Fame isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be. Rising to the top of your game in film or music has serious drawbacks, from dangerous stalkers to social media trolls. One of the most intensely frustrating aspects of being a famous face has to be dealing with paparazzi, who follow stars everywhere – heckling and goading them to get a reaction.
Even Taylor Swift’s dad reportedly lost it last month when an Australian photographer took things too far. On the last night of her Eras Tour in the country, the pair had just disembarked a boat in Sydney when two paparazzi “were aggressively pushing their way towards Taylor, grabbing at her security personnel, and threatening to throw a female staff member into the water”, the singer’s rep said, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Now Scott Swift, aka Papa Swift, 72, is being accused of assault by one of the photographers.
What are the allegations against Dan Schneider, former Nickelodeon producer?
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So which other stars have lost it over the years?
1. Lily Allen
In 2009, a relentless photographer ran into the back of the “Smile” singer’s car in London, as reported by The Express at the time. She jumped out of the car, hurled a water bottle at him, and then proceeded to lay into him with her feet, repeatedly kicking him while other paparazzi filmed the entire thing.
2. Ye
The rapper once known as Kanye West has had numerous run-ins with paparazzi over the years, including most recently when a female TMZ reporter hijacked him in January to ask if his wife Bianca Censori had “free will”.
In 2013, a scuffle with a paparazzo at LAX led to the photographer suing the star, claiming he’d injured his right hip as Ye wrestled him to the ground, per Hot New Hip Hop.
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Did Kanye West just charm his wife Bianca Censori’s mum in Los Angeles?
3. Hugh Grant
Hugh Grant may have played the polite and bumbling English gent in many of his early films, but the Brit star apparently went postal on a photographer named Ian Whittaker who kept harassing him near his London home. Per The Guardian’s account of Gran’s arrest following the 2007 incident, Whittaker was left “bruised, battered and covered in baked beans” after the Wonka actor threw a “family sized tub” of the baked bean at him and kneed him in the groin.
4. Chris Martin
Chris Martin is another star you’d expect to keep his cool at all times – not least because of his previous marriage to self-love guru Gwyneth Paltrow before the pair “consciously uncoupled”. But when a paparazzo hounded his then wife as she walked out of a hospital in 2008, he lost it, wrestling the photographer to the ground and taking his camera, as apparently witnessed in the video above.
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5. Justin Bieber
Grown adults have enough trouble keeping their cool around paparazzi that repeatedly goad them – imagine being an overly sensitive teenager and having to deal with it. In 2013, one photographer’s provocative comments were the final straw for the 19-year-old.
Footage emerged of an irate photographer yelling obscenities at Bieber as he got into a van, after the snapper claims he was “manhandled” by the star, according to E! News. Bieber didn’t take the abuse kindly and literally came out fighting, re-emerging from the vehicle and pushing past his bodyguards to lunge at the offender, screaming, “I’ll f****** beat the f*** out of you!”. Classy comeback.
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6. Britney Spears
In 2007, an embattled Britney Spears had just shaved her head after fleeing from her rehab clinic a few days prior, per Vice. When she pulled up outside a petrol station in California, a pack of paparazzi surrounded the vehicle, flashbulbs going off in her face. After stewing for a while in the passenger seat, she snapped, jumped out and began beating photographer Daniel Ramos’ Ford Explorer with an umbrella. The subsequent photos became iconic for all the wrong reasons – with the infamous umbrella later put up for US$50,000 at auction.
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Meet Bryan Spears, Britney’s older brother and ‘best friend’
7. Alec Baldwin
Not long after Baldwin welcomed his first child with Hilaria Baldwin in 2013, he got into an altercation with a photographer in New York. According to NBC, the 30 Rock actor pinned the pap to the bonnet of a car after he caught him snapping photos of the couple in a West Village cafe.
