Celebrity interviews are generally conducted to either promote upcoming projects or provide
a profile of the star.
But sometimes, these Q&As veer so wildly off course, there are severe repercussions.
These are the interviews that changed a celeb's career forever.
Joaquin Phoenix risks it all
Fans of acclaimed actor Joaquin Phoenix worried that they'd had seen the last of the actor
after a now-famous 2009 appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman.
He showed up unkempt and disinterested, giving mostly single-word answers and declaring that
his acting career was at an end.
"You are, you aren't going to act anymore?"
The whole thing turned out to be part of an extended hoax for the fake documentary I'm
Still Here, but Phoenix told The Guardian that the experience was so immersive that
even he sometimes felt the lines blurring.
"Certainly, that was a period when things felt very stressful for me.
I wanted out.
I wanted my f---ing life back.
So, yeah, there was a bit of crossover there."
"I do more hip hop music."
"Hip hop music."
"Um...Is this a joke?"
Winning with Charlie Sheen
Charlie Sheen did several interviews during his notorious and public meltdown in 2011,
but his chat with Andrea Canning on Good Morning America became an instant sensation.
"I'm bi-winning.
I win here, I win there.
Now what?"
It was the beginning of a downward spiral for Sheen which has never ended.
In 2015, he appeared on Today and revealed he had been diagnosed as HIV positive.
By 2018, Sheen was forced to file for child support modifications, claiming in court documents
that he had,
"...been unable to find steady work, and [has] been blacklisted from many aspects of the
entertainment industry."
"'Cause I'm me, I'm different, I just have a different constitution, I have a different
brain, a different heart.
I've got different, you know...I've got tiger blood, man!"
Robin Givens knocks out Mike Tyson
Barbara Walters' 20/20 chat with Robin Givens and Mike Tyson is among the most uncomfortable
interviews ever aired on television.
While Givens recounted in detail how terrifying it was to live with an alleged domestic abuser,
Tyson stoically stared at her the whole time.
"I think that there is a time when he cannot control his temper.
And that's frightening."
Though Tyson remained calm on set, Time reported that the boxer flew into a rage following
the interview.
Two days later, police were called to the Tyson home in response to a new domestic abuse
allegation, and Givens filed for divorce a week later.
Public opinion of the heavyweight champ had shifted forever; two years later, he lost
his championship crown, and in 1992 he was convicted of rape and sent to prison.
"Does he hit you?"
"He shakes, he pushes.
He, um...He swings."
Tom Cruise and that infamous couch
Perhaps no celebrity interview has had as large an influence on public perception like
Tom Cruise's famous 2005 Oprah appearance, where he jumped up on the couch to declare
his love for actress Katie Holmes.
"We've never seen you behave this way before."
"I know."
"Have you ever felt this way before?"
Up until that point, Cruise was known as a heartthrob leading man, but the weird antics
over his relationship with the much-younger Holmes turned public opinion, and led to years
of tabloid headlines about their relationship and his involvement with Scientology.
Uri Geller humiliated on Carson
When self-proclaimed psychic Uri Geller was brought on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny
Carson in 1973, he was unaware that he was being set up to fail.
After booking Geller, the show's producers called up James Randi to help them, quote,
"prevent any trickery."
Randi designed a setup that would be impossible for Geller to unfairly manipulate.
If the illusionist was to create magic on the set, it would be true magic.
Sadly, there was no magic to be had.
"Uri was telling me, you don't feel, what, strong tonight?"
"I don't feel strong.
It's not all tonight, right now I'm feeling being pressed."
According to an interview with The New York Times, Geller.
"I sat there for 22 minutes, humiliated.
I went back to my hotel, devastated.
I was about to pack up the next day and go back to Tel Aviv.
I thought, 'That's it, I'm destroyed.'"
"Are you feeling in the mood yet?
More questions?"
"Alright, let's-"
"What's the capital of South Dakota?"
However, in a weird twist, his complete failure only served to convince the truly gullible
that he must be the real deal.
The backwards logic?
If he was just doing trickery, it would work every time, so since it didn't work, it must
be magic!
As a result, Geller rose to new heights of fame.
Now that's a real trick.
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