Interviews can be tricky for celebrities. Sometimes they are monotonous or stressful,
but they can also be surprising or emotional. Tears can be used as a defense mechanism,
or they can tell us more than words ever could. Here are the interviews that left celebrities
in tears.
During a Net-A-Porter panel, actress Gina Rodriguez spoke about the gender wage gap,
saying,
"I get so petrified in this space talking about equal pay especially when you look at
the intersectional aspect of it. White women get paid more than black women, black women
get paid more than Asian women, Asian women get paid more than Latina women, and it's
like a very scary space to step into."
Her assertion was mostly correct — Asian women do not make more than Black women, according
to the American Association of University Women. Nonetheless, her comments led to a
backlash from some fans, specifically because Latina actress Sofia Vergara topped female
earners that year. This was also not the first time Rodriguez waded into controversial territory.
Earlier that year, she interrupted an interviewer who said that Yara Shahidi was a role model
for Black women, saying instead that Shahidi was a role model for, quote, "so many women."
The interview host, not to mention thousands of internet viewers, felt that Rodriguez's
interruption insulted the inspirational relationship specifically between young black actresses
and their fans.
Rodriguez addressed the controversy while chatting on Sway's Universe, finding herself
emotional in the process.
She said,
"I never said actresses. I wasn't speaking about my industry."
She added, quote, "The backlash was devastating, to say the least, because…", and then began
to fight back tears, before continuing,
"Because the black community was the only community I looked towards growing up. We
didn't have many Latino shows."
She continued, saying,
"The black community made me feel like I was seen. So to get anti-black is saying that
I'm anti-family."
"If I have hurt you, I am sorry, and I will always be sorry."
In the past, Mike Tyson would resist crying in public and on tv, likely because he saw
it as a sign of weakness. As he's gotten older, though, he has become more emotional, particularly
on his podcast, Hotboxin' with Mike Tyson. Maybe he's just fighting his feelings less.
During his chat with Sugar Ray Leonard, Tyson struggled to explain what the boxing legend
meant to him, saying,
"I saw you fight Wilfred Benitez when I was locked up."
He went on, then paused, telling Leonard,
"I can't even talk."
After Leonard tells Tyson that he supports him, the former heavyweight champion interrupted
him.
"It changed my life. I said, 'this is what I'm going to be.'"
Tyson then explained how everything he got in life was because of Leonard.
At that point, he pivoted and started talking about being a student of the sport, saying,
"I read about them all. I studied them all. I know the art of fighting, I know the art
of war, that's all I ever studied. That's why I'm so feared, that's why they feared
me when I was in the ring. [...] I was an annihilator. It's all I was born for. Now
those days are gone. I'm nothing. I'm working on the art of humbleness."
"That's the reason why I'm crying, 'cause I'm not that person no more, and I miss him."
Will Smith found himself the inspiration behind countless memes after he fought back tears
hearing about his wife's extra-marital, quote, "entanglement" on Red Table Talk. Yet, that
wasn't the first time he got emotional on the show. In fact, when Will and Jada Pinkett
Smith discussed parenting earlier in the year, specifically the birth of his first son, Trey,
the actor was unable to control the waterworks.
Speaking through tears, he said,
"I brought him home, and I remember we put him in the bassinet, and Sheree went to sleep,
and it was like stark terror. It was like, 'I'm totally responsible for this life.' And
I just couldn't stop going and checking [...] and I gotta make sure he's breathing, you know,
all of that new parenting stuff, but I just cried so hard. It makes me teary right now."
Will then explains how ill-equipped he felt to care for a son, saying,
"Like, I'm not the guy. I'm not the guy, you know."
"I just knew I didn't know nothing. Yeah."
It's at this point that Will starts wiping tears from his eyes, stopping to laugh with
Jada, presumably about the fact that he's crying on the show.
After trying to compose himself, he explains that, at that moment, he felt that his father
was better than him, saying,
"Yeah, it was like, ptshoo. It's on me now."
To create her heartbreaking and Academy Award-winning performance in 12 Years a Slave, Lupita Nyong'o
combined talent and the weight of responsibility in dealing with such a sensitive and important
topic. According to her interview with Arise Entertainment 360, the most memorable and
shocking scene in the film, the violent whipping of her character, Patsey, was made all the
more real for her by the scars she wore.
She explained,
"The evening before I shot that scene, we had done another scene in which I need the
rips, the scars, from before Patsey [...] that epic whipping, and it had taken four hours
to do those scars."
Seeing that she had another long day in the makeup chair the following day, the actress
suggested that she keep the scars on overnight to save some time. That night, Nyong'o had
an epiphany of sorts.
She explained,
"I could only sleep on my belly because I didn't want to mess them up, and they just
haunted me. They were so present, and I was so uncomfortable.
"But it occurred to me as I was weeping in the night that my discomfort was temporary
and Patsey's wasn't."
Fighting through tears in the interview, however, Nyong'o explained how she was able to settle.
"I had been given this privilege to bring her back to life. And it just quieted my soul
and prepared me for the next day's work."
Knowing what we know now — that the late Chadwick Boseman had been diagnosed with colon
cancer four years prior to his untimely death — his actions in the last few years of his
life take on a different shape. His strength looks more remarkable, his perseverance more
incredible, and his compassion more personal. Perhaps no clip highlights this better than
the town hall special on SiriusXM in which Boseman spoke about two young cancer patients
who inspired him during the making of Black Panther.
"There are two little kids, Ian and Taylor, who recently passed from cancer. Throughout
our filming, I was communicating with them knowing that they were both terminal. What
they said to me and their parents said they're trying to hold on 'til this movie comes."
Boseman explained how hearing that was both motivating and humbling. It made him want
to do better and be better in the film. It also helped illustrate how meaningful the
film was for these young boys.
He thought back to his own childhood and how he, too, lived for little moments like that,
saying,
"It put me back in the mind of being a kid just to experience what those two little boys'
anticipation of this movie."
"And when I found out that they, phooo..."
Boseman fought tears in silence for several moments before continuing.
"Yeah, it means a lot."
Jon Voight has shown himself to be a supporter of Donald Trump. He's spoken out against left-leaning
Hollywood in the past, after he was awarded the National Medal of the Arts in 2019, the
first such award given during Trump's presidency, a result of the president's, quote,"uneasy
relationship with the arts," according to The New York Times. During a talk with Mark
Levin on Fox News in 2018, however, Voight's love and admiration for Trump bubbled over
as he discussed his feelings about the man.
On Life, Liberty & Levin, Voight recalled a conversation he had with a conservative
actress that brought him incredible joy. He recalled asking her,
"So what do you think about our man?"
He then explained how the woman simply placed her hand on her chest. As he imitated this
action, he began to cry.
"That's me crying."
Levin asked him why he was crying.
"So first of all, the gesture was so beautiful. She couldn't even speak. She was just saying,
'thank God.'"
He went on, saying,
"And one of the reasons why I can say 'thank God' is because I know he's there, you know,
for us all."
"That's one of the things that we've lost is this compass of God."
Fans often have a hard time saying goodbye to a great television series, but they're
not alone. Actors, too, can struggle moving on from a beloved project. During a Breaking
Bad reunion, Jonathan Banks, the actor who played Mike Ehrmantraut in the show, discussed
how hard it was moving on to the spin-off, Better Call Saul, without the majority of
Breaking Bad stars.
In the Entertainment Weekly "Cast Reunion" special, he said,
"For Bob [Odenkirk] and I, it continues. It's hitting the lottery. It's whatever cliche
you want to use. And it is painful, by the time you get to the end of this [...] couch,
to be with you guys."
Saying this, Banks started crying and swearing, clearly not expecting to do this during the
reunion, saying,
"When we started Better Call Saul, I thought there was a ghost on the lot."
He went on to say he was walking around the lot, going,
"Where is everybody? Aren't they going to come from around the corner? I didn't know
I was going to do this."
Laughing off his public show of emotion, Banks blamed it on not getting enough sleep the
night before. He ended his turn by saying,
"How good? How Lucky? And I love Mike."
At this point, Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston interjected and quipped,
"My favorite scene was killing Mike Ehrmantraut."
In an Extra Butter interview discussing his role in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Chris
Pratt was asked to field questions from random viewers. When he was shown the recorded question,
the actor was surprised to see it was from his brother, Cully Pratt, who said,
"How do you do it? How do you stay so motivated, so humble, so grounded, so inspirational,
and so nice?"
The sweetness in the questions clearly got to Pratt, as he began tearing up watching
it. Still, Pratt wasn't about to let a chance to rib his brother slip by. When asked if
there was any one person who impacted his life more than any other, he quipped,
"My sister, Angie. She just showed me what it means to be tough and to trust your emotions."
He also recognized his mom and his gym teacher. The familial zinger definitely hit home, because
Cully would get him back. In a later Extra Butter interview, this time promoting Onward
with his co-star, Tom Holland, Pratt was shown another clip from Cully, who said,
"Hey, oh my gosh. This is so exciting. Tom Holland, you are like my favorite Avenger.
I'm just freaking out right now."
Those who have seen A Star is Born know that it's an emotional movie, but it's not just
the viewers who get choked up by the film. Just watching interviews with the cast makes
it clear that they, too, were part of an emotional roller coaster while making and promoting
the film. In a talk with ABC News' Adrienne Bankert, Anthony Ramos, perhaps best known
for his parts in Hamilton, reminisced about his humble beginnings in drama and got himself
and everyone else in the interview crying.
He spoke about how he had a single lifeline when he was young, and it was his theater
teacher, Sara Steinweiss, the woman who helped get him where he is today. Speaking as he
wiped his eyes, he said,
"Changed my life. I grew up in the projects, yo. Virtually, I had no chance. And I had
this woman that said, 'I'm not giving up on you.'"
The next year, Ramos went and visited Steinweiss at his old high school and told her how much
she meant to him.
"I'm grateful to God for you because you changed my life. I love you. You changed mine, too."
In 2018, the Hip-Hop world was dealt a brutal blow with the sudden death of Mac Miller.
Fans and peers were impacted by the loss, but rapper ScHoolboy Q was one of his closer
friends in the industry. In an interview with Charlamagne tha God, he spoke about it for
the first time, saying,
"Losing a friend to gang-banging is way different than losing a friend that's like an innocent
little kid that's just super pure."
Schoolboy Q explained how the last time he spoke to Miller, the young rapper acted, quote,
"weird," and Charlamagne tha God asked Schoolboy Q what he missed most about Mac.
ScHoolboy Q responded, quote,” just him,” then said,
"Man, that's my n------, bro. I got memories with that n------, bro."
After walking away to compose himself, he considered editing that portion out of the
interview.
"I don't want to look like I'm, like, exploiting the situation."
Charlamagne reassured him that no one will think less of him and that his show of emotion
was justified.
After Paul Walker's death in the midst of the Fast & Furious franchise, his long-time
castmates were asked plenty of times about his impact and how his loss affected them.
Over the course of the many films they did together, Vin Diesel and Walker and their
families grew quite close, so he fielded the bulk of the questions. During the promotional
stage of Furious 7, the film they were shooting when Walker died, Diesel found himself struggling
to find the right words for his late friend.
As the interviewer, Bonnie Krebs shifted the discussion to Walker, Diesel became noticeably
still, his glasses hiding his eyes.
Krebs said,
"I have to say, you know, it was an undeniable friendship and chemistry that the two of you
had, and it was very, very special. How are you hoping this is going to honor his legacy?
Because I think he's looking down on this thinking, 'This is a damn amazing film.'"
"Yeah, you know, I'll wait to hear it. I'll wait to hear it."
Krebs then asks what Diesel remembered most about Walker, and Diesel said,
"If I ever had any kind of problem in life, the last person I would call would be him,
and somehow he would help me."
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