14 Celebrities Who Blamed Their Downfall on the Darndest Things
New rule: Celebrities can’t eat tuna until they prove they can do it responsibly.
Woody Harrelson
When he was fresh off of filming Zombieland, Harrelson lunged at a photographer who tried to snap his picture in an airport. He explained that he hadn’t yet shaken off the Zombieland headspace, and briefly thought the photog was a zombie.
RFK Jr.
During divorce proceedings, he claimed that his 37-count string of infidelity stemmed from mercury poisoning from eating way too much tuna: “I loved tuna fish sandwiches. I ate them all the time.”
Boris Johnson
He was once asked if he’d done cocaine, and spiraled into a string of implausible excuses: He’d been offered coke once, in college… But he never did it. Because he did say yes… But he sneezed when he snorted it.
Lauryn Hill
She was two hours late for a concert, and later explained that it was because she was “aligning my energy with the time.” Let this serve as a notice to my editor that I was also doing whatever that means, which is why this piece was submitted late.
Jeremy Piven
He ducked out of a stint on a Broadway show early, saying that excessive sushi consumption must have mercury-poisoned him to the point of exhaustion. Gawker said the exhaustion was more likely from “snorting a lot of cocaine and then staying up all night sending booty-call text messages to bevies of models.”
A British Politician
After Mark Oaten was caught having a long-term extramarital affair with a sex worker, he explained that it could all be traced back to his struggles with losing his hair: “I became more and more obsessed by its disappearance. For me it was a public sign that my youth had ended.”
A Colombian Soccer Player
A player for Real Alianza Cataquera took issue with a call made by a female ref, charged at her and slapped her in the face. He later “apologized,” saying he was just trying to grab the whistle from her mouth.
A Uruguayan Soccer Player
After he (allegedly) lunged at another player and (allegedly) bit him, Luis Suarez explained that he just kind of fell teeth-first into the guy. He later clarified, masterfully using the type of passive language that only cops have access to: his opponent had “suffered the physical result of a bite in the collision he suffered with me.”
Robbie Williams
He says he almost died after supplementing his vegan diet with way too much fish, and that his doctor “told me I had the highest mercury poisoning he had ever seen.”
Robert Pattinson
After Kristen Stewart was caught cheating with her Snow White director Rupert Sanders, Pattinson generously blamed her behavior on a fear of intimacy stemming from her parents’ divorce.
Victoria Beckham
She went a little too hard (on the fish, ostensibly) at a high-end German spa, and had to have a “liver flush to help rid the body of toxins.” The toxins from mercury poisoning. Not from anything else.
Dennis Mitchell
The track-and-field up-and-comer got caught with twice the normal level of testosterone in his system, and said it was because he’d just had, like, a freaking ton of birthday sex (his wife’s birthday, that is).
Charles Barkley
He was pulled over after rolling through a stop sign around 1:30 a.m., and explained that he was simply in a hurry to get to a private parking spot around the corner to enjoy some oral sex with his passenger. Intent to have oral sex isn’t a crime yet, but failing a sobriety test was enough to get him arrested.
Tom Sizemore
He was caught wearing a Whizzinator — a grundle-worn device used to deliver someone else’s clean urine when taking a drug test — and explained that he must have accidentally put on someone else’s underwear that day.