Interviewing celebrities isn't always easy, for the interviewer or the stars themselves.
It can be tricky to come up with questions that an actor or musician hasn't already answered
countless times before, and sometimes out-of-the-box inquiries about movies, television, and music
can get everyone involved into trouble, too.
Female celebrities often are asked about their outfits and their bodies, and all stars often
fall victim to personal questions about their private lives or dark pasts that they've tried
to bury or move beyond.
Whether it's rude questions about a celebrity's personal life or just poor manners, these
stars all made it quite clear when they'd had enough — and they let their interviewers
know it in a big way.
From slight to fight
When Larry King interviewed Jerry Seinfeld in 2007, the legendary talk show host did
ask a pretty dopey question about the way that Seinfeld's hit comedy series came to
an end.
"180 episodes."
"You gave it up right?"
"I did, sir."
"They didn't cancel you.
You cancelled them."
But Seinfeld's reaction may have been bit over the top and rude, all things considered.
First, he acted incredulous that King could even ask such a question.
"You're not aware of this?"
Then, he began laying into King, questioning his professionalism and preparedness.
"You think I got canceled?
Are you under the impression that I got canceled?"
"Have I hurt you?
Have I hurt you, Jerry?"
"I thought that was pretty well-documented.
Is this real CNN?"
If that wasn't awkward enough, Seinfeld then went on to boast about his pop culture relevance
and boost his own ego in the process.
"I went off the air, I was the No. 1 show on television, Larry!
Do you know who I am?"
"Seventy-five million viewers last episode!"
After that, King tried to calm Seinfeld down, but the funny man had no humor about the host's
confusion.
"Well, there's a big difference between being canceled and being No. 1."
To top it all off, even after Larry King apologized for the gaffe, Seinfeld still attacked his
intelligence.
"Can we get a resume in here for me that Larry can go over?"
Perhaps it's appropriate that Seinfeld was promoting his Bee Movie at the time because
those comments sure do sting.
Digging too deep
In Legend, Tom Hardy portrayed bisexual gangster twins Ronnie and Reggie Kay, but while he
was promoting the film at the Toronto International Film Festival, he didn't appreciate the subject
of his own personal preferences coming up.
One reporter contrasted his character Ronnie, who's very open about his sexuality, with
Hardy's real-life persona, which he said is a bit more closed off, and things went right
off the rails.
"Do you find it hard for celebrities to talk to the media about their sexuality?"
"What on Earth are you on about?"
The interviewer clarified that he was referring to a previous magazine interview Hardy had
done years prior.
"I don't find it difficult for celebrities to talk about their sexuality.
Um, are you asking me about my sexuality?"
When the interviewer then answered in the affirmative, Hardy made it clear that the
subject was not up for discussion.
"Why?"
"Um…"
"Thank you."
Hardy later reflected on that viral moment and reiterated his feeling that the question
was inappropriate, telling The Daily Beast:
"That was a public forum, and for someone to inelegantly ask a question that seemed
designed entirely to provoke a reaction…
It's important destigmatizing sexuality and gender inequality in the workplace, but to
put a man on the spot in a room full of people designed purely for a salacious reaction?
To be quite frank, it's rude."
If the interviewer in question was hoping to make headlines, well, mission accomplished.
Missing the memo
When promoting The Dark Knight Rises, Anne Hathaway wasn't impressed with one particular
interviewer's line of questioning about her preparation for the role of Catwoman, Selina
Kyle.
Extra interviewer Jerry Penacoli asked Hathaway about her physique:
"You are in phenomenal shape."
"Thank you!"
"You're always in great shape, but you had to make sure you were in perfect shape for
this one, didn't you?"
At first, Hathaway played along and offered an answer.
"Eh, it wasn't about being in perfect shape, it was about being able to do the stunts and
the fighting perfectly."
And even when he went on to focus on her form by talking about her leather suit, she answered
in kind.
"It was form-fitting.
I mean, it's not a pair of sweatpants, I wouldn't describe it as that kind of comfortable."
But then he continued to ask about her body, asking her to share her, quote, "feline fitness
regime," Hathaway started to get sick of the subject.
"It's all the boring stuff that no one ever wants to do.
It's just watch what you eat and get yourself to the gym."
When he failed to get the memo that she wanted to move on, she turned it around on him instead.
"Are you trying to lose weight?
What's the deal man, you look great!"
"No, no."
"No, seriously.
We have to talk about this.
What do you want?
Are you trying to fit into a catsuit?"
And with that, the lesson was learned.
Hathaway's physical transformations for a role might be fair game for a question or
two, but clearly the Oscar-winner isn't okay with her figure being the central focus of
a conversation.
Airing dirty laundry
Jerry Penacoli struck out again in an interview with Avengers stars Scarlett Johansson and
Jeremy Renner when he opened the segment by asking Johansson about a certain aspect of
her own form-fitting costume wear for Black Widow.
"Were you able to wear undergarments?"
"You're like, the fifth person who's asked me that today."
"Well, no, because…"
"What is going on?"
Right away, Johansson made it clear she found the question to be both odd and offensive.
"Since when did people start asking each other in interviews about their underwear?"
Rather than just change the subject, however, Penacoli stuck with it.
"Because it is such a skintight…"
But ScarJo didn't even let him finish the sentence before shutting him down.
"I'll leave it up to your imagination."
"Aw, see…"
"Whatever you feel like I should be or should not be wearing under that costume."
Apparently, that dismissal wasn't clear enough, however, so Penacoli kept right on talking
about it.
"Is it inappropriate?"
"To ask someone what kind of underpants they wear?"
"I didn't ask you what kind."
"You asked me if I was wearing any."
For some reason, Jeremy Renner felt the need to step in and help Penacoli out, so Scarlett
caved and answered in earnest.
"You can't wear clothes under it!
It's like a… it's like a wetsuit!"
But she still wasn't okay with the question.
"Was I wearing underwear?
I mean, gosh.
Ask Joss."
When Penacoli then told her that he did ask director Joss Whedon about it, she was even
more disturbed.
"You asked Joss what kind of underwear he wears?"
"No, no!"
"What kind of interview is this?"
Perhaps this incident was enough to earn Penacoli some sensitivity training before his next
actress interview.
Going skin deep
Before she served as a presenter for the 2015 Screen Actors Guild Awards, Rashida Jones
walked the red carpet and stopped to talk to TNT's red carpet reporter Danielle Demski
along the way.
The Parks and Recreation star was delighted to talk about her designer gown, but when
the subject of her skin color came up, things got very cringe-worthy, very quickly.
Evidently, Demski didn't know that Jones is the biracial daughter of music legend Quincy
Jones and former model Peggy Lipton, so she asked Jones about how she managed to get her
skin tone to be so tan.
"Wow, just beautiful!"
"You look amazing — gorgeous!
You look like you've just come off an island or something.
You're very tan, very tropical."
Jones was understandably a little baffled at the clueless comment, so she replied simply:
"I mean, you know, I'm ethnic."
Demski apparently did not know that, and her reaction was about as awkward as it could
possibly be.
"It's just being ethnic.
That's what it is!"
Jones shrugged it off and went on with her night, but the headlines that followed were
not kind to her interviewer.
Generalizing the gender issue
During the course of her short-lived daytime talk show, Katie Couric made headlines for
all the wrong reasons while interviewing transgender model Carmen Carrera.
Instead of focusing on her career and ambitions, Couric asked about her genitals.
"Was the whole process painful, physically, for you?"
"Your, your, your... private parts are different now, aren't they?"
Carrera then told her that she'd prefer not to talk about such a personal topic and that
she'd rather talk about work, but Orange is the New Black star Laverne Cox stepped in
to school Couric on etiquette.
"I think that the preoccupation with transition with surgery objectifies trans people, and
then we don't really get to deal with the real, lived experiences."
Cox then went on to talk about the realities that often go undiscussed about the transgender
community, including discrimination, violence, and employment concerns they must face on
a regular basis.
"When we focus on transition, we don't actually get to talk about those things."
To her credit, Couric was all ears during Cox's speech and later admitted to feeling
like a quote, "buffoon" for her misdirection, admitting that her line of questioning was
a mistake and a teachable moment for others to learn from.
It's just too bad it took such a painful broadcast to achieve that awareness.
Letting him finish
In 2010, Kanye West appeared on the Today Show to discuss his infamous remarks about
former President George W. Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina.
During a fundraising segment for victim relief, he infamously claimed:
"George Bush doesn't care about black people."
Bush was offended by the comment and later fired back.
"It's not true, and it was one of the most disgusting moments of my presidency."
Given the newsworthiness of the response, the subject of his words was certainly fair
game for Matt Lauer's interview with Kanye West, and the rapper was happy to contextualize
his comments.
"In a moment of emotion to peg someone or to call a name or peg someone as a racist
is… it's just not right."
However, when Lauer had producers show West a video of Bush's segment, West grew miffed.
"You know, I didn't need you guys to show me, um, the tape to prompt my emotions or
whatever I'm gonna say."
"Ya'll don't have to do the TV stuff with me.
This is reality."
As if tensions weren't already high enough, the same thing happened again when the subject
of his infamous behavior at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards came up, when he rushed the stage
during Taylor Swift's acceptance speech.
While he didn't seem upset that Lauer brought up the incident, he was annoyed that they
played a clip of it while he was speaking.
"Yo, how am I going to talk if you're gonna run the thing in the middle of while I'm talking?"
Lauer instructed his producers to cut the feed, but the conversation couldn't be recovered.
"Please don't let that happen again.
It's, like, ridiculous."
Yep.
That's pretty hard to recover from alright.
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