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Last month, Vin Diesel was accused of sexual battery by a former assistant, who claims Vin Diesel forced himself on her in a hotel room in 2010. (He has “categorically denied” the claim through his lawyer.) In light of the accusation, many former fans brought up an interview that was already creepy, but seemed far more so after learning he may have assaulted a woman.
The interview is from 2017, when he was promoting his film XXX: Return of Xander Cage. In the interview, Diesel struggles to answer Brazilian YouTuber Carol Moreira’s questions, continuously repeating she’s too beautiful and sexy for him to focus. At one point, he starts crawling toward her and gets right up in her personal space while Moreira anxiously laughs. While that’s as far as it goes, Diesel’s behavior was called out for being “so fucking creepy,” with another writing, “While disappointing, I can’t say that the news surrounding him rn is all that surprising” based on the interview.
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That ’70s Show star Danny Masterson was recently convicted of rape and sent to prison for a 30-year-to-life sentence. In light of this, several of his interviews and jokes take on a more ominous nature. In particular, an interview Masterson did in 2012 on Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show.
In the interview, Masterson joked about “kiddie porn” and his former DJ name DJ Donkey Punch. In case you’re not aware, a donkey punch is slang for a dangerous sex act that involves hitting someone in the back of the head to cause their muscles to contract and tighten around the penis mid-penetration — though Masterson said he originally thought it was a punch to the ribs (for the same purpose). Casually joking about a violent sex act — and also claiming he doesn’t condone violence in sex — is eerie to see in light of his conviction.
In the interview, he also suggests the best move to make after you’ve got a woman to go home with you is bring them in the shower with you. Two different women who accused Masterson of rape told of him bringing them into his shower.
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A number of interviews and statements from Chris D’Elia were cast in an even more creepy light after sexual misconduct and grooming allegations from minors (D’Elia has denied the claims, saying all his relationships “have been consensual and legal”). For example, on his podcast Congratulations with Chris D’Elia, he once said, “You ever see a f***ing 14-year-old? She looks 30. There’s no such thing as a 14-year-old girl anymore. They go from, like, 6 to 25.”
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The allegations against D’Elia include that he solicited nude photos from minors via Snapchat. In 2014, here’s what D’Elia had to say on Ten Minute Podcast about Snapchat: “By the way, if you ever send me a Snapchat of anything but your face or your body, take a hike.” He also joked, “People send pictures on Snapchats, driving in a car, ‘oh it’s raining, here’s my Starbucks’… Show me your bod… Just show me your f***ing figure,” and claimed, “Snapchat is for showing your bits.” He even kept going with, “A v-neck? Take it off! Show me what you got under that,” despite the hosts calling him out for his comments.
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But perhaps the most infamous interview in the wake of the allegations is from 2019. On the podcast The Fighter and the Kid, while discussing a teacher who had sent nude photos to a student via Snapchat, D’Elia discovered that Snapchats can be recorded and saved to later hold the sender accountable. The clip has since been edited by people online, zooming in on D’Elia’s face as he basically realizes he could be in trouble.
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Russell Brand’s behavior in interviews also seems even creepier in light of multiple accusations of sexual assault and inappropriate workplace behavior (which Brand denies). One such example is from 2012, when Brand appeared on 60 Minutes and forcibly kissed host Liz Hayes, along with joking about unclipping her bra.
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Also, in 2006, Dannii Minogue was interviewed by Brand on his show 1 Leicester Square, and according to Minogue, “kept making shocking remarks that I can’t even repeat. Just uttering the words would make me blush.” The interview itself isn’t available online, but an interview with Minogue after she appeared on the show is, in which she calls Brand a “vile predator.”
“He is completely crazy and a bit of a vile predator. I certainly don’t think he has cured his sex addiction, that’s for sure. He wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Minogue said, adding that he pointed out her “fabulous breasts” and followed her down a hall trying to get her number. “He always goes that step too far. Never quite far enough to slap his face, but usually too far.”
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Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland, who was let go from any involvement with Rick and Morty last year following accusations of domestic abuse, also has had some past interviews and podcast appearances come under scrutiny, particularly in regard to minors. (Roiland has since been accused of sexual assault and sexual conversations with underage fans. He has denied all claims.)
For example, on The Grandma’s Virginity Podcast in 2011, Roiland joked openly about how he’d have lots of sex if he could go back to being in fourth grade knowing what he knows now. He then went on to say, “I’m not a pedophile, though, alright? I’m not attracted to fucking little kid bodies. I like fucking women bodies. Look, I’ll say, look, a fucking 14-year-old that looks like she’s 18 and, like, big titties and a nice…of course, I’m attracted to that.”
“That’s why this whole Chris Hansen thing, I’m like, fuck you, man. These girls are like…they look…they’re fully developed,” he continues, referring to the fake photos sent to the men on the show. “100 years ago, it was little 13-year-old girls if they were built like a women, they were getting married and having kids. And now we’re gonna be all precious about it.” He then repeats he’s not a pedophile and waits until women are 18…before his cohost points out that his 22-year-old girlfriend looks like she’s in junior high.
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Also aging poorly are extremely positive remarks quite a few celebrities have made toward Harvey Weinstein in awards acceptance speeches — including Renée Zellweger, who claimed during the 2003 Golden Globes that he had “the biggest heart.”
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Many also called him the “Punisher,” including Madonna…
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…And Meryl Streep. Weinstein — then known for his impressive track record in Hollywood and for being both a “living legend” and an “absolute nightmare” — was later accused of a whole slew of sexual assaults, harassment, and misconduct by a number of women in Hollywood.
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Next we have a quote from Weinstein himself that has aged poorly, not only in relation to himself, but to Bill Murray, who has since been accused of inappropriate and abusive behavior and sexual misconduct.
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One of Murray’s accusers is Geena Davis, who made headlines last year when she spoke about how Murray berated her on the set of Quick Change and used a massage device on her after she repeatedly said no during a meeting. But this wasn’t the first time Davis had brought up the claims — in fact, a resurfaced 1990 interview shows just how creepy he was toward her while promoting Quick Change, though it was laughed off at the time.
Throughout the interview, Murray caresses Davis, who leans away from him and at one point elbows him when he touches her dress and jokes that her husband (Jeff Goldblum) is fine with it. At one point, Davis specifically references the massage device incident, while the audience laughs. It does not appear Murray has publicly addressed Davis’s accusations.
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In 2017, Louis CK admitted to exposing himself to women that he held unequal power over, after several women accused him of sexual harassment and intimidation. He wrote, “At the time, I said to myself that what I did was okay because I never showed a woman my dick without asking first, which is also true. But what I learned later in life, too late, is that when you have power over another person, asking them to look at your dick isn’t a question. It’s a predicament for them. The power I had over these women is that they admired me. And I wielded that power irresponsibly.”
This revelation makes a quote from a prior interview with Vanity Fair extremely disturbing. When asked for the trait he most deplores in himself, Louis CK replied, “I have an absolutely beautiful penis. It’s stunning in every way. God I hate my perfect penis.”
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It also casts this quote, in Judd Apatow’s book Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy, in a new light. In Louis’s interview for the book, he says Bill Cosby was his first comedy idol. Cosby has since been convicted of sexual assault, though the conviction was overturned.
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Speaking of Cosby, he has a history of mentioning Spanish Fly (an alleged aphrodisiac). Cosby — who was notably accused of drugging and molesting women (which he denied) — discussed how one could put it in a woman’s drink in a 1991 interview with Larry King.
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A number of uncomfortable interviews with male late night hosts and female celebrities have resurfaced in the past couple of years and been examined in a new light, with people pointing out the kind of behavior famous women had to laugh off in the 2000s. One such example is Megan Fox, who told a story to Jimmy Kimmel about Michael Bay having her perform a sultry scene at age 15, with Kimmel essentially replying that all men would think the same way.
Fox herself has spoken about the interview in the years since, saying in 2021 that the interview “was a microcosm of my whole life and whole interaction with Hollywood. It was just very dark.” She was “so lost” and struggled to find value or purpose in a “misogynistic hell that was Hollywood at the time.”
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David Letterman also had a number of uncomfortable interviews with female celebrities that now come across more cruel than funny, including with Lindsay Lohan. In one interview, he asked Lohan a number of invasive questions about rehab and addiction in a derisive manner, then tried to read off a list of things she’d recently been through.
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He also had an extremely uncomfortable interview with Jennifer Aniston, where he came up behind her and licked her hair. Aniston, clearly uncomfortable, laughs it off and moves away, but it’s hard to imagine being expected to laugh off that kind of behavior today.
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Basically, every early-2000s interview with Britney Spears has aged poorly — including some from when she was a minor — due to her mistreatment by a large number of interviewers, such as this interview with Dutch TV journalist Ivo Niehe where he asks about her breasts.
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But possibly the most brutal in retrospect are the interviews about her breakup with Justin Timberlake. In the wake of changing opinions on JT and Spears’s book, as well as Spears’s highly publicized breakdown in 2007, the way interviewers blamed Britney for the split feels particularly uncomfortable, vindictive, unfair, and hard to watch. In particular, her interview with Diane Sawyer — in which Sawyer brings Spears to tears — is heartbreaking.
Spears later blasted this interview, saying in 2021 (after the #FreeBritney movement had brought up much of her past mistreatment), “Do we dare forget the Diane Sawyer interview in my apartment almost 20 years ago? What was with the ‘you’re in the wrong’ approach?? Geeze…and making me cry???”
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Brooke Shields has also recently spoken out about the way she was sexualized in the industry in her youth, and particularly called out an interview with Barbara Walters when she was 15. In the interview, Shields was asked questions about “secrets from her mother” and her measurements, as well as the loss of her childhood. She later called the questions “practically criminal” and “not journalism.”
Shields later told Drew Barrymore she “felt so taken advantage of in so many ways” in the 1981 interview, recounting, “She asked me what my measurements were and asked me to stand up. And I stand up, and she was, like, comparing herself to this little girl. And I thought, ‘This isn’t right. I don’t understand what this is.’ But I just behaved and just smiled.”
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Many of Ellen DeGeneres’s interviews have been viewed in a new light following toxic workplace allegations — with a focus on her invasive personal questions, especially having to do with relationships. For example, she showed Justin Bieber’s (censored) nudes on her show, then pushed him multiple times about a girl in the background while Justin was clearly uncomfortable. And this is not the only time she’s shown his nudes.
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But perhaps most memorably, back in 2008, DeGeneres pressured Mariah Carey to drink champagne to prove she wasn’t pregnant. “I was extremely uncomfortable with that moment is all I can say,” Carey told Vulture in 2020. She had been pregnant at the time, but “I wasn’t ready to tell anyone because I had had a miscarriage,” she revealed. She ended up miscarrying again.
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Sometimes, interviews are viewed in a new light after revelations about a celebrity’s relationship. For example, in an actor’s roundtable in 2016, Will Smith talked about how his first girlfriend cheated on him, and said he’d vowed no one would ever cheat on him again.
Then in 2020, Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, made headlines when she admitted to having had an “entanglement” with singer August Alsina while she was separated from Smith, but still married to him. She claimed Smith was aware and they had been separated since 2016, and that she did not cheat on him.
Still, the rather infamous interview where Will and Jada discuss the “entanglement” as well as the frequent headlines Jada and Will make in regards to their marriage — AND the Oscars slap that stalled Smith’s career — all make watching the 2016 clip strange.
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Speaking of cheating — in 2017, former Try Guy Ned Fulmer said his #1 relationship dealbreaker was “cheating” and that if his partner cheated, he’d move out of the country: “Oh no, that hurts to even think about. We couldn’t stay together. I’d move to Canada.” In 2022, the scandal broke that Fulmer had cheated on his wife with an employee, after which he was ousted from the group.
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And finally, let’s end on a few that are a bit lighter. Though not controversial in retrospect, this quote from Taylor Swift feels really strange to look at considering what would happen between both her and Mayer and her and Ye.
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And this tweet from Hailey Bieber is ironic considering she married Justin, and there ended up being a whole slew of hate toward both Hailey and Selena in regards to the whole situation, often from fans who felt exactly like Hailey did in the below tweet.
What other celeb interviews or quotes aged poorly? Let us know in the comments!
