Ben Stiller Is Rumored To Have A Diva Side When He's Off Camera
Over the years, Ben Stiller has built a reputation as one of the most brilliant and funniest guys in Hollywood. He's generally well-liked amongst his peers; Martin Short described him as "astoundingly accomplished and very, very smart" (albeit surprisingly reserved) back in 2012, per ET, while Ricky Gervais is a huge fan of his talent. But, according to some stories, the beloved funnyman can have quite the diva attitude when the cameras aren't rolling. Comedian and host Anna Roisman once had a run-in with Stiller during her days working as a hostess at a celebrity hotspot early in her career. The story goes that Sacha Baron Cohen was meeting Stiller for dinner there and insisted on waiting to be seated until his friend came in. "All of a sudden Ben Stiller walks in and he's like, 'Why is he not seated?!'" Roisman recalled to Page Six Radio. "He yelled at me and he's like, 'He should not be standing here!'"
She was crushed, considering how she saw Stiller as someone she admired deeply. "Two icons, you know, for me, a comedian — and I was like 23 years old working at the door at the restaurant," Roisman noted. "I was like, 'I'm sorry. He didn't want to ... I offered him to sit!'" Fortunately, her interaction with Cohen was much less intense. "Cohen comes in and I said, 'Oh, [Ben's] not here yet. Do you wanna sit?'" said the "Big Wigs" podcast host. "He's like, 'No I'm good,' and he started joking with me."
Rumors of Stiller being far less friendly and intimidating in person are actually nothing new. On social media, users have shared similar stories about the "Zoolander" actor being a celebrity who's nothing like what they seem in movies and interviews. In fact, stories about Stiller's purported behavior have been going around for years.
Ben Stiller supposedly had an assistant director fired
Most of the horror stories about Ben Stiller come from anonymous users who claim they've interacted with him behind the scenes. In 2023, under a Reddit discussion about actors and producers with really bad tempers, someone described Stiller as being difficult to work with. "My family is good family friends with a pair of writer-directors that worked with him years ago. They said he's an actual nightmare to work with," the user relayed. Another claimed to have personally witnessed the actor treating his crew horribly (which might explain why we don't hear much from Ben Stiller anymore). "I've never seen anyone be so demeaning and demanding at the same time," the second user stressed. "I'll never see any of his movies after that experience."
In 2010, Stiller became the subject of a tabloid report alleging him of being insufferable to the point of alienating the cast and crew of "Little Fockers" (in which he starred alongside Robert De Niro and Owen Wilson). He was described as being super vain and causing a stressful work environment for everyone on the set; sources claimed he repeatedly lashed out at crew members and at one point even had an assistant director fired due to some misunderstanding. "He refused to come back until the poor woman was gone," one such source dished to The Enquirer (via Celebitchy). "She was dismissed and the next day a male replacement was brought in to appease Ben."
He also demanded that his team get special treatment. "It was clear from day one that Ben wasn't happy unless he was waited on hand and foot." They added: "The crew referred to him as a 'little focker' because of his outrageous conduct." Well. We wonder what Barbra Streisand has to say about that.