Rodney King famously asked during the 1992 Los Angeles riots: “Can we all get along?” Despite the fact that his iconic plea was made so close to Hollywood, and has since been mockingly uttered by every meathead within earshot of a disagreement, apparently the phrase is lost on the modern-day celebrity.
A few examples of recent, public celeb-on-celeb nastiness have me wondering what else these people need in life since fame and money apparently aren’t enough to satisfy their easily bruised egos.
Take Spencer Pratt. By now you must have heard of “The Hills” star because that’s apparently his job, to make sure that any fun you used to get out of reading celebrity magazines and Web sites is ruined by his presence. He’s everywhere with his reality TV co-star girlfriend Heidi Montag. A well-documented guest appearance on David Letterman this month should have done enough to knock a couple minutes off his allotted 15. A couple weeks later, Dave apparently hadn’t had enough and asked guest Mary-Kate Olsen what she thought of Pratt. Olsen took a little shot and tried valiantly to avoid saying more. Well, like a “Hills” marathon that just keeps giving, Pratt fired back to Us magazine, calling Olsen a troll who’s had to go through life as the less-cute twin. Curiously, he made no mention of how many times over she could buy him.
On the hip-hop front, old school gangsta/rapper/actor Ice T recently said something rude about new school rapper Soulja Boy and Soulja Boy responded and then Ice T responded back and this is where I’ve decided I know all I need to about this feud. The East Coast vs. West Coast thing is not new, and these disagreements have a way of being settled in ways less amicable than a handshake – see Biggie, Tupac, et al. (If you’re interested, you can watch Ice T school Soulja in what looks like a clip from MTV’s “Cribs” gone horribly wrong. Warning! Bad language. Duh.)
And finally this week, we have Pam Anderson taking a verbal swipe at slightly-less-bosomy blonde buddy Jessica Simpson. Anderson wasn’t happy with a T-shirt Simpson was photographed wearing with the slogan “Real girls eat meat” blazoned across the chest. Anderson is a loud and proud animal rights activist and she used some barnyard language on Australian radio to sum up her feelings about Simpson.
I’m not naïve enough to expect all of these people to love each other. Why should Hollywood be any different than the rest of America? But at this point in their careers, if their names are big enough to even be worth mentioning in a story, shouldn’t they have learned how to exercise the tact necessary to avoid looking like such children?
All it does is make me want to avoid their next show/movie/album/whatever because I can’t distance the real-life jerk from the make-believe performer. Come to think of it though, this threat rings a little hollow. It’s not like I’m rushing out for Simpson’s upcoming country album, or DVRing Pratts’ latest “Hills” escapades. I guess I’ll just hope Philip Seymour Hoffman doesn’t call Natalie Portman a troll anytime soon.
