Famous Assholes

I'm sure we've done this before, but we were talking LeBron/Jordan in the WDT and I love these types of stories.

Focus: Got any good stories of famous people being complete dickholes? I don't even care if there's very much proof for it, I want to hear it. We don't have journalistic standards, this isn't Buzzfeed.

Alt-focus: Stories of famous people going above and beyond to be decent.

 

Sasha Grey.

Oh, asshole behavior...I'll have to think about that one.

 

Vernon Maxwell. This "man" knowingly gave a woman herpes, smashed his own teammate over the face with a free weight (30 stiches), ran into the stands to beat up a fan, but he also faked a personal family leave before the playoffs. His excuse?

If there is one pro athlete aside from Pacman Jones that should have his existence reversed, it is him. He's a toxic pile of dogshit. He also kidnapped, confined and beat his girlfriend, and took his estranged son for a blood test to try and prove he wasnt his to get put of child support. Unreal evil.

 

Aside from Jordan, which was discussed in the WDT, the only other person I hear and have multiple stories about is Jennifer Lopez.

My buddy was a chauefer in LA for several years and said he would quit before having to drive her cunty "Jenny from the block" ass around again.

Amazing what fame will do to people.

 

Axl Rose.

I've heard stories about Tommy Lee Jones from a buddy of mine who used to work at a real high end steak house down in South Florida. He wouldn't even acknowledge the server at the table and just generally treated people like dog shit.

I met Ken Griffey Jr. at a Planet Hollywood restaurant when I was a kid. He was a real cocksucker. Especially because he was a dick at a place where you go to be seen. If he was a a really private restaurant with a woman or something, I could see being peeved at getting attention. But he was with a bunch of friends being all loud n shit. And I went up for autograph when I was like 9. And he was a real shit to me.

Alt. Focus: I met Boomer Esiason on a plane when I was 17. We were going to NYC for a school trip and I saw him sitting in first class when I was boarding. I went up to him mid flight with my boarding pass and he signed an autograph for me. He was really nice.

 

Focus:
Vince Neal is a cocky, mouthy asshole. I briefly met him and Tommy Lee. Lee was like a giant little kid, happy and jumping up and down with excitement but Neal would roll his eyes at a compliment and acted like my friend and I were dog shit. Fuck that guy.


Alt-Focus:
I flew with the Toronto Maple Leafs 20 years ago to Tampa. Pat Burns, Doug Gilmour and Felix Potvin sat behind us on the plane. All nice, especially Gilmour who was one of the best players in the league and not much bigger than my tiny 17-year-old self.

When I worked in Calgary the WWF wrestlers stayed where our company was staying, and I met Mark Calloway aka The Undertaker. Nearly seven feet tall with scary dead eyes, you've seen this guy. Nice, articulate, he was dressed in full biker fatigues but friendly as a flight attendant.

 

He used to frequent a pharmacy that my sister worked in. She said he looked scary as fuck but was always super nice.

 

I've also meet the Undertaker. I can attest to his niceness.

 

When I was young working at a Go Kart place in Calgary, all of the bands that came through town would come out for a few hours for some fun. I've had the experience of meeting canadian rock god Jeff Martin from the Tea Party. He was a big douche, after cutting the line up inside, going up to the counter and asking to be served, the girl said she would help him once she dealt with the people in front of him first. His response was "don't you know who I am?" When she said no, she didn't in fact know who he was, he tore into her about who he was.

A friend of mine also met him backstage after a concert and while shitfaced asked him if he knew he looked like Jim Morrison. He simply said we're done talking, and walked away.

 

Re: Famous Assholesa

I've got high with him a couple times, I got along with him fine but he hates the Jim Morrison n thing. Not because he looks like him since really he doesn't but he does SOUNDS just like him, and he hates The Doors. I thought he was cool, but you're not the first to say otherwise.

 

FOCUS: I've "met" a bunch of random Bears, not stars, but back up linemen, special teamers, etc... at various nicer bars in Chicago, and they are normally complete shitheads.

ALT FOCUS: On the other hand, contrary to popular media nonsense and like I've said in the NFL thread, Ive heard 90% good things when it comes to 1 on 1 interactions with Jay Cutler. From nurses at Children's Hospital, to people who've seen him at dinner, etc... always said he's friendly and funny. Every negative seems to be a secondhand account of someone who saw him at a bar or club, so you can imagine the lens that was viewed through. I ran into him and Greg Olsen back in 2010, shortly after his second season, at a late night bar in Chicago. They were sectioned off (for good reason given the crowd at that place at 3AM), but I went over, talked to the bouncer for a second, Olsen waved me over, and I just mentioned I was excited to have the both of them in Chicago going forward, they were appreciative and friendly, and I went back over to my friends. Unfortunately, Smokin Jay Cutler had no cigarette in his mouth.

I've also met Jimmy Butler from the Bulls a couple times, beyond nice.

FOCUS: Patrick Kane, shocking to nobody, is a complete shithead. Not like in a "do you know who i am" sort of way, but more like the drunk idiot you always hated being around in college cause who knew what they would do. I'm friends with the daughter of former Hawks (now Panthers) GM Dale Tallon and she's buddies with Kane due to age and hanging out with him when the Hawks kept him and Toews on a really short leash early on. As a result, I've been out with Kaner a handful of times, as graceful and agile he is on the ice, he's the opposite at a bar. Making out with ugly chicks, being belligerent, getting kicked out for throwing bottles, pretty much every story I hear about him in that regard, I believe. Supposedly he's chilled out, which I hope cause he's still my favorite Hawk on the ice.

Musicians are a crapshoot. Ive met lead singers from smaller bands who were antisocial fucktards, and Ive met a weirdo like Jack White who was actually hilarious and engaging.

Devin Harris from (insert whatever NBA team he's riding the bench for) is a douche. He tried to fight me cause I bumped into him walking out a bathroom at a HS VB game the year before he declared for the NBA draft. At the time I was probably 5'8 and the opposite of aggressive. His buddy had to pull him away and ask what his problem was. We have a mutual friend so I ran into him in Vegas a few years later when he was playing for the Mavs, and he was still as asshat.

ALT FOCUS:
Met Nick Lachey when I was in college at a bar on campus and he was far cooler than I would have expected.

Talked to Ne-Yo for 15 min in the ATL airport and he couldn't have been nicer or cooler.

 

Focus: Some of the biggest douchebags I've been around were artists who managed to get exhibitions in the museum I guarded at as a college student. It was like getting your stuff hung on a wall was an automatic "act like an arrogant asshole because everyone is now beneath you" card.

Alt-focus: A pro football player was a classmate of mine for a couple semesters in college when he played for the Vikings- Eric Frampton. He was with the Saints last year. He didn't tell anyone about his job, only told me after being acquainted through class for awhile and even then he downplayed it. Imagine the stereotypical asshole athlete- he was the exact opposite of that.

Maybe not a hot band anymore but a few members of The Doobie Brothers chatted for awhile with my dad, brother, and I after playing an afternoon show in St. Paul, MN in the state capitol yard. They were super friendly and gracious guys.

 

When I was 16 I worked at a Lonestar Steakhouse that was partially owned by Tommy Lasorda and every now and then he and his group of people would come in and just be complete fucking assholes to everyone. Several servers would come back to the kitchen crying because of how they were being treated and our super laid back bartender, who was one of the nicest guys I've ever met, quit because one of Tommy's group got shit faced and went behind the bar trying to fight him.

This kind of thing happened every time he showed up and we never knew when he was coming in. I may or may not have dropped his food on the floor and still served it to him as a little payback.

 

In 2002, 3 Doors Down came out to Bahrain on a USO tour. They came out to the local bars with us and our friends who were the local bar band at the area's best bar. The lead singer and lead guitar were complete assbag fuckheads (surprising, considering how por-military they claim to be). Too good to be there or even look at us. The rest of the band was awesome and super chill.

 

Both Lifehouse (when they were on the downswing) and Maroon 5 (when they were on the upswing) played shows in the backyard of the club I belonged to in college circa 2003-2004. Yes, I'm aware that I'm getting old. Anyway, the guys from both bands hung out with our club officers all day, ate with us, played basketball in the backyard, and then proceeded to play kickass shows.

Mena Suvari spoke to me in an airport once and seemed like a perfectly normal individual. I guess I looked nonthreatening so she picked me to ask if I was waiting for the same plane she was. I was not, and that was the extent of the conversation, mostly because I was so gobsmacked that she was talking to me. In case anyone was wondering, she is TINY. I'm not calling her anorexic or anything, she's just super short and proportionally petite. At the time I was probably 5'6" 150 and I felt like The Hulk next to her.

 

Speaking for the other side of this: the lives some of these super famous kids lead are insanity. It's no excuse for being a shitty person, but it's incredible that anybody can maintain a somewhat normal personality after hundreds of people pay money to stand in line for hours to take a picture with you. And that will happen 40-200 days of out of the year, not to mention all the actual concerts with thousands crying because they're so close, and all the interviews with everyone sucking your dick.

A person's ego can only withstand so much before everything is ruined for them with human interaction.

Again, you can at least not be a total douchebag, but it's a lifestyle that nobody was ever meant to have.

 

Been awhile since I've logged in here but this is a good topic.

Focus: Michael Buffer seriously thinks he is the coolest guy on the planet just for coming up with a popular catchphrase. Also, loads of professional boxers I could tell you are huge douchebags and it would take too long to list which ones.

Alt-Focus: Mark Kozelek, the frontman of former popular 90s band Red House Painters and currently of Sun Kil Moon, is a big boxing fan. I write about boxing for a living and in 2011, I interviewed him about his writing songs about fallen boxers or why boxing was a common theme. After that interview, we've exchanged e-mails on a semi-regular basis ever since. I got him into an Andre Ward fight a few years ago. He did a concert in San Francisco last Saturday and put me on the guest list. Was able to shoot the shit with him before the show and we've made plans to catch a fight in the Bay sometime in the future.

 

Alt Focus: Clint Boyer and Kasey Kahne came into the bar a few sundays ago after the race in Phoenix, they had a group of about 15 people with them including one midget. They could not have been nicer, and the crew that was rolling with them were equally as nice and all were very good tippers. They spent about 2 hours hanging out and listening to the band.

Focus: When Amare Stoudemire played for the suns we bought $150 tickets for a charity event that featured the whole team as bartenders. We bought the basketball they were selling so the whole team could sign it as you were at the event and all the players and coaches we happy to sign and take pics except for asshole who stayed in a roped off area with a few of his boys and refused to even acknowledge anyone.