Weird Things Celebs Were Caught Doing On Camera
Celebrities have long despised the long lenses of the paparazzi, sometimes even donning disguises to fool paparazzi or at least ruin their pictures, thus costing them a big payday. But with the advent of camera phones, it's become far more difficult for celebrities to avoid their every move being chronicled when they leave the confines of their gated communities. Stars have had some of their most regrettable moments captured on camera, from full-fledged meltdowns to fights with their romantic partners. And on occasion, they're filmed or photographed acting downright weird.
Social media users were convinced that they witnessed such a moment that defied explanation when a video of Harry Styles taking his seat at the 2022 Venice Film Festival went viral. On Twitter, there was a heated debate over whether Styles spit on his "Don't Worry Darling" co-star Chris Pine before taking his seat. But while many Pine fans may find the idea of drooling in his presence not far-fetched at all, Pine told Esquire that no saliva was shed in the video.
Celebrities have, however, been caught doing other bizarre things with their bodily fluids, a few of which you'll find here.
Justin Bieber peed in a mop bucket
Justin Bieber has had a few strange moments immortalized on film, including his 2016 stroll through St. Tropez with a pacifier in his mouth. (Like, baby, baby, baby ... no.) But courtesy of TMZ, we witnessed some of the Biebs's weirdest — and worst — behavior captured on camera. In 2013, the website shared footage of the singer urinating in a mop bucket as his Wild Kidz posse cheered him on. The incident reportedly took place as the group was leaving a New York club through the kitchen area, which is definitely not somewhere people should be relieving themselves.
However, someone behind the camera can be heard telling Bieber, "That's the coolest spot to piss. You'll forever remember that." Because when you're one of the world's most successful pop stars, money can't buy memories like making some poor janitor figure out how to dispose of your urine in a sanitary manner. Bieber was also filmed grabbing a bottle of blue cleaning fluid and spraying it on a photograph of former President Bill Clinton that was hanging on the wall while shouting, "F*** Bill Clinton!"
When it was damage control time, the "Sorry" singer reached out to Clinton and apologized for cursing at his likeness, according to Inside Edition. The POTUS has learned a thing or two about how to handle a scandal during his time and reportedly told Bieber, "If that is the worst thing you have ever done, all is well."
Gisele Bundchen cleansed her car
Supermodel Gisele Bündchen doesn't mind all the chatter about whether she dabbles in magick. "If you want to call me a witch because I love astrology, I love crystals, I pray, I believe in the power of nature, then go ahead," she told Vanity Fair in a 2023 interview. She's also apparently a fan of a wellness trend that's all the rage among members of the WitchTok (as in, witches on TikTok) community: burning stuff to make spaces feel warmer and more welcoming. Amid rumors that divorce was in the cards for Bündchen and her now-ex, retired NFL quarterback Tom Brady, she was photographed having her holistic healer, Dr. Ewa Wieruszewska Lierle, walk around her SUV with what was mostly likely a smoldering stick of palo santo.
Page Six speculated that the cleansing was somehow linked to Bündchen and Brady's crumbling marriage. Was she perhaps trying to banish any lingering bad energy before beginning a new chapter of her life? She does believe that energy can be cleansed, telling Vanity Fair it's why she keeps an angel carved from selenite crystal beside her bed.
Dr. Ewa practices traditional Ayurvedic medicine, and while we can't be certain what she was using that palo santo for, the Paavani Ayurveda website says, "Due to its protective energy, palo santo can also foster harmony in relationships and thus the home." So maybe she and Brady can have a harmonious co-parenting relationship thanks to this ritual?
Taika Waititi's tripartite kiss
Who cares about what Taika Waititi does in the shadows when what he does in broad daylight is so fascinating? In 2021, Rita Ora's name trended on Twitter after the Daily Mail published photographs of her and then-boyfriend Waititi having a few drinks with Tessa Thompson. The trio were on the balcony of Waititi's Australia home, and there was quite a bit of canoodling going on. Ora kissed Waititi, who in turn placed his arms around Ora and Thompson while the two women kissed. In another photo, Waititi leaned down to seemingly smooch Thompson. Ciggies were smoked, selfies were taken, and it looked like a good time was had by all.
Waititi and Thompson were in Sydney to film "Thor: Love and Thunder," and a source told The Daily Telegraph that their behavior got Waititi in some hot water with the bigwigs at Marvel and Disney. "This was something that crossed a line into territory, into things studios prefer kept behind closed doors," said the insider. But Waititi didn't see any cause for concern. "I was doing nothing wrong. It's fine," he told The Sydney Morning Herald.
Meanwhile, Ora told GQ that she found a silver lining in the speculation that she, her now-husband, and Thompson had become a "throuple." "All of my incredible LGBTQIA+ fanbases were like, actually — whether this is true or not — I'm so inspired that this is being normalized publicly," she said. "That made me really happy."
Orlando Bloom went paddleboarding in the buff
In 2016, photographs of "Pirates of the Caribbean" star Orlando Bloom manning a small sea vessel with his manhood fully exposed went viral.
The pictures were taken while he and now-wife Katy Perry were vacationing in Sardinia. Bloom had stripped down to his birthday suit and was on his knees on a paddleboard. Perry, who was clad in a bikini, sat cross-legged in front of him while he used a paddle to steer their craft. The photos that initially made the rounds on Twitter were censored, but some fans observed that the sun's shadows were giving them a pretty clear idea of what was behind those black bars and blurs.
Perry revealed that the pic's potential to break the internet would have been even bigger had Bloom got his way. On "The Howard Stern Show," she said that Bloom had tried to convince her to get naked too, but she turned down his request. She also explained why the actor decided to take to the water without his swim trunks. "Everywhere we looked, it was like everybody was naked," she said. "It was Europe, it was Italy, and I think he wanted to fit in with the locals." This might explain why Bloom had no fear of being photographed, but Perry admitted to thinking about the possibility of cameras watching them at the time.
Courtney Love's NSFW fan photo
In 2004, Courtney Love let a Wendy's customer get crazily close to her celebrity skin. Kofi Asare just happened to get a hankering for some fast food when Love was holding court outside an NYC Wendy's. There, he saw a swarm of shutterbugs surrounding the Hole frontwoman, who was keeping their cameras flashing by flashing them. "All I wanted was some chicken nuggets," Asare recalled to Page Six (via The Corsair). "I had to push the envelope. I figured, 'This is a once in a lifetime opportunity.' She flashed me so I was like, 'May I?'" What he asked permission to do was to place his mouth on Love's breast. Asare compared the resulting photo to the moment Justin Timberlake ripped part of Janet Jackson's costume off during their 2004 Super Bowl performance, and it had him seeing dollar signs.
Asare told SOHH he was an aspiring rapper and was planning to release a mixtape with a title inspired by his close encounter with Love. One of the options he was considering was "All I Wanted Was Some Chicken Nuggets." Of his 15 minutes of fame, Asare admitted, "I'm trying to milk the moment, excuse the pun."
After meeting Asare and giving him false hope of becoming a famous rapper, Love apparently wasn't finished raising hell. According to the New York Post, she wound up in jail later that night after allegedly tossing her mic stand into the crowd during a performance and injuring an audience member.
Cristiano Ronaldo stashed a sweet treat in his shorts
After watching Portugal defeat Ghana during the 2022 FIFA World Cup, some Cristiano Ronaldo fans had one goal: to solve the mystery of what the soccer star dug out of the front of his shorts and popped into his mouth during the game. One Twitter user observed that he had to reach down pretty far to retrieve the item, which was definitely edible since he could clearly be seen chewing it in the video clip making the rounds on social media. "He was trying to find his 2nd league goal but found a candy instead," another person quipped.
There was also speculation that the four-time Golden Shoe winner had brazenly used an illicit substance in full view of the officials, other players, and millions of television viewers. But all Ronaldo was apparently getting from the groin grub was a small sugar rush, as the Portugal FA assured The Athletic that it was nothing more than a piece of gum.
Still, the mystery of where exactly the G.O.A.T. stashed the gum remains. Was it in a secret inner pocket? Did he tuck it into the waistband of his drawers? Or did he secure it by stuffing it down further? "This is why I love Ronaldo so much," tweeted one fan. "Can't tell you how many hours I have spent in figuring out how to keep a snack in football shorts which have no pockets. I need to learn this secret so bad."
We wonder if Ron DeSantis nose what he's doing
After Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced his bid to secure the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, he tried to make an impression on voters by interacting with them on the campaign trail. But while he hoped to prove that he was the candidate who could wipe Donald Trump off the map, a gross habit put him at risk of wiping out.
MeidasTouch Editor-in-Chief Ron Filipkowski has tweeted multiple video clips of DeSantis wiping his nose with his hand and touching voters. In May 2023, DeSantis rubbed his hand over his nose and mouth before patting a man in a wheelchair on the back. Three months later, he was caught on camera touching his nostril area before yanking down the brim of a man's hat. "DeSantis Wipes His Boogers on Iowa Voter. Again," Filipskowski titled a short MeidasTouch piece about DeSantis' growing nose problem.
Then there's the slo-mo video of DeSantis doing the pinch-and-pull — squeezing the end of his nose with two fingertips and using them to wipe his nostrils — before shaking some potential voters' hands. He also rubs his nose with the back of his hand for good measure. The videos provided plenty of fuel for Twitter comedians, who responded to them with mucus-themed puns including, "That snot very nice." So, DeSantis might want to stop using his hand as a hanky and invest in some tissues; sometimes it's the minor humiliating issues that are hardest to wipe away.
Sarah Ferguson's foot scandal
In 1992, tabloid readers were led to believe that they were seeing someone with ties to The Crown indulging a kink when photos of Prince Andrew's ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, and her financial adviser, John Bryan, became one of the biggest news stories of the day. While the pair were vacationing in St. Tropez, Bryan was photographed holding one of the Duchess of York's feet up to his mouth, an act The Sun described as a "toe-job" on its cover.
While she and Andrew were already separated at the time, Ferguson's sole smooches caused quite the scandal. However, in a 2022 interview with the Daily Mail, Bryan said that the tabloids' salacious headlines were spreading a false narrative about what was actually happening in the photos. He revealed that he and Fergie were just endeavoring to amuse her children, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, by engaging in a little G-rated royal roleplay. "We were playing Cinderella and I said, 'Look, let's kiss Mummy's toes.' It was part of the game," he explained. "It was totally innocent; a beautiful family moment of love."
The reason Bryan decided to address the incident 30 years after it happened was because the scandal was mentioned in an episode of Netflix's "The Crown." While he and Ferguson have long since split, he said that they're still friends. He also expressed outrage over how Andrew's powerful family dealt with the situation, saying, "The knives were out for Sarah at the Palace."
Prince William's polo pee break
The future King of England is not so innocent when it comes to nude scandals, much like his brother. In 2012, Prince Harry apparently lost a game of strip billiards in Las Vegas, and TMZ got its hands on photos of the aftermath. "Speaking of naked princes, does anyone remember the time Prince William got caught peeing on a fence? That's just as bad, right?" one Twitter user wrote at the time. This is, indeed, something that happened.
In 2008, William, Prince of Wales, had been playing in a polo match when a paparazzo snapped some NSFW photos of him answering nature's call, presumably during a break in gameplay. According to Perez Hilton, royal watchers were so eager to get a look that they crashed multiple websites where the pictures were published.
True, it was despicable on the photog's part to sneak those shots of William, but royals should have learned by now that they're never safe from those long lenses. He could have at least gone for cover instead of standing behind a wire fence, which was possibly one of the electric variety, per Celebitchy. Some of those who have snuck a peek at the ill-gained images have also critiqued William's, er, technique, with one person tweeting, "He was holding it like a cigar. Weird."
Rudy Giuliani's explanation for that Borat bed scene
For the 2020 comedy "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm," filmmaker Sacha Baron Cohen enlisted actor Maria Bakalova to help him trick Donald Trump associate Rudy Giuliani into appearing in the movie. In it, Bakalova poses as a conservative journalist and interviews the former New York City mayor inside a hotel room. Afterward, Giuliani sits down on the bed and pats Bakalova on the back as she helps him remove his mic pack. He then lies back on the bed and sticks a hand down his pants. At this point, Cohen barges into the room in character as Borat and says, "She's 15! She's too old for you."
On Twitter, Giuliani insisted that the cameras didn't capture him in a compromising position. "I was tucking in my shirt after taking off the recording equipment," he wrote. Baron fired back on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," saying, "If he sees that as appropriate, then heaven knows what he's intended to do with other women in hotel rooms with a glass of whiskey in his hand."
While what Giuliani was doing on that bed might be up for debate, he found himself facing some serious allegations about his treatment of a female ex-employee in 2023 when she sued him for sexual harassment. Her evidence included audio recordings of Giuliani telling her, "These breasts belong to me," among other things. Per CBS News, Giuliani's defense was that he and the employee were involved in a consensual relationship at the time.
Kirsten Dunst's leafy finger food
The internet just can't quit dredging up an old paparazzi pic of Jake Gyllenhaal and Kirsten Dunst dining outdoors in London. The year was 2003 and the pair had become a Hollywood "It" couple, thanks to their respective roles in the cult film "Donnie Darko" and the blockbuster "Spider-Man." Dunst was photographed grabbing some of her salad with her fingers and opening her mouth wide as Gyllenhaal watched with a hard-to-read facial expression. We may never know whether he was appalled, perplexed, or maybe even a little impressed by the quirky, manic pixie dream girl move. The image became so iconic that InStyle deemed it the moment that the couple "peaked."
Two decades after the photo was snapped, it was shared on Reddit along with some other pictures that were taken that day. In one of them, Dunst further demonstrates an aversion to holding utensils by having Gyllenhaal feed her with a spoon. The "Brokeback Mountain" actor can also be seen smiling and tousling Dunst's hair, so it seems that he wasn't in a grumpy mood at the time. As for Dunst, she was apparently in her element. "I am a girl who loves to go out to eat — it's one of my joys in life," she once told Town & Country. She and Gyllenhaal split a year after their al fresco outing, but we hope she knows how much joy her unconventional green gobbling has given the internet.
Taylor Swift is a fearless toucher of open flames
Taylor Swift wasn't holding a picture to burn when she inexplicably reached up and stuck her fingers in the flames of an outdoor propane torch. (There's a reason that they're so tall!) When a GIF of the moment was shared on Reddit in 2014, it became a hot topic (pardon the pun). There were Khaleesi comparisons from "Game of Thrones" fans, and Potterheads cracked jokes about Swift putting her name in the Goblet of Fire in hopes of getting selected to compete in the Triwizard Tournament. Others observed that Swift seemingly knew the torch was trouble before she reached up to touch the top of it. "I like how she looked around to make sure nobody was looking when she did it," one Redditor wrote.
There were also predictions that Swift would write a song about the flame that did her wrong, as fire has become a recurring motif in her music. "They're burning all the witches even if you aren't one / So light me up," she sings in her 2017 song "I Did Something Bad."
Much to the delight of the Swifties, the singer reacted to the GIF in 2019 when a fan shared it on Tumblr. "This was the day I learned fire is hot," she wrote, adding a facepalm emoji to express her feelings about the embarrassing moment that was captured on film.
Gary Busey got caught with his pants down
In August 2022, "Point Break" actor Gary Busey was charged with multiple sexual offenses that allegedly occurred at the Monster Mania Convention in New Jersey. The day after the Cherry Hill Police Department announced the charges, Busey did something seemingly unrelated that made headlines. However, it didn't distract from the disturbing allegations — they were also referenced in many of the reports about the actor pulling down his pants and sitting on a park bench.
Page Six shared a video of Busey getting up from the metal bench and pulling his sweatpants back up. He appears to be grinning in the footage, which was reportedly filmed near his Malibu residence, but his rep suggested that he was potentially in distress before dropping trou. "Our only guess is that perhaps at his age, he realized he couldn't get to the bathroom in time which explains what happened in the video of him on the bench," said the spokesperson. Just don't think too hard about the logistics of using a bench as a toilet.
Busey previously upset his "Celebrity Big Brother" castmate Deirdre "White Dee" Kelly in 2014 by getting partially undressed in the kitchen of the house they were sharing. "I didn't expose myself to her. I sat on a stool and she came in the door and screamed," Busey told the Daily Star. "I pulled down my trousers to put on a knee pad." No knee pad is visible in the 2022 video.
A barefoot Britney Spears used a gas station bathroom
We stan a pop princess who never gets tired of performing barefoot pirouettes, but we wish Britney Spears would at least have a pair of flip-flops handy when she leaves the house.
In 2004, she was famously photographed entering the restroom of a Los Angeles gas station with no shoes on. To make matters worse, she had on a gorgeous wine-colored skirt that dragged on the pavement as she approached the door on the side of the building. In some snaps, she looks visibly distressed while she's waiting outside the single occupant bathroom. Just as the door opens, a hand holding a pen and notepad appears on the left-hand side of one image. Spears graciously keeps holding it in so that she can sign an autograph for the young fan who was bold enough to approach her at that urgent moment.
Poor Brit has never been able to use gas station bathrooms in peace. The paparazzi filmed her using the men's room during a pit stop when she was on her way to Las Vegas in 2007. And after TMZ shared photos of a well-shod Spears doing it again (this time at a convenience store with a unisex restroom), she called the photogs out. "I had a sh***ty day yesterday!!!" she wrote on Instagram. "Paps took pics of me coming out of a public bathroom ..... I mean how embarrassing is that????"
Harry Styles guzzled booze from a shoe
In 2023, Harry Styles found himself in desperate need of a watermelon sugar chaser after taking part in a gross tradition. During his "Love on Tour" stop in Perth, Styles showed the Aussie crowd just how thrilled he was to be in the Land Down Under by doing a shoey, which is the act of drinking alcohol out of a shoe. The shoe Styles used was one of the Adidas sneakers he'd been performing in, and he poured an unidentified liquid from a thermos into it. "This is one of the most disgusting traditions I've ever [heard of]," he told the audience before raising his sole up. Despite his revulsion, he made sure to shake every drop out of his shoe before putting it back on.
Afterward, Styles told the screaming crowd, "I feel like a different person. I feel ashamed of myself. It feels so personal. Such an intimate moment to be shared with so many people." He also joked that he felt like he needed to talk about it with his therapist. So, why do it? Well, maybe it was a case of Styles feeling pressure to prove that he's just as daring as his peers. Per NME, other artists who have done shoeys on stage include Jack Harlow, Post Malone, and Kacey Musgraves. At least Hazza's fans seemed to adore the sneaker swig.