On publicity tours, celebrities rarely deviate from the script; for every sit-down with a journalist, they repeat the same anecdotes and one-liners over and over again. If you’ve seen one celebrity interview, you’ve more or less seen them all.

It’s understandable. Celebrities are scrutinised enough as it is – the reason the rich and famous keep PR people around is to make sure nothing too personal ever makes it into the hands of a media desperate for gossip.

Sometimes, however, celebs can let slip the facade, and reveal more about themselves than they or their PR team would have ever wanted.

This can even include, in rare moments, dark secrets that many of us would barely think to admit in private.

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25. John Mayer claims his racist penis won’t let him date non-white women

Singer John Mayer has had relationships with his fair share of women, including Jessica Simpson, Jennifer Aniston and Katy Perry.

Credit: Eric Chan via Flickr

According to Mayer himself, though, there’s a reason why his ‘type’ seems to be almost exclusively white.

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In a 2010 interview, Mayer told Playboy his penis was a ‘white supremacist’ when asked if he’d ever had relationships with black women.

Credit: Patty Keigan

“I’ve got a Benetton heart and a f***in’ David Duke cock”, Mayer continued

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This is before going on to use the N-word in a bid to prove he was an “honorary black man”.

24. John Lennon tells Playboy he hit women

John Lennon is a singing legend, member of the Beatles and tragically lost his life when he was shot.

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According to John Lennon, there was a very good reason why he embraced a message of peace and love in his later years.

In a 1980 Playboy interview, Lennon admitted the lyric ‘I used to be cruel to my woman, I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved’, from The Beatles song Getting Better, was autobiographical.

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“I used to be cruel to my woman, and physically – any woman. I was a hitter.”

“I couldn’t express myself and I hit. I fought men and I hit women.”

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Lennon added that that was “why I am always on about peace, you see. It is the most violent people who go for love and peace.”

23. Sean Connery also tells Playboy he hits women

What is it about Playboy journalists and their ability to get major British celebrities to admit to domestic violence on the record?

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It was in 1965, at the height of his James Bond fame, that Sean Connery told Playboy magazine something quite shocking.

“An open-handed slap is justified… If a woman is a bitch, or hysterical, or bloody-minded continually, then I’d do it.”

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It wasn’t the only time Connery made the admission, however.

In a 1987 interview, much to interviewer Barbara Walters’ surprise, Connery simply doubled down on his previous comments.

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Connery told a shocked Walters “I haven’t changed my opinion,” and that he’d happily still hit a woman “if it merits it”.

22. Gary Oldman is racist like Mel Gibson

Another Playboy interview, this time with everyone’s favourite secret libertarian, Gary Oldman.

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It was 2014, and Oldman was prepared to go on the record about everything he thought was wrong with Hollywood and modern society.

Credit: Sam Hughes via Flickr

First defending Alec Baldwin’s use of the word “F-A-G” and criticising ‘political correctness’ (“take a f***ing joke”), Oldman then went on to stick up for Hollywood pariah Mel Gibson.

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Oldman admitted that “we’ve all said those things”, referring to Gibson’s torrent of racist abuse in 2006:

Credit: Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons

“The policeman who arrested him has never used the word n****r or that f***ing Jew?”

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The Leon actor had one final bombshell: “Mel Gibson is in a town that’s run by Jews and he said the wrong thing because he’s actually bitten the hand that I guess has fed him”. Oscar winner Gary Oldman, there.

 

21. Gerard Depardieu beat up and stole from gay men, robbed graves

Gerard Depardieu openly adores Putin and once urinated in his seat on a passenger plane.

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This is another way of saying that Gerard Depardieu doesn’t care what people think of him at all.

Credit: Thore Siebrands via Siebbi

This was perhaps most evident in an eye-opening account of the actor’s past that Depardieu gave to the Mail on Sunday in 2014.

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In it, Depardieu admitted to being a male escort, who would occasionally “beat up some bloke and leave with all his money.”

Credit: Georges Biard via Wikimedia Commons

Also revealed by Depardieu was the fact that he would, as a younger man, sometimes dig bodies out of graves to steal their jewellery and clothes.

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Now if that is not a shocking interview, we don’t know what is.

Credit: Georges Biard via Wikimedia Commons

20. Christopher Eccleston was a school bully

To audiences everywhere, Christopher Eccleston is destined to forever be known as family favourite The Doctor in BBC’s Doctor Who.

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It’s in stark contrast to who Eccleston was as a younger man, with the actor admitting in a 2016 interview that he felt shame over being a bully in his youth.

Credit: Super Festivals via Flickr

“The pop psychology of it is: I bullied because I was bullied”, Eccleston explained to the hosts of Good Morning Britain.

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His target of this bullying was apparently “a very sensitive boy in my class.”

Credit: Super Festivals via Flickr

Eccleston followed his confession with an apology to his victim.

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“I would like to apologise to him. I know his name but I don’t know where he is.”

19. James Lipton was a pimp, had a good time doing it

For a quarter-century now, James Lipton has been the kindly face and reassuring voice of Bravo’s Inside the Actors Studio.

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Before he got into acting, however, Lipton had a few different career paths.

Credit: David Shankbone via Wikimedia Commons

These included newspaper copy boy, lawyer, air serviceman. Oh, and pimp of course.

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Lipton admitted to being a pimp working in 1950s Paris in a 2013 interview with Parade magazine, while insisting that “French ‘mecs’ didn’t exploit women. They represented them, like agents.”

In later interviews for television about his pimping days, Lipton emphasised that he was never abusive, while also adding that he and one of the prostitutes “had some amazing adventures together”.

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We’re not quite sure what those adventures entailed but we can only imagine.

18. Lance Armstrong told Oprah he cheated, bullied his way to victory

When in 2013 Lance Armstrong finally decided to ‘fess up to charges of doping his way to multiple cycling victories, he decided to do it before the widest audience possible.

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Rather than release a statement admitting his guilt, Armstrong instead chose to be interviewed on television, by Oprah Winfrey, on his years of bullying teammates and cheating fans.

Saying the doping had gotten out of control, Armstrong acknowledged that his confession was – after years of accusations – “too late”.

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Armstrong also admitted he had been a bully.

Credit: Josh Hallett via Flickr

“I tried to control the narrative, and if I didn’t like what somebody said…I tried control that, said ‘that’s a lie, they’re liars'”.

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Trust Oprah to get a heartfelt confession out of someone.

17. Leah Remini faked friendships to recruit people into a cult

Since she left the church of Scientology in 2013, Leah Remini has not held back about her former involvement in the LA-based cult.

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A Scientologist from the age of nine, Remini quit six years ago over abuse within the church, leader David Miscavige’s alleged corruption and the disappearance of Miscavige’s wife.

In 2018, Remini went on Jada Pinkett Smith’s Red Table Talk web series to apologise to Smith for the way she acted while still a member of the church.

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“Regardless of what was being presented to you, from me as a friend, you were seeing a side of me that wasn’t 100 percent authentic because my job was…to solely get you into Scientology, fully indoctrinated”, Remini told Smith.

Remini has also admitted in another interview that the ‘church’ tried to pressure her into recruiting her friend and co-star Kevin James, but she refused.

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We know that people can get easily influenced, but we’re glad they didn’t join in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqSNl_TAYxk

16. Stephen Collins admits to sexually abusing children on ABC News

You might know American actor Stephen Collins from TV shows such as 7th Heaven and No Ordinary Family.

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You might also remember him from an interview he gave in 2014.

Credit: Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons

It was the year that a recording emerged, purportedly of Collins, that featured a male voice admitting to molesting three different underage girls.

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Rather than deny, instead Collins went on ABC News to confess everything.

Credit: Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons

In the interview, Collins went into detail about exposing himself to prepubescents

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He also talked about forcing girls as young as 10 to sexually touch him through several decades.

Doesn’t make for comfortable viewing, does it?

15. Tracy Morgan claims he will get one lady pregnant whilst in town

You may know Tracy Morgan for playing Tracy Jordan on the show 30 Rock.

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Well this interview was a case of life imitating art when he sat down to chat with Robert Holguin of El Paso, Texas news.

Credit: David Shankbone via Wikimedia Commons

Tracy’s interview was wild, and included him tearing off his shirt and slapping his belly as a mating call.

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He also insisted that at least one lady in El Paso was “going to get pregnant” whilst he was in town.

Credit: Alex Erde via Flickr

Morgan did his absolute best to blur the lines between Tracy Morgan and Tracy Jordan.

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We wonder just how many women he managed to get pregnant whilst in El Paso.

14. Dustin Hoffman Discusses Being Cut

During this awkward interview, Hoffman gets a little mixed up about the meaning of ‘cut.’

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This lead to him giggling uncontrollably about circumcision.

Credit: Garry Knight via Flickr

The actor apparently did not know that cut meant “muscular,” and took the interview in a totally different direction.

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This was when he started an impromptu monologue about a different definition of cut entirely.

“I am very cut, actually I thought I got too cut as a matter of fact.”

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“It meant something different when I was a kid. Especially if you were Jewish.”

If we’re being completely honest, it would give us the giggles too!

13. Danny DeVito Admits Having Sex In The White House

Getting drunk and talking about politics isn’t so unusual, it happens in homes all across the country.

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But when you’re Danny Devito and you’ve just come straight from an all nighter with George Clooney, it can get a bit different.

Credit: Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons

After partying all night with the actor, Danny Devito showed up for a taping of The View while still pretty drunk.

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He really put on a show, blabbering about his time spent in the White House and ranting about Bush.

Credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

One of his most interesting revelations was that he had sex in the White House, in the Lincoln bedroom.

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We’re sure plenty of people have, but Devito just makes it seems so much more interesting.

But it’s not just interviews where people say dumb things…

These shocking confessions and statements may have been made in interviews, but it is Twitter where some celebrities have really put their foot in it. Let’s take a look at some of the most controversial things people have said on social media…

12. James Gunn Comments On F***ing P***y Boys

Last year, in July, Walt Disney studios quickly dropped James Gunn from the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise.

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This is after discovering a series of offensive tweets that he had posted in the past.

Credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

These comments were posted a long time before Gunn began working on the franchise.

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The tweets jokes about a variety of controversial issues, including sexual abuse, pedophilia, AIDS and the Holocaust.

“Laughter is the best medicine. That’s why I laugh at people with AIDS,” was one of the tweets.

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Gunn offered a lengthy apology, saying that he had developed as a person. “My days saying something just because it’s shocking and trying to get a reaction are over.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2FhJmxzZg8

11. Roseanne Barr Makes a Racial Slur

On May 29, 2018. Roseanne Barr’s show, Roseanne, was cancelled by ABC and she was dropped by her representation.

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This is because earlier that day, the actress sent out a tweet about former senior adviser to the Obama administration, Valerie Jarret.

In the tweet, she compered Jarrett, a black woman, to an ape, saying if “muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj.”

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Of course, she received a barrage of angry responses and later deleted the tweet and apologised.

Credit: Jonathan Mauer via Wikimedia Commons

This was damage limitation and didn’t stop her loosing her show.

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Barr later went on to blame the sleeping pill Ambien on her tweet, saying “It was 2 in the morning and I was Ambien tweeting.”

10. Rush Limbaugh Calls Someone A S**t

This conservative radio talk show host saw his numbers drop massively in 2012.

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Not only viewers, but most of his sponsors too.

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This is after he called Georgetown University Law Center student, Sandra Fluke, a “slut” and a “prostitute.”

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This is because she had spoken out to the House of Democrats in support of requiring health insurance companies to cover contraceptives.

Credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Despite an apology to her, which Fluke called, “dubious,” many sponsors of his national radio show fled

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Others requested their ads specifically not air during the show.

9. Skrillex Wants To Use The N-word

You may know Sonny John Moor better as Skrillex.

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He is an American record producer, DJ, singer, songwriter and musician.

Credit: Brennan Schnell via Wikimedia Commons

Some of his more well-known songs are ‘Bangarang’ and, well, that’s probably it.

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Back in 2011, he randomly wrote that he wished he was allowed to use the N-word.

Credit: Brennan Schnell via Flickr

He wanted to use it, of course, in a ‘non-racist’ way.

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He didn’t delete the tweet at the time, but over the years as the tweet gained more attention, he did eventually take it down.

8. Gilbert Gottfried Jokes About The Japanese Tsunami

If you had ever wondered why Gilbert Gottfried is no longer the voice of the Aflac duck, we have the answer for you.

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In March 2011, after the tsunami in Japan that killed over 15,000 people, Gottfried took to Twitter to fire off a series of jokes about it.

One of the tweets in question read like this:

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“I just split up with my girlfriend, but like the Japanese say. They’ll be another one floating by any minute now.” Not the best thing to say to win over the Japanese.

Credit: Neil Grabowsky via Flickr

Aflac subsequently fired Gottfried, and in a statement, the comedian said: “I sincerely apologize to anyone who was offended by my attempt at humor regarding the tragedy in Japan.”

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“I meant no disrespect, and my thoughts are with the victims and their families.”

Credit: Super Festivals via Flickr

7. Jason Biggs Asks Anyone If They Wanted To Buy His Malaysian Airlines frequent flier miles

This is another case of making a joke far too soon.

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For Jason Biggs, it was when he made a joke about Malaysian Airlines Flight 17.

Credit: Dominick D via Flickr

At the time he made the joke, the plane had recently been shot down with 298 people on board.

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He tweeted: “Anyone wanna buy my Malaysian Airlines frequent flier miles?”

Credit: Eva Rinaldi via Wikimedia Commons

Biggs later apologised on The View. “I certainly meant no harm; there was no malice, but I was stupid,” he said.

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“It was poorly timed. I’ve always tried to find the humor in situations … it’s a knee-jerk reaction for me, it’s how I cope.”

6. CeeLo Green Has An Interesting Thought About Consent

CeeLo Green is the American singer/songwriter/rapper perhaps best known for the 2010 hit ‘forget you.’

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Well, many people did want to forget about him after a series of tweets talking about rape.

In 2014, he sent out some pretty controversial tweets, implying that unconscious women have already consented to sex.

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The tweet was in reply to something else and reads: “if someone is passed out, they’re not even WITH you consciously! so WITH implies consent.”

Further tweets were written adding his belief that only people who remember being raped were actually raped.

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It doesn’t help that CeeLo himself was accused of sexual assault and pleaded no contest to putting ecstasy in a woman’s drink.

5. 50 Cent Tells One of His Fans That They Look Autistic

The rapper, 50 Cent, is not exactly known for his political correctness.

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It’s no surprise then that he caused quite a stir when he told one of his fans that he looked ‘autistic.’

The tweet read: “yeah i just saw your picture fool you look autistic.”

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He then followed it up with another tweet saying: “i dont want no special ed kids on my time line follow some body else.”

Obviously the twittersphere weren’t happy with these comments.

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He took flak from a host of celebrities and special needs organisations, and eventually apologised for his insensitivity.

4. Chris Brown Believes Ebola is a Form Of Population Control

The West African Ebola virus epidemic was the most widespread outbreak of Ebola virus disease in history.

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It caused major loss of life and caused socioeconomic disruption in the region.

 

The last thing anybody needed was singer Chris Brown putting his twopence in.

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At the height of the outbreak, in 2014, Chris tweeted about the virus, calling it a form of “population control.”

 

The tweet read: “I don’t know … But I think this Ebola epidemic is a form of population control. S**t is getting crazy bruh.”

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As if people didn’t already hate him enough for certain other things…

 

3. Drake Bell Makes Transphobic Slur Against Caitlyn Jenner

Four years ago, in 2015, Vanity Fair unveiled its Caitlyn Jenner cover story.

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In response, former Nick star, Drake Bell, tweeted with an insensitive comment.

He stated that he would refuse to stop using the celebrity’s birth name, Bruce.

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The tweet read: “Sorry…still calling you Bruce.”

The reaction was so sudden and negative, that Bell deleted it mere minutes later.

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He soon followed up by saying “I’m not dissing him! I just don’t want to forget his legacy! He is the greatest athlete of all time! Chill out!” He said in another tweet, “Calm down children.”

2. Blake Shelton Wishes Someone Would Speak English So He Knows Where He’s Planning To Bomb

Yes’ it’s just as racist as the title suggests.

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In 2016, some old tweets from Blake Shelton’s account reared their head again.

Many of these tweets were either homophobic or xenophobic.

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The worst of these tweets was one complaining that the person in the next room should “learn some English” so he knew where they were planning to bomb.

Like many celebs on our list, he learn the error of his ways and sent out a lengthy apology.

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“Everyone knows comedy has been a major part of my career and it’s always been out there for anyone to see. That said anyone that knows me also knows I have no tolerance for hate of any kind or form. Can my humor at times be inappropriate? Yes. Hateful? Never. That said I deeply apologize to anyone who may have been offended.”

1. 50 Cent Wants To Shoot Up A Gay Wedding

And finally, another one from the polite and ever-so-politically-correct. 50 Cent.

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This time, the tweet mentioned 50 Cent wanting to shoot up a gay wedding.

Well, perhaps not Cent himself, but rather his ‘homie.’

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The tweet read: “Perez hilton calld me douchebag so I had my homie shoot up a gay wedding. wasnt his but still made me feel better.”

The tweet was so outrageous, that GLAAD responded asking their readers to tell him that this is not something to joke about.

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