Bear Down Wildcats

Whether Will Smith slapping Chris Rock, the abusive marriage between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, the countless men outed for sexual predation since Harvey Weinstein's crimes kicked off #MeToo, it seems like Hollywood is reaching a feverish levels of awful behavior from its entitled famous. Granted the tabloids have always existed to relish the troubles of the rich and famous, but it's like they're given a lot more material to work with these days.

I've never even heard of this actor before, but the way the headlines read he's been terrorizing Hawaii for months now:

Sounds like this guy might have had it coming though:

CatsbyAZ wrote: ↑Thu Apr 21, 2022 8:03 am Whether Will Smith slapping Chris Rock, the abusive marriage between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, the countless men outed for sexual predation since Harvey Weinstein's crimes kicked off #MeToo, it seems like Hollywood is reaching a feverish levels of awful behavior from its entitled famous. Granted the tabloids have always existed to relish the troubles of the rich and famous, but it's like they're given a lot more material to work with these days.

The bad behavior has always existed. The difference now is that studios and publicists can’t keep it out of the news and off the internet.

Harvey Weinstein did what countless producers before him did. The casting couch was a real thing going back to the 30s and 40s. The difference is that there were women who were willing to have their careers and lives destroyed to publicize his actions, and a press corp that wasn’t intimidated by possibly losing access to him and the stars he controlled.

I think another difference is that actresses are aware that they no longer need to be willing to do whatever to get roles and that anyone who demands they do something they aren’t comfortable with will get shamed and shunned (and possibly prosecuted). I’m often reminded of the fact that in the 70s Carrie Fisher slept with half the producers in Hollywood to get roles (including George Lucas to get Star Wars). A young Carrie Fisher in 2022 would know that anyone dangling a role to get her in bed is a sleaze who deserves to be publicly put on blast.

Alfred Hitchcock destroyed Tippi Hedren's career by not sleeping with him.

Kirk Douglas raped Natalie Wood.

The list is really endless.

I mean Bill Cosby has to be one of the worst. Bill had one of the cleanest reputations in Hollywood

84Cat wrote: ↑Thu Apr 21, 2022 9:08 am I mean Bill Cosby has to be one of the worst. Bill had one of the cleanest reputations in Hollywood

Incorrect if you are talking within Hollywood circles. Maybe to the public.

UAEebs86 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 21, 2022 8:16 am Sounds like this guy might have had it coming though:

I was with a group of drunken friends who did everything they could to provoke Tyson into a fight in a Scottsdale night club. He got away from us all really, really fast. Now I see what would have happened if we'd have been trapped on an airplane.

Choice testimony from Johnny Depp’s cross-examination from the attorneys of his ex-wife Amber Heard, whom he’s suing for defamation, presented without context:

Attorney: “You dipped your finger in paint after suffering an injury?”
Jack Sparrow: “Yes that was after writing on the walls, the blood had dried as it were, and so I stuck my finger into a can of paint and also mineral spirits to put my verbal messages onto the wall.”

Attorney: “You would agree with me, there was quite a bit of damage to the house after this incident in Australia, correct? And you don’t remember the television breaking, do you?”
Jack Sparrow: “I remember there was a, I believe it was a coffee cup stuck into the screen or a plate…”

Attorney: “You could’ve also defaced the painting by drawing a penis on it, didn’t you?”
Jack Sparrow: “I don’t know about that. I don’t remember drawing a penis on a painting.”
Attorney: “Given the state you were in, it’s entirely possible you did that, even if you don’t remember it to this day, correct?”
Jack Sparrow: “Drawing a penis on a painting was not the first thing on my mind.”

Jack Sparrow: “After receiving kind of a roundhouse punch from Ms. Heard…”

Attorney: “And you may have been drunk in that video, correct?”
Jack Sparrow: “There’s a possibility of that.”
Attorney: “You poured yourself a mega pint of red wine, correct?”
Jack Sparrow: “A mega pint?”

Jack Sparrow: “I wasn’t asking for more ecstasy, I was asking for ecstasy because that is what was requested by Miss Heard…”

Attorney: “And one of your good friends you’ve taken drug with before is Marilynn Manson, correct?”
Jack Sparrow: “Yes…we’ve drank together. We’ve had cocaine together maybe a couple of times…I once gave Marilynn Manson a pill so that he would stop talking so much.”

Jack Sparrow’s text message presented as testimony: “Missing you and yours and await our dangle on the island…You may have to drink for me…I, of course, pounded and displayed ugly colors to Amber on recent journey…I am an insane person and not so fair headed after too much of the drink…Weed, pills…Fine!!! Booze??? My capacity is too large and I won’t stop…Ugly and sad…Oh, how I love it…”

Jack Sparrow: “I received some news that was as aburd and grotesque and cruel and then I was shown a picture of what the problem was. It was a photograph…of our bed and on my side of the bed was human fecal matter.”

I watched a bit of Depp’s testimony. I feel genuinely bad for the guy even though he has more money than I will see in a hundred lifetimes.

Johnny Depp may have more money than me but I've never had my wife take a dump in our bed. That's just fucking nuts

Edit: My wife has informed me that this is some kind of fetish. Holy fuck these people are weird.

The IRS is likely licking its chops on the side line waiting to seize assets when the trial wraps up

Given that Amber is not much of an actor, and not highly paid (maybe, I don't know), why doesn't she fund her attorneys by selling that bedside turd as an NFT? I'm sure it was a pretty one.

Mickey Rooney's wife walked in on him having sex with 14 year old Elizabeth Taylor.

https://cinemadilettante.wordpress.com/ ... OsBf-vUxhM

Chicat wrote: ↑Thu Apr 21, 2022 8:32 am The bad behavior has always existed. The difference now is that studios and publicists can’t keep it out of the news and off the internet.

If there’s anything to take surprising note of from Hollywood anymore, it’s not that it’s a cesspool of perversion, addiction, and abuse. The casting couch is an open secret since the beginning of Hollywood. I remember as a kid watching Letterman and Madonna go back and forth about who she must’ve slept with to rise through the ranks of fame.

It takes a certain ego to pursue show business fame, the kind of relentless ego that seeks fame as a means to validate a deeper sense of self-worship. Once fame is attained, the first thing men look to cash in on is sex. So it’s also not a surprise that over the years this particular dynamic of fame creates a protective superstructure of powerful men systemically insulating themselves from their sexual predations. Harvey Weinstein, Jimmy Savile, Kevin Spacey, Hugh Hefner, the list goes on, not unlike other superstructures of power shielding sexually abusive men – the Catholic Priesthood.

What I initially found surprising is that despite the new reality of differences you point out – that studios and publicists can’t keep it out of the news and off the internet – it still happens regularly. I found this surprising until concluding that this must be an impulse of the celebrity ego. There must be something psychologically deep-rooted about having your sense of self-worship validated by fame, namely the ludicrous admiration from the public (fleeting as it is, Vanilla Ice), that risks blinding the celebrity to the worst of their own terrible natures, even as their harmful actions have become tangibly more consequential since the advent of #MeToo.

Not at all characteristic for Ted Lasso:

I thought I read somewhere she had been hiding from the servers, so it was the only place she could get the papers served to her.

And Jason had no idea this was going to go down like this

Even if he was a dick who wanted to embarrass her, I’m sure he’d know the backlash against him would be pretty substantial and would decide against it.

Amber Heard testifying all this week to various incidents of abuse she faced from Depp, the tables of which I'm sure Depp's attorneys will turn on her.

Through the legal process of trying to clear his name, both plaintiff (Depp) and defendant (Heard) have unearthed so many unredeemable moments in each other, I don't see how the career of either one survives after this, no matter how their defamation case turns out.

If anything, this trial makes it clear how delusionally self-absorbed each other are, to the point they're too big to be in the same room, much less the same relationship with each other. Depp and Heard are quite possibly the two worst people for each other because when their egos are challenged, their lofty self-absorption resorts to destructive behavior.

And another thing this trial brings sadly to life is how destructively addicted to drugs and alcohol Depp is and has been for years. At nearly relived moment of this trial, Depp is either inebriated, rung out on coke and anti-depressants, or handing out pills to his friends.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhnKxb99Li8

The talented Ms Heard is quoting from The Talented Mr. Ripley.

IMNSHO, paying any attention whatsoever to the wretchedly excessive news media obsession with the Depp/Heard case is a deleterious waste of brain cells.

I rely mostly on NPR for media news, and have been unaware of any case details - two weeks ago I was in Texas for 10 days birding, and our group started each morning in hotel dining rooms with cable news feeds - we all found it disturbing the amount of time that this story occupied the screens (we usually tried to kill the sound), while significant newsworthy topics were shelved….

SMH

I listen to NPR and Reuters in the morning while waking up.

Today was the first time they brought up the Depp/Heard case.

The only good thing I could think of is that they are running out of real news to cover.

I for one, hate pop culture, and didn't even know about this case until my daughter told me.

pc in NM wrote: ↑Thu May 05, 2022 12:53 pm IMNSHO, paying any attention whatsoever to the wretchedly excessive news media obsession with the Depp/Heard case is a deleterious waste of brain cells.

I rely mostly on NPR for media news, and have been unaware of any case details - two weeks ago I was in Texas for 10 days birding, and our group started each morning in hotel dining rooms with cable news feeds - we all found it disturbing the amount of time that this story occupied the screens (we usually tried to kill the sound), while significant newsworthy topics were shelved….

SMH

Cool that there's others in here interested in birds. I'm pretty casual about it but do enjoy birding now and then.

We're you on the gulf coast catching the migrants from the Yucatan area after they crossed the gulf?

Carcassdragger wrote: ↑Thu May 05, 2022 4:12 pm

pc in NM wrote: ↑Thu May 05, 2022 12:53 pm IMNSHO, paying any attention whatsoever to the wretchedly excessive news media obsession with the Depp/Heard case is a deleterious waste of brain cells.

I rely mostly on NPR for media news, and have been unaware of any case details - two weeks ago I was in Texas for 10 days birding, and our group started each morning in hotel dining rooms with cable news feeds - we all found it disturbing the amount of time that this story occupied the screens (we usually tried to kill the sound), while significant newsworthy topics were shelved….

SMH

Cool that there's others in here interested in birds. I'm pretty casual about it but do enjoy birding now and then.

We're you on the gulf coast catching the migrants from the Yucatan area after they crossed the gulf?

We were at High Island area three days, Jasper CO (Piney Woods) 2 days, Rio Frio, Uvalde & Kerrville - a bucket list type birders' extravaganza!!! 257 species & ,for me, 27 lifers!!! Birding is my avocation....

Not something I would expect from Scheer.

He also played a rapist on Law & Order.

Merkin wrote: ↑Thu May 05, 2022 2:02 pm I for one, hate pop culture, and didn't even know about this case until my daughter told me.

I don’t disagree. Celebrities deserve to mostly be ignored if only because their entire motive is for us to take mindless notice.

However, in the last 2 and 3 years I’ve started paying more attention to celebrity headlines (i.e. perusing NY Post Page Six). As shallow, trashy, and schadenfreude driven as giving thought to celebrities can be, the idea and study of fame became instructive to a number of basic philosophical viewpoints I’m getting into.

For instance, life itself is such that you’re here one day, gone the next.

Fame works the same way, except, unlike life in which the subject's reaction to death cannot be seen (because, well…death), we as consumerist bystanders to fame get to watch those reacting to the metaphoric death of their fame. And quite often the reaction is pathetic, desperate, and lacks any notion of self-awareness.

Find a rerun of a show from 15, 20 or 25 years ago and it’s surprising to realize how that one show was it for so many cast members, no matter how many magazine covers they at one time might’ve graced in the grocery store checkout line. Here and gone, and if found it’s often not a pretty sight.

Sickboy from Trainspotting might’ve said it the best:

Sick Boy: It's certainly a phenomenon in all walks of life.

Renton: What do you mean?

Sick Boy: Well, at one time, you've got it, and then you lose it, and it's gone forever. All walks of life: George Best, for example. Had it, lost it. Or David Bowie, or Lou Reed... Malcolm McLaren, Elvis Presley...

Renton: OK, OK, so what's the point you're trying to make?

Sick Boy: All I'm trying to do is help you understand that The Name of The Rose is merely a blip on an otherwise uninterrupted downward trajectory.

Renton: Right. So we all get old and then we can't hack it anymore. Is that it?

Sick Boy: Yeah.

Renton: That's your theory?

Sick Boy: Yeah. Beautifully f***ing illustrated.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a94jraWNG-g

The below linked LA Times article, leading up to the last episode of Ellen show this next week, reiterates without meaning to my own confusion over the given reasons why Ellen is/was gradually cold-shouldered from Hollywood.

1) “July 2020 report on allegations of a toxic workplace culture on the show that belied its host’s “Be kind” mantra,” 2) “public-relations miscalculations” that included hosting Kevin Hart on her show to accept his apology over past homophobic tweets that lead to the Oscars cancelling his duties as host (2019), 3) “enjoying a Dallas Cowboys game with former President George W. Bush” for which Ellen failed to explain/apologize (2019), and 4) Dakota Johnson’s appearance in 2019, in which Johnson famously said, “That’s not the truth, Ellen” about DeGeneres claiming she wasn’t invited to Johnson’s birthday party. (“With a mischievous twinkle, Johnson pulled back the curtain to reveal the machinery of the celebrity persona, the army of producers and publicists and assistants just beyond the frame, making clear that stars are not at all like us.”)

NONE of these reasons are worth driving anyone away when compared to all the awful celebrity behavior that for the longest time failed to interrupt an entertainer’s career. Imagine the face of LGBT activism for 25 years would suddenly face industry wide dismissal at a time when LGBT culture and representation is very well established. Something else was going on, I figured.

The article ends with over the top heavy-handedness: “It’s not as if DeGeneres has been driven into hiding. She simply forfeited her position as the queer celebrity everyone — me, my mother, George W. Bush — could agree on, because in a time and place of such terrifying revanchism, it is not enough to be agreeable. For those of us frightened by the change she once represented being so swiftly rolled back, DeGeneres’ fumbling attempt to keep her distance turns out to be the one choice we couldn’t forgive, and will not forget.”

Ellen deserves to be unforgiven? Part of me believes Ellen’s dismissal simply comes down to the public, given enough time, moving on from one face to whomever is next. Celebrities seem to understand less than the public does that their brands are commodifications of their own lives. And like a disposable razor is a commodity meant to be thrown away, so will the public eventually throw away the celebrity. Her time was up.

A more cynical, risky take is that Ellen was the victim of “cancel culture” at a time when “cancel culture” was at its runaway height, and by “cancelling” Ellen, an otherwise cultural untouchable, everybody could be put on notice.

I just think her overtly bland schtick got old.

What’s worse than being controversial and divisive? Being totally boring.

I had heard for years that behind the scenes she's a pretty bad person, the complete opposite of her phoney upbeat excited show host schtick. Guess it finally caught up with her.

One part of it is how hosting a weekday afternoon talk show entails leading a cult. Oprah established that. When you think about it, Oprah actually was annoyingly irreproachable from an everyday American point of view ca. 1985-2005 (not today, of course). It's hard to lead a cult and keep it from falling apart, short of killing everyone in a big fire.

And thanks to Oprah we have Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil.

And thanks to Dr Phil we have Cash Me Outside Girl aka Bhad Bhabie aka Danielle Bregoli, the epitome of Bad Celebrity Behavior.

CatsbyAZ wrote: ↑Sat May 21, 2022 3:10 pm And thanks to Dr Phil we have Cash Me Outside Girl aka Bhad Bhabie aka Danielle Bregoli, the epitome of Bad Celebrity Behavior.

That lady makes millions on OnlyFans NOT showing her cooter.

Alec Baldwin demands workplace safety...says the guy who opened fire on a movie set.

CatsbyAZ wrote: ↑Thu Apr 21, 2022 8:03 am I've never even heard of this actor before, but the way the headlines read he's been terrorizing Hawaii for months now:

Strikes again, further and further off the rails

CatsbyAZ wrote: ↑Sat Jun 11, 2022 8:16 am Strikes again, further and further off the rails

The family of a SECOND child is now alleging Ezra Miller made sexual advances. A court has granted the 12-year-old an order of protection against Ezra Miller. However, Miller's unknown whereabouts are for now keeping him from being served. Despite mounting allegations of grooming and harassment, Miller remains cast in a starring role in Warner Brother's The Flash.

And headline by headline it gets weirder and more dangerous with Ezra Miller - from the Rolling Stone:

Ezra Miller has been hosting a 25-year-old mother and her three young children at their Vermont farm, a living arrangement that worries the children’s father, as well as two others with knowledge of the situation, Rolling Stone has learned.

Two sources with knowledge of the situation expressed concern to Rolling Stone that it is an unsafe environment for children, alleging there are unattended guns strewn around the home on Miller’s 96-acre property. One source, who, like the other, requested anonymity for fear of retribution, recalled an instance where one of the children — a one-year-old — allegedly picked up a loose bullet and put it in her mouth.

The two sources who confirmed seeing children there with their mother describe it as a chaotic environment that is unsafe for children. Video footage from April reviewed by Rolling Stone appears to show at least eight assault weapons, rifles, and handguns lying around the living room, with some weapons propped up next to a pile of stuffed animals.

The two sources also alleged that there has been frequent and heavy marijuana use in front of the children, with little concern about proper ventilation. Rolling Stone has also learned that there is a sizable cannabis farm on Miller’s property, with Miller’s close friend and purported “handyman” Whitney Suters claiming on social media that the two were running a cannabis company called Rebel Alliance Cannabis.

Cue the Livin' La Vida Loca punchlines

And just like that it gets worse...

The "unnamed man" who filed the restraining order against Ricky Martin and who Martin is "accused of having relations with" is... his own nephew.

UAEebs86 wrote: ↑Sat Aug 06, 2022 4:39 am

Heche has one of the most fucked up childhoods that I have ever read so it doesn't surprise me that her personal life is a mess. I'm glad that no one else was injured during that crash.

Man our friend Ezra is on a roll!

And it's just occurred to me how one clear difference between an A List and a B List actor is that B List actors can become more well known (even solely known) for their bad behavior than their minimally watched shows.

Exhibit A: