her audition for the film, Murray reenacts the event by snuggling up close to the actress and caressing her repeatedly. Davis, who was married to Jeff Goldblum at the time, says, "It was a lot like this."
She also says that the Ghostbusters star forced an electric massager on her even though she'd repeatedly said no.
Murray only seems proud of his actions as he looks at the camera and states that the massager is called "thumper." Even the interviewer is a bit taken aback and asks, "Are you sure this is a story you want to tell?"
Murray has not responded to Davis's accusations since.
Image credits: The Arsenio Hall Show
#5 Vin Diesel's Creepy Interviewer With Carol Moreira
In 2017, Brazilian YouTuber Carol Moreira interviewed Vin Diesel to promote XXX: Return of Xander Cage. But the action-film star was apparently so smitten with Moreira's beauty that he couldn't do the interview. Instead of answering questions, he just kept repeating how "sexy" she was.
As if that weren't frustrating enough for the journalist, Diesel suddenly leaped up and invaded her personal space while humming. "She's just so f*cking beautiful, it's like you can't even do an interview with her," he said as Moreira gave the camera an exasperated look.
Moreira has since admitted the actor's behavior made her feel "uncomfortable," and even at the time, online commenters were quick to point out how bizarre the interaction was. Some speculated Diesel was on steroids or other drugs.
Regardless, the sexually aggressive antics seem to fit a pattern.
A former assistant of Diesel's recently filed a lawsuit against the Fast and Furious star, accusing him of sexual assault while she was under his employment. The court documents claim that after forcing himself on her in a hotel, Diesel fired the woman for rejecting his advances.
Can we just say that this puts the Moreira interview in an even more disturbing light?
Image credits: italo
#6 Barbara Walters Sexualizes 15-Year-Old Brooke Shields
Another interview that aged poorly took place in 1981. At the time, a 15-year-old Brooke Shields was being interviewed by Barbara Walters after she'd risen to stardom for her role in The Blue Lagoon.
It's clear that Walters was interested in little else other than the sex appeal of the teenage girl, regularly referencing her figure and asking for her measurements.
In her documentary Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields, the actress mentions the interview as part of a larger problem of Hollywood wanting to cash in on her "sexual awakening."
Image credits: TheBrookeNook
#7 Danny Masterson Reveals His Mo To Kevin Pollack
Danny Masterson, star of That 70s Show, is currently residing in California's North Kern State Prison, where he's serving 30 years to life for two felony counts of rape – crimes he committed some 20 years ago.
It's always a shock to learn a once-beloved celebrity led a twisted private life… but it's even more shocking to learn it wasn't really all that secret.
In fact, Masterson basically revealed his method for sexually assaulting women in an interview for Kevin Pollack's podcast in 2012.
In it, the actor confides that his primary strategy for seducing a woman is "pulling her into the shower." This gives us goosebumps now since at least one of Masterson's victims stated in court documents that he drugged her and pulled her into the shower before violating her.
Image credits: Kevin Pollak Chat Show
#8 Diane Sawyer Makes Britney Spears Cry
But arguably, no star got worse treatment in the 2000s than Britney Spears. Today, ever since the #FreeBritney movement, most of the public recognizes how much the young pop star was mistreated 20 years ago.
This is perfectly captured in an interview with Diane Sawyer from 2003, right after the singer's breakup with Justin Timberlake, that's frankly hard to watch. For some reason, the journalist takes an aggressive and unbalanced approach. "You did something that caused him so much pain, so much suffering. What did you do?"
This makes Spears's 2007 breakdown a bit more understandable.
Image credits: ABC
#9 David Letterman Goes Too Far With Lindsay Lohan
Another example of star treatment that seems callous today is Lindsay Lohan's 2013 interview with David Letterman on The Late Show.
Letterman relentlessly makes fun of Lohan for her problems with substance abuse and addiction to the point that the actress starts to cry and says, "We didn't discuss this in the pre-interview."
It's strange to think a producer or comedian would have ever thought this an entertaining angle.
Image credits: Letterman
#10 Megan Fox Gets No Sympathy From Jimmy Kimmel
In a 2009 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Megan Fox recounted that when she was an extra on Bad Boys II, Michael Bay demanded they film a sexualized scene with the actress despite the fact that she was 15 years old at the time.
However, far from showing commiseration, Kimmel made jokes and half-defended Bay, stating, "Yeah, well, that’s really a microcosm of how all our minds work — but some of us have the decency to repress those thoughts and pretend that they don’t exist." The audience laughed and clapped.
Since then, Fox has referred to the interview as a symbol of how Hollywood was in the 2000s, with no one listening to complaints from women like her.
Image credits: Jimmy Kimmel Live
#11 Louis C.k.'s Obsession With His Own Genitals
A 2017 New York Times report detailed the accusations of five women who claimed that Louis C.K. sexually harassed and intimidated them.
He later admitted to the claims, writing, "At the time, I said to myself that what I did was okay because I never showed a woman my d*** without asking first, which is also true.”
“But what I learned later in life, too late, is that when you have power over another person, asking them to look at your d*** isn’t a question. It’s a predicament for them.”
“The power I had over these women is that they admired me. And I wielded that power irresponsibly."
Even in the context of other allegations that surfaced during the #MeToo era, people couldn't help but see the comedian's behavior as weird. Though, apparently, Louis C.K. hinted at this side of his personality years prior in an interview with Vanity Fair.
When asked about what trait he most deplores about himself, he said, "I have an absolutely beautiful penis. It's stunning in every way. God, I hate my perfect penis."
Image credits: Louis C.K.
#12 Will Smith Talks About The Pain Of Being Cheated On
The following interview is painful to watch when we consider the 2020 stories about Jada Pinkett Smith's alleged romantic “entanglement” with August Alsina while still married to Will Smith.
At the 2016 Oscars roundtable, Smith confided that his first girlfriend cheated on him when he was 15 years old, and this was his motivation for becoming famous.
"And I remember making the decision that no one would ever cheat on me again," Smith said. "And the way I was gonna do that was by being the biggest actor on Earth."
You could make the argument that the Men in Black star achieved his acting goals, but it's a cautionary tale for all that it didn't protect him from heartbreak as he'd hoped.
Image credits: The Hollywood Reporter
#13 The Moment Chris D'elia Realizes Snaps Don't Really Disappear
Stand-up comedian and actor Chris D'Elia has had a lot of scandals, many revolving around soliciting explicit pictures from minors over Snapchat.
Apparently, he thought Snaps couldn't be saved or stored, so he'd never be caught. However, thanks to the Internet, the exact moment he realizes that his victims could have been saving his Snaps this whole time is recorded forever.
After a clip emerged from his appearance on the podcast The Fighter and the Kid, some video editors even did us the favor of freeze-framing his face.
Image credits: The Fighter and The Kid
#14 Bill Cosby Talks About Spanish Fly With Larry King
We were all shocked to learn that beloved TV dad Bill Cosby had actually been roofying and sexually assaulting women for decades. But… should we have been?
After all, Bill Cosby had a long history of randomly bringing up Spanish fly, a supposed aphrodisiac. And, more disturbingly, in a 1990 interview with Larry King, he even discussed slipping it into women's drinks.
Image credits: HLN
#15 Harvey Weinstein Praised By Celebrities
Now serving 39 years in Mohawk Correctional Facility in New York, Harvey Weinstein is infamous for committing the sexual assaults that prompted the #MeToo movement. But for a long time, he was known as the guy with "the biggest heart," as complimented by Renée Zellweger at the 2003 Golden Globes.
In fact, there's a myriad of examples of the rich and famous praising the sex offender, and few things have aged worse.
Image credits: Awards Show Network
#16 Ned Fulmer's Infidelity Hypocrisy
In 2017, The Try Guys member Ned Fulmer had strong words about infidelity. In an interview with Cosmopolitan, he stated that his number-one deal breaker in a relationship was cheating.
When asked what he'd do if he found out his wife had cheated, he said, "Oh no, that hurts to even think about. We couldn't stay together. I'd move to Canada."
Apparently, his relationship philosophy only went one way, though, because, in 2022, it was revealed that Fulmer had cheated on his wife with one of his employees.
Lucky for him, though, his wife Ariel appears to be more forgiving, as the couple remain married.
Image credits: nedfulmer
