It's always best to hold your tongue in Hollywood.
After all, a single slip-up can forever tarnish a celebrity's reputation.
Don't believe us?
Take a look at these vintage celebrity interviews.
They're unbelievably awkward in every way, so prepare to cringe!
Charlie Sheen had a rough 2011.
That year, he was fired from the CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men, and there's nothing funny
about suddenly finding yourself unemployed.
There's also nothing funny about Two and a Half Men.
"I said I'm sorry.
I am sorry.
I am!
All right, I'm not."
According to The Telegraph, Sheen was fired from the show because of an out-of-control
drug habit.
An awkward 2011 interview sheds light on his frayed mental state at the time.
After months of erratic behavior, an interviewer told Sheen that a lot of fans suspected he
was bipolar.
Sheen's response?
"I'm bi-winning.
I win here, and I win there.
Now what?"
After a discussion about drug use, Sheen claimed he was clean:
"I've just answered to a higher calling, and it happened in a blink of an eye."
But the most notorious soundbite from the interview has to be this:
"I'm me, I'm different.
I've got a different constitution.
Different brain, a different heart.
I got tiger blood, man."
No matter how many years go by, this interview between actor Jesse Eisenberg and blogger
Romina Puga will never not be awkward.
"Yeah…
That one…
I think what you're doing is you're putting your thumb under your pointer finger."
Eisenberg was promoting his 2013 film Now You See Me... but the interview went south
before Puga finished asking her first question.
Eisenberg gets conspicuously prickly after she refers to his costar Morgan Freeman by
only his last name:
"So Freeman plays, uh… a magic debunker."
"Freeman?
Who are you?
Freeman?
What, are you on a baseball team with him?"
"Yeah he's a buddy of mine."
"Okay."
And that's just the tip of this particularly chilly iceberg.
Seemingly feeding off Puga's nervousness, Eisenberg says to her:
"Um, do you know the, um, comedian Carrot Top?"
"Yes.
Horrible."
"Well.
You are like the Carrot Top of interviewers."
"Ooh."
Following the interview, Puga wrote:
"So, I was just humiliated by Jesse Eisenberg.
[...] The five minute 'interview' [was] more like self-esteem butchering."
Years later, Eisenberg told Business Insider he doesn't enjoy doing press — as though
that wasn't already abundantly clear.
He explained:
"Ninety percent of it is concern that I'm going to misspeak, because I have in the past,
and that seems to be the overriding narrative regardless of the intention or relevance.
So that's a lot of what this is."
Way to let yourself off the hook, Eisenberg.
Back in 2005, an alarmingly giddy Tom Cruise appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, quite
literally jumping for joy at the mere mention of his then-girlfriend, actress Katie Holmes.
"That's how I feel about it!"
And who can forget when Cruise expressed his love for Holmes by jumping up and down on
Oprah's couch?
We can't.
"So this is interesting, Tom.
We've never seen you behave this way before."
"I knooooow."
The epic talk show appearance has spawned countless memes — and was notably satirized
in the otherwise unmemorable Scary Movie 4.
"Wow."
Throughout the very out-there appearance, Winfrey keeps declaring:
"He's gone.
I've never seen him this way."]
"He's gone, Katie!
He's gone!"
"So this is beyond smitten.
This is gone."
“I'm standing on your couch!
Ha ha ha!"
Cruise and Holmes got hitched in 2006, but the marriage didn't last.
Holmes filed for divorce in 2012, asking for "primary residential custody" of their daughter,
Suri.
In a showbiz career spanning multiple decades, Madonna has perfected the fine art of dissing
her fellow pop stars.
In 2012, she said of Lady Gaga's music:
"It feels… uh... reductive."
"Is that good?"
"Look it up."
Madonna's shade was just a touch more subtle during a now-legendary interview at the 1995
MTV Video Music Awards.
As Madge dutifully answers Kurt Loder's questions, a makeup compact suddenly whizzes past her:
"You may say it's a reflection of that… but it's also—"
Loder and Madonna look down below, and guess who they see?
Hole frontwoman Courtney Love!
Loder is rather keen to have Love join in on all the fun.
Madonna, quite clearly, is not.
"Come on up!"
"Should we let her come up?"
"Yeah."
"No, don't, please."
"Come on, Courtney!"
As Love acts out, a helpless Madge mumbles:
"Courtney Love is in deep, dire need of attention right now."
Later on, awkwardness reigns supreme as Love sits with Madonna and Loder.
"Sorry I insulted you.
I was in a bad mood.
But you said something mean about me that day."
Then there's a lot of this kind of thing:
"No, I interrupted you...
"No, no, no…
I'm gonna leave you two."
"I ruined my Mac compact!"
It's an absolutely iconic segment that never fails to Make.
Us.
Cringe.
"You sit in the chair."
"No I don't want to sit in your chair."
"No stay there."
"...it's like a throne."
Plenty of folks are familiar with Jerry Seinfeld's exceptionally uncomfortable run-in with Kesha
in 2017.
He denies her a hug not once, not twice, but three times!
"... 'cuz people are tired most of the time."
"... I love you so much!"
"Oh thanks."
"Can I give you a hug?"
"No thanks!"
"Please?"
"No thanks!"
"A little one?"
"Yeah — no thanks!"
"Ohhh."
Fans were horrified — and so was Kesha.
She later told radio station Hits1:
"I had a moment where I was thinking to myself, 'Wow, maybe I should stop trying to hug everyone
and, like, attack them.'"
"He's not a huggy guy, that's fine."
Meanwhile, Larry King had his own painfully awkward encounter with Seinfeld in 2007.
While interviewing the comedian on CNN's Larry King Live, the talk-show host unwisely asked
about the end of Seinfeld's hit sitcom on NBC:
"They didn't cancel you… you canceled them?"
"You're not aware of this?"
"No, I'm asking you."
"You think I got canceled?"
Granted, King probably should've known that Seinfeld chose to end the series.
In fact, he reportedly turned down a lucrative offer from NBC to the tune of $5 million per
episode.
Seinfield's withering sarcasm is on full display during the clip:
"is this still CNN?"
"Don't most shows go down a little?"
"Most people do, also."
That is some high-octane awkwardness right here.
When Keeping up with the Kardashians launched in 2007 on the E! Network, many viewers became
obsessed with the family.
Around Season 4, famed journalist Barbara Walters put the entire clan on ABC's 18th
annual "10 Most Fascinating People" special.
Clearly, the KarJenners had already earned some haters at this point, because Walters
opened her segment with:
"I have never heard more anger or dismay then when we announced that the people you're about
to see were on our list."
Oh dear.
Sitting down with Kim, Kourtney, and Khloe Kardashian and momager Kris Jenner, Walters
starts her interview with the following blunt statement:
"You don't really act.
You don't sing, you don't dance.
You don't have any — forgive me — any talent."
"But we're still entertaining people."
After some back and forth, Khloe actually ends up agreeing with the host!
"Like, none of us think we have talents.
Like, none of us think we could sing or act or dance."
Hey, fair enough.
But fast forward a few years and the KarJenners are more famous than ever.
Kylie Jenner and Kim K have their own makeup empires; Kendall was the highest-paid model
in 2018; and Khloe launched Revenge Body, her own fitness reality TV show.
As for Kourtney?
In 2019, she debuted Poosh, a Gwyneth Paltrow-style lifestyle blog.
So they aren't singing and dancing… but whatever they are doing seems to be working.
Ben Affleck is a bonafide Hollywood fixture.
The actor-turned-director has been attached to countless high-profile films over the years…
but in 2017, fans were intently focused on a pair of old interviews that suddenly resurfaced.
At the height of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, Affleck spoke out against the disgraced movie
mogul on his Facebook page, writing:
"I am saddened and angry that a man who I worked with used his position of power to
intimidate, sexually harass and manipulate many women over decades.
The additional allegations of assault that I read this morning made me sick."
Shortly after he posted the message, fellow A-lister Rose McGowan called out Affleck on
Twitter.
She claimed he knew all about the allegations made against Weinstein.
"'I TOLD HIM TO STOP DOING THAT' you said that to my face.[...]
You lie."
Around the same time, One Tree Hill alum Hilarie Burton shared her own Affleck horror story
from 2003, explaining that the actor acted inappropriately during a TRL interview.
"You're always like, 'I'm just free-spirited.
It's so nice to see you.'"
"And he wraps his arm around me and comes over and tweaks my left boob."
In an October 2017 tweet, Burton opened up about the incident:
"Girls.
I'm so impressed with you brave ones.
I had to laugh back then so I wouldn't cry."
The next day, Affleck apologized for his behavior in a tweet:
"I acted inappropriately toward Ms. Burton and I sincerely apologize"
Things went from bad to worse for Affleck when another old interview started making
the rounds.
In that one, Affleck is canoodling with Canadian interviewer Anne-Marie Losique of Box Office.
During a 2004 press tour for Jersey Girl, Affleck asks Losique:
"Well you used to show a lot more cleavage than this.
What's the story?
Why are you covering it up today?"
"Well it's Sunday morning."
"Sunday morning?"
At another point in the interview, this happens:
"I like this perfume.
They would like it better if you do the show topless, the station would."
After the video resurfaced, Losique told Entertainment Weekly:
"I want to make it very clear.
It was strictly for the cameras, while the cameras were on.
While they were off, he was actually very proper and we talked about many things."
Regardless of what went on behind the scenes, what happened while the cameras were on is
certifiably squirm-inducing.
Agreed?
"Oooouunghh… you think we can do the interview like this."
Gene Simmons
Being in a committed relationship with KISS bassist Gene Simmons must be hard.
After all, he claims he's bedded down around 5,000 women in his lifetime.
So we have to give it to Simmons' wife Shannon Tweed, the mother of their two children.
In 2011, she held her own during an exceedingly awkward interview on The Joy Behar Show.
In the wake of cheating allegations against Simmons, Tweed remarks:
"He's a pig and I don't like it."
"He's a pig?"
"And I'm…
I'm done."
"You're finished with him."
At one point, Simmons seemingly tries to let himself off the hook:
"Men are basically 12-year-old boys."
"There you go, giving yourself company."
Later on, Behar tries getting to the root of the matter:
"You have been together a long time, you have your… philandering ways.
Is that…?"
"There you go.
I like that word."
Then Behar alludes to Simmons' various sexual trysts:
"How's your back, Gene?"
"My back is good, my schmeckle not so much."
"That's very nice for you to joke about."
"It's a joke!"
And with that, Tweed gets up and leaves the interview.
"Please come back."
"I don't want to, you joked about it and it isn't funny."
"Well I'm trying to make you feel a little more comfortable."
So that happened.
But because love is a wild and crazily unpredictable beast, Simmons and Tweed wound up getting
married a few months after the interview.
In May 2018, Simmons seemed to admit to his wrongdoing, telling Us Weekly:
"The astonishing thing about women is … I don't know why, but you forgive our trespasses
over and over, every single day.
Guys wouldn't do that."
Jonah Hill seems quite pleased with how his acting career is going.
In a 2013 interview with Rolling Stone, he mused:
"I've done one of the biggest challenges you can do in Hollywood, which is transition from
being a comedic actor to being a serious actor, and I'm really prideful of that."
Perhaps that statement has something to do with an interview he conducted with his Moneyball
co-star, Brad Pitt.
Posing a fan question, Hill asks:
"If you could adopt a personality trait or mannerism from one of your Moneyball costars,
who would it be?"
Hill points out that Pitt can pick literally any co-star — including a certain special
someone:
"Anyone sitting right here…
That could be one of them."
Pitt's response?
"Yeah, no.
Yeah, no.
I gotta go with a serious actor."
Ouch!
Hill seems understandably uncomfortable following the exchange, rendering the rest of the interview
rather difficult to watch.
These days, Hill can probably laugh about it.
After all, his Moneyball performance earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting
Actor.
Plus, in 2018 he starred in the Netflix drama Maniac, and made his directorial debut with
the 2018 coming-of-age film Mid90s.
As Hill would tell The Guardian in 2019:
"All actors are typecast, but I tried to change whatever pigeonhole I was in because I didn't
want to get stuck there."
The '60s were an altogether different time, with the concept of modern feminism only slowly
creeping into the mainstream.
Meanwhile, James Bond — portrayed by actor Sean Connery -- was the epitome of masculinity
on the silver screen.
"I admire your luck, Mister …?"
"Bond.
James Bond."
In a 1965 interview with Playboy, the Scottish actor was asked:
"How do you feel about roughing up a woman, as Bond sometimes has to do?"
Connery's response is a jaw-dropper:
"I don't think there's anything particularly wrong about hitting a woman.
[...] If a woman is a b----h, or hysterical, or bloody-minded continually, then I'd do
it."
What's worse, Connery didn't back down from that statement during a 1987 interview with
Barbara Walters.
The famed journalist made sure to bring up the old quote, asking Connery:
"Remember that?"
"Yeah."
"I didn't love that."
"I haven't changed my opinion."
In fact, Connery even says:
"I don't think it's that bad.
I think that it depends entirely on the circumstances."
Asked what situation would "merit" slapping a woman, Connery offers this response:
"They want to have the last word and you give them the last word, but they're not happy
with the last word.
They want to say it again."
A clearly gobsmacked Walters asks:
"What if she gives you a good slap back?"
"Well… then you get into another area.
Then maybe she's getting to like it, and it becomes something else, I don't know."
That interview was awkward when it first aired in 1987, and it's beyond awkward now.
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