In 2014, Madonna posted a photo of her 13-year-old son holding a gin bottle on Instagram, which was already raising eyebrows before anyone noticed the hashtag she used alongside it included a racial slur. She deleted the post after the backlash hit, then reposted it with a caption telling critics to back off, which did not help matters. A few days later, she issued an apology explaining the word was meant as a term of endearment, while also acknowledging there was really no way to defend using it. | © Jay Shetty Podcast / YouTube
During a 2011 TV appearance, Gwyneth Paltrow declared that she would rather smoke crack than eat cheese from a can, which is a bold stance to take on a condiment. The comment fit neatly into the running narrative about Paltrow being spectacularly out of touch, and the internet responded with a mix of eye rolls and jokes. One Twitter user called her "affluenza's Patient Zero," which honestly covered it pretty well. | © Vogue / YouTube
In a 2019 Hollywood Reporter interview, Scarlett Johansson said she believed Woody Allen and would work with him any time, at a moment when most of Hollywood was keeping its distance from the director over Dylan Farrow's abuse allegations. The backlash online was swift, and Dylan Farrow responded directly on Twitter, pointing out the contradiction between Johansson's stated values and her willingness to dismiss the accusations without question. It was a rare case where the person most affected by the situation got to respond publicly, and her reply was hard to argue with. | © MCU
Hours after a 2017 mass shooting at a Texas church that killed 26 people, Chelsea Handler posted a tweet blaming Republicans, which a lot of people felt was a pretty cold way to respond to a tragedy still unfolding. Politicians and fellow celebrities pushed back quickly, with several calling the tweet a cheap attempt to score political points over something that should have just been a moment for grief. Comedian Owen Benjamin went further and called her lonely and mean, which summed up the general mood of the replies pretty well. | © Dear Chelsea / YouTube
On a 2015 episode of "Fashion Police," Giuliana Rancic commented that Zendaya's dreadlocks probably smelled like patchouli oil or weed, a remark that hit social media like a match to gasoline. Zendaya, who was 18 at the time, responded publicly and called the comment a harmful stereotype that couldn't just be ignored. Rancic apologized, but she left her hosting role at E! shortly after, and the incident became one of the more talked-about celebrity missteps of that year. | © Giuliana Rancic / Instagram
During a 2006 DUI arrest, Gibson launched into an anti-Semitic rant at the arresting officer, making statements that spread quickly and did serious damage to his reputation. He issued an apology through his publicist, but the incident followed him for years and cost him a significant amount of goodwill in Hollywood. By 2016 he was telling interviewers that he'd already said sorry and people should move on, which did not go over especially well either. | © PowerfulJRE / YouTube
While waiting for a flight in 2016, 50 Cent filmed himself following and mocking a young airport custodian named Andrew Farrell, suggesting on camera that the teen must be high because he wasn't responding to his questions. After the video went up on Instagram, people recognized Farrell and pointed out that he was autistic and had social anxiety, which explained exactly why he hadn't engaged. An apology followed, but the video had already been seen by plenty of people by that point. | © FLAGRANT / YouTube
In a 2013 HuffPost Live interview, Jeremy Irons decided to share his thoughts on same-sex marriage by wondering aloud whether legalizing it might eventually allow fathers to marry their sons. He framed the whole thing as just asking questions while claiming he didn't have a strong opinion either way, which didn't go unnoticed. Actor Alan Cumming called him out directly on Twitter, pointing out that there's a pretty obvious contradiction between claiming neutrality and then saying something like that. | © GQ / YouTube
At a 2011 Cannes press conference for "Melancholia," director Lars Von Trier told the room that he understood Hitler and sympathized with him a little, visibly shocking his own cast in the process. He tried to walk it back in the moment but kept making it worse with every follow-up sentence, which is a special kind of talent. Cannes banned him from the festival over the comments, though they eventually let him return in 2018. | © Louisiana Channel / YouTube
During a 2017 press tour in South Korea, Tom Holland asked interviewer and K-Pop artist Eric Nam how he had learned English, not realizing that Nam was actually American and had learned Korean after moving there. Twitter split pretty quickly between people calling the question racist and insensitive, and fans arguing Holland had no way of knowing Nam's background given the context. It was more of a foot-in-mouth moment than a genuine controversy, but the internet treated it like both anyway. | © The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon / YouTube
At 15 years old, Jaden Smith took to Twitter to declare that school was a tool for brainwashing the youth and that society would be smarter if everyone just dropped out. The irony that he attended a private school his own parents founded and was also homeschooled was not lost on people. Responses pointed out that his habit of capitalizing every single word in his tweets was doing a pretty good job of making the case for staying in class. | © BigBoyTV / YouTube
In a 2018 TMZ interview, Kanye West suggested that 400 years of slavery sounded like a choice, a comment that sparked immediate and widespread outrage. TMZ staffer Van Lathan pushed back on the spot, telling West directly how hurtful the statement was, in a moment that went viral almost instantly. West later tried to clarify on Twitter that he was talking about a mental state rather than a literal choice, but the original comment had already done its damage. | © PowerfulJRE / YouTube
During a 2013 court deposition tied to a harassment lawsuit involving one of her restaurants, Paula Deen admitted under oath that she had used the N-word. She tried to contextualize it by referencing growing up in the South in the 1960s, but that explanation didn't land the way she seemed to think it would. Food Network dropped her shortly after the story broke, ending an 11-year relationship with the network almost overnight. | © The Meredith Vieira Show / YouTube
In May 2018, Roseanne Barr posted a racist tweet comparing Valerie Jarrett, a senior advisor to Barack Obama, to a character from Planet of the Apes. ABC pulled the plug on her rebooted show within hours, with the network calling the tweet abhorrent and completely at odds with their values. Barr apologized and announced she was quitting Twitter, but the show was already gone and no amount of backtracking was going to bring it back. | © PowerfulJRE / YouTube
During a 2017 interview, Damon decided to weigh in on the MeToo movement by suggesting there was a spectrum of bad behavior, which went over about as well as you'd expect. The backlash was immediate and came from a lot of directions, including his ex and former co-star Minnie Driver. He apologized on the Today show a month later and admitted he should probably just sit down and stop talking for a while, which was arguably the most self-aware thing he said throughout the whole situation. | © PowerfulJRE / YouTube
Fame doesn't come with a filter, and some celebrities really could have used one before opening their mouths. These 15 moments prove that no matter how big your platform is, saying nothing is sometimes the much better option.
