Celebrities Who Cried Unexpectedly In Interviews

Since we sometimes view celebrities as larger than life, we often fail to realize that they are human beings with human emotions just like the rest of us. And if they're brave enough to shed tears in front of a televised audience, you know it is about something truly important.

Whether it be reflections on the loss of a loved one, a fan who touched their hearts and lives forever, or the heartbreaking end of a long relationship, celebrities prove that, regardless of fame and fortune, a good cry never hurt anybody.

For the record, we can't blame anyone (much less a celebrity) who breaks down and cries while talking to Oprah. Crying while talking to Oprah is pretty much a given. So sit back, grab a tissue, and take a look at some of the many stars who have dropped their stoic fronts and unexpectedly turned on the waterworks during interviews. 

On June 7, 2014, a truck plowed into the back Tracy Morgan's limousine bus on the New Jersey Turnpike, leaving the 30 Rock star in critical condition with severe, life-threatening injuries, and his friend, comedian James McNair, dead.

Morgan sat down for his first interview after the tragedy with Today's Matt Lauer a year later, and the comedian quickly turned emotional. Morgan claimed he had no recollection of the accident, and spoke through tears about his recovery, saying, "I can't believe I'm here. I can't believe I'm in front of you. I can't believe I'm just here, and just seeing the tragedy that happened ... it touches me."

Remembering his friend who died in the fatal crash, Morgan said, "Bones heal, but the loss of my friend will never heal." He thanked his 30 Rock costar Tina Fey for helping "get his spirits up," and revealed how he's coping with life after the accident and the lasting injuries he suffers: "I have my good days and my bad days, where I forget things ... there are times where I got the headaches and the nosebleeds."

Rihanna has sat firmly atop the music scene for more than a decade now, but in 2009, her relationship with Chris Brown almost brought her rise to a screeching halt. On the eve of the Grammys that year (per TMZ), the Barbadian hitmaker suffered horrific injuries after Brown brutally attacked her during an argument. Although Brown plead guilty to assault, according to US Weekly, he only received "five years probation, community service and one year of domestic violence counseling."

Three years after the incident, Rihanna appeared on Oprah's Next Chapter and grew emotional when discussing her mixed feelings about her former boyfriend. "It was a weird, confusing space to be in," Rihanna told Winfrey in an excerpt released by ABC. "Because as angry as I was, as angry and hurt and betrayed, I just felt like he made that mistake because he needed help and who's going to help him? Nobody's going to say he needs help. Everybody's going to say he's a monster without looking at the source, and I was more concerned about him."

In a 2013 interview with Billboard, Katy Perry revealed the abrupt end to her short-lived marriage to Russell Brand left her with suicidal thoughts, and in her 2012 documentary film, Katy Perry: Part of Me, audiences saw the marriage crumble on screen.

Per Daily Mail, the couple spent too much time apart while Perry was on tour, and the documentary didn't shy away from showing the pain she was suffering as a result. In one particular scene, Brand is adamant that he wants children, but Perry wasn't "quite ready." While back on tour, Brand sends her a text bringing up children again, to which she replied, "I will be a mother when I decide to be a mother, but not right now. A baby can't have her baby."

Brand's follow-up text was to tell her that he filed for divorce, causing Perry to break down. 'I'm a romantic ... and I kinda believe in this fairytale," she said in a later scene. "If you can believe in something great, you can achieve something great," Perry continued. "I have that same belief system with everything, from my career to my personal life. And I will do everything it takes to not fail, and I did everything it took, but it still failed."

Britney Spears' 2002 interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer was tough to watch. Spears reflected on a year where she experienced several professional heartbreaks and a very personal and public one – getting dumped by Justin Timberlake.

With his "Cry Me A River" music video and public comments, Timberlake made it clear that Spears cheated on him, an allegation that Spears didn't exactly deny. "I'm not technically saying he's wrong, but I'm not technically saying he's right either," Spears attempted to explain. She claimed, "I thought that I was gonna be with him for the rest of my life," and added that she wasn't interested in casual sex. "You don't go around sleeping with people," she said. Okay...

Although we might not know the truth of what happened, Spears was clearly emotional during the interview. "I'm embarrassed. Can we stop?" begged Sawyer through tears.

Kanye West has been known to get emotional on stage and in interviews, usually when he feels disrespected in some way. However, during a sit down with BBC Radio One's Zane Lowe in 2015, an unusually vulnerable West became emotional remembering his British fashion tutor, the late Professor Louise Wilson, who died of breast cancer at the age of 52.

Per The Telegraph, West "paid tribute to Wilson's determination to inspire success." He recalled the last time he saw her over dinner at his favorite restaurant in London. "She said, 'So many students, they don't give it their all. ... Soon as they do anything halfway good at two years old, three years old, their parents clap.' ... She just looked at me and said, 'Kanye, don't clap," he said on the verge of tears. "I didn't know we were gonna lose her. ... She told me, she said, 'Thank you for the times where, you know, we came to performances, and this has, like, really meant a lot to me...'" he added before breaking down in tears and being comforted by Lowe.