5 of the Pettiest Acts of Celebrity Revenge
Imagine you’re exactly as human as you are now, with all the flaws and impulses that implies, but you also have effectively infinite wealth and influence. How would you make your enemies pay? A select few know exactly how to answer that question.
50 Cent Bought Hundreds of Ja Rule Tickets for No One
50 Cent and Ja Rule have been feuding so long that even they probably don’t remember why, but nearly 20 years deep, Fiddy happened upon the perfect trolling opportunity. After finding a Groupon sale for tickets to a Ja Rule concert in Texas, he bought out the first four rows — about 200 tickets — just so they’d be empty. “I was like, ‘They was so cheap, I might as well just buy them,’” he said, about a purchase that would financially cripple you for years.
Burt Reynolds Literally Pooped on the ‘National Enquirer’
One Christmas in the late ‘80s, one of the era’s most gossiped-about celebrities, Burt Reynolds, got sick of the tabloids “writing crap” about him, so he decided to give them a huge gulp of their own medicine. At the time, he owned “about 100 horses,” so he gathered up as much manure as he could and dropped it by helicopter on top of the Christmas tree outside the National Enquirer’s nearby offices. Jesus himself would have to hand it to him.
Patti LuPone Took Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Money and Built a Revenge Pool
When Andrew Lloyd Webber took his adaptation of Sunset Boulevard from the West End to Broadway in 1994, Patti LuPone expected to come with him, but she had to find out from a gossip columnist that she was being replaced by Glenn Close. Broadway divas aren’t known for taking things lying down, so she sued Webber for breach of contract to the tune of $1 million, which she used to build a pool at her Connecticut home. They’ve since made amends, but “on blissful sunny days in the woods,” she still toasts the composer by what she’s named the Andrew Lloyd Webber Memorial Pool.
Alfred Hitchcock Modeled a Villain After a Hated Producer
Designing evil characters to look like enemies is standard operating procedure in Hollywood today, but like so many things, Alfred Hitchcock may have pioneered it. For 1954’s Rear Window, he styled the villain played by Raymond Burr to look exactly like David O. Selznick, a producer who had gotten on Hitchcock’s nerves, right down to the smallest details. It seems you didn’t want Hitchcock to hate or like you too much.
Shania Twain Married Her Ex-Husband’s Mistress’ Ex-Husband
In 2008, Shania Twain and producer “Mutt” Lange announced that they were separating after 14 years of marriage due to Lange’s affair with Twain’s married best friend. That’s literally the beginning of a Sandra Bullock movie, but Twain didn’t let it keep her down. The next year, it was announced that Twain had begun dating her former friend’s former husband, who she married the year after that. In other words, she wrecked the homewrecker’s home right back, proving that the best acts of revenge are also tongue twisters.
