Rudest encounter with a celeb I've ever experienced

[chattp]

Not that I've had many!

But Christian Bale was in London 'itsu' a few months back.

He was buying something but I'd just picked it out of the chilled section. I saw he went to reach out for it at the same time so offered it to him, as I liked something else anyway

His response? 'You've touched it. Why would I want it now?'

I was really shocked at how rude he was!

My mother used to work as a volunteer for Children In Need and so met many celebrities.
The worst was Heather Small of M People.
My mum smiled at her and greeted her. She ignored my mum and walked off. My mum was so annoyed and told her off.

She also met Elton John who was lovely and took photos with her
She also said that Peter Andre was lovely and smelled gorgeous.

Your mother was incredibly rude in that scenario

Why do some people assume they have the right to approach famous people as if they know them, then get all offended and upset when they are ignored?

Why are famous people expected to be smiling and charming and friendly all the time? It must be so draining.

I'm looking forward to hearing that Harry Styles is an absolute cunt because he must get people clamouring to talk to him every minute of every day he's out in public.

I can counter the Sandi Toksvig story. Somewhat randomly, I share a hairdresser with her and cross paths 2-3 times a year for about the last 20 years. She is very friendly but also quiet and a little bit shy. She’s interesting to talk to, fearsomely intelligent and seems to like chatting with “clever women about interesting books” types of conversations. I’ve never heard her talking about herself or regaling the ensemble with celeb stories, though I am sure she could. Basically she is not at all like the TV version of herself. It’s always struck me as a slightly schizophrenic way to live.

No rude celebs but I’ve met
kris akabusi- came to my school. Absolutely lovely
Graham Norton- used to go to the same gym. Very unassuming and seemed nice
Tommy Walsh- lived near him, saw him loads with his wife, seemed really lovely also.
Sandi Toksvig- my dad met her through work, really liked her

I disagree

She told off someone who didn’t smile at her. Weird and rude.

Yes who is he?

These types of threads are so odd, you encounter a person once and judge them. What if you were having a shit day met someone once and they declared you an utter twat and an awful person?

Famous people are famous for doing a job, they are no different to anyone else and aren't flawless.

Yes CB was unpleasant, does it warrant an entire thread on people no one really knows and saying how awful they are?

Some people on here are the equivalent of blokes saying "cheer up, darling, it might never happen!" Or "give us a smile, darling!"

Exactly.

Basically this thread says that MNers think extroverts are nice and introverts are rude (obviously I'm discounting the stories of the egregiously offensive or entitled).

I world absolutely hate strangers coming up to me on a flight asking for autographs, or waving at me and calling out my name, or interrupting my dinner with friends and expecting to have their photo taken with me.

People who are well known for their acting, singing, sporting or other skills, are entitled to go about their private life unmolested. We don't own them and they don't owe us anything.

Those who actually court publicity (reality stars etc) are I'm sure only a small percentage of those we recognise.

My mum doesn’t accept bad behaviour from anyone. She is a woman of morals and will rightly call out anyone who is disrespectful.
She doesn’t care if that individual is a so called ‘celebrity’
I would argue that it is weird and rude to ignore a volunteer at a Children In Need event whereby the premise of the whole event is helping others
If she was walking down the King’s Road and my mother behaved as she did I may have agreed with your assertion

Someone not returning a smile at you isn’t bad behaviour or disrespectful. Your mother has no right to take anyone to task like that and sounds incredibly entitled. These “tell it like it is” people are 🥱

My mum greeted her ( actually spoke to her) and she ignored her. I suppose it was because my mother was a mere volunteer .
She should have been bloody grateful that my mother even recognised her.

Awful:

Pippa Middleton and Cherie Blair. Two of the most self absorbed women you can have the misfortune to come across.

Lovely:

Theresa and Philip May. I moved into the same lane as they live in. I was immediately taken seriously ill, ambulances and a helicopter etc. They did so much to help me during my recovery. Delightful neighbours, regardless of political stance.

I knew Eamonn Holmes from college. He was a couple of years ahead of me but a group of us used to go for after college drinks on Friday. He was lovely and very funny. We lost touch though after he left.

Someone not returning a smile at you isn’t bad behaviour or disrespectful

Definitely not, but it's nice when it happens.

I was in London a few weeks back and Sara Cox was out walking her dog. It was a lovely morning and I was off to the theatre to watch Prima Facie with my wife. I smiled at her (not something I usually do to women on the street!) but she gave me a lovely smile back.

As well as some of these comments being the equivalent of men shouting “cheer up love it might never happen” there’s also echoes of real vindictiveness.

Like the comment above where someone smiled and said hello to a celeb, celeb for whatever reason didn’t respond, and then it’s all “she should have been bloody grateful to be recognised!!” Nasty, really nasty.

No wonder people in the public eye become wary of being approached by random strangers. Again, have witnessed this first hand with the friends I wrote about upthread. Someone approaches all smiles and asking for something, friend politely not able to oblige for whatever reason then it’s “ah, you’re fucking shit anyway”.

reminds me of when I was younger turning down approaches from men in bars and then getting an earful of abuse from them because I had the audacity to politely turn them down.

The author Lauren Henderson was rude to me and my friend in a bar. It was at a crime writers convention during the day and she came in with Val McDermid and a couple of other crime authors. We were sat at a middle table along a wall and there wasn’t quite enough room for them to sit down in the corner. Now, I would have moved and did move, as you do in those circumstances, but she didn’t even ask. She glared at us, tossed her hair and said “oh, they’ll move!” with a genuine Tinkly Laugh, then threw her bag on our table and turned her back on us. My friend said “Goodness, how rude!” and we moved up, mentally striking her off our list of Authors Whose Books We Would Buy.

Jane Jakeman, on the other hand, was lovely, as were Ian Rankin and Joolz Denby. Mark Timlin was a grumpy sod, but maybe he was just having a bad day (it wasn’t unsolicited approach, he was sat there for a book signing).

I have not heard of just about all of the people mentioned here, bar some of the big film stars, and so would not recognise them at all. So I could well have encountered many of these rude "celebs" and totally cut them/obviously failed to realise they were "someone", without ever knowing it. (Quite likely given the areas of London I lived/partied/shopped/worked in for over 30 years). I like to think I did, anyway, and that it annoyed them that I had no idea who they were!

I know Bercow has a terrible reputation, and has been found to have bullied staff. That said, some years ago my son aged about 10 was at a concert in Westminster Hall - the youngest attendee by a long chalk. Bercow walked in last with some foreign dignitary, and stopped and chatted to DS briefly. Afterwards, he stopped again and said he hoped it hadn't been too boring. On that occasion he was memorably nice.

Teller (from Penn & Teller) had a go at me for pushing but someone had actually pushed me from behind, into him.

I prefer him when he doesn't talk.

My DD, when still in primary school, was at a Sheffield football match with her Dad. Sean Bean was in the stands too (it was his local team playing) and she asked for his autograph - his response? "Course you can darling" - he was well known locally for attending the football and always being happy to sign autographs.

So someone gets barged into and they are meant to be all sweetness and light?

I don't think a reaction like that would solely be reserved for a celeb.

Or as they have celeb status, they shouldn't be allowed to react to anything?

@Allthegoodnamesaregoneffs

No. I 100% understand why it would piss him off, but I wasn't the one doing the pushing!

I was told off unfairly, dammit! 🤣