As someone who’s been involved with stan culture for, like, 15 years, I’ve seen a lot of wild fan drama go down. However, no fake pregnancies, secret wedding conspiracy theories, or niche fanfiction discourse can compare to the way some fans act towards their favorite celebrities in public.
Here are 22 times celebs had absolutely wild fan encounters:
1.
Norman Reedus got bitten by a fan at a meet-and-greet. He told Conan, “I was sitting there. I was taking a picture, and then she kind of started shaking a little bit, and then she kind of looked up at the sky and kinda howled like a werewolf.” She yowled then bit him on the chest “real hard, like, left teeth prints.”
He continued, “The police escorted her out of the building, and, I guess, she got outside. And she said, ‘What happened?’ And they said, ‘Ma’am, you bit Norman.’ And she goes, ‘I did?’ They were like, ‘Do you wanna press charges?’ And I was like, ‘No she just had a moment. She seemed like a nice lady.'”
2.
Dolly Parton told the Windy City Times, “Years ago, when I first started being a big star, I had fans that were fanatical. It was when ‘Jolene’ was a big hit. We came home one day, and there was a baby in a box at our gate with a note in it. The note said, ‘My name is Jolene. My momma has left me here, and she wants you to have me.’ Of course, we all freaked out!”
She added, “We immediately called Human Services and took care of the baby until they got there. We never did know or hear anything about it. I knew nothing else. What do you do in a situation like that? There are some loony people in this world! Can you imagine yourself in that situation? It wasn’t like it was a kitten or a puppy dog. It was a baby named Jolene!”
3.
On Hot Ones, Shawn Mendes recalled, “I had a fan show up at my door in the middle of winter, and she had basically a crop top on and shorts in the middle of the winter. And she goes, ‘I don’t know what happened. I just am lost.’ And I went, ‘You’re lost, eh?’ ‘Yeah, like, I don’t know where I am.’ I’m like, ‘Alright.’ She knew who I was. ‘I just need someone to drive me to Starbucks.’ I’m like, ‘You’re really good. Okay, I’ll drive you to Starbucks.’ She had me. There was no way getting out of it… I drove her. She was really smart. I gotta give it to her.”
4.
In 2022, Jay Ellis was physically assaulted by a disgruntled Insecure viewer. He tweeted, “Good morning to everyone except for the lady that slapped me in the face at the airport because she got mad at Lawrence for something he did in season 3.”
5.
During the height of One Direction’s fame, some Directioners hacked into the security cameras at airports and hotels where the band was. They watched the boys as if it were a live stream of animals at the zoo.
6.
In 2016, a group of Harry Styles fans allegedly hacked into his mom’s iCloud account, stole pictures of the singer vacationing with Kendall Jenner, and spread them across social media. Harry’s reps didn’t respond to the situation, but his mom deleted her Twitter.
7.
And in another instance of “why can’t we be normal about Harry Styles?”, fans marked the spot where he famously puked on the side of the 101 freeway in 2014 with a sign reading, “Harry Styles Threw Up Here.” However, that’s not the wildest part — one fan reportedly scooped up Harry’s vomit and listed it on eBay!
When Harry learned about the eBay listing during a BBC Radio interview, he remarked, “This took a very strange turn… It’s worrying that this is the world we live in.”
8.
When Taylor Swift attended her friends Jack Antonoff and Margaret Qualley’s Jersey Shore wedding in 2023, massive crowds of fans gathered outside a restaurant where the newlyweds were holding a dinner. The fans reportedly chanted Taylor’s name and tried to film her.
Reportedly appearing stunned, Taylor politely waved to the onlookers, but as viral videos of the crowds spread, criticism for the gathered fans poured in. They were called out for disrespecting Taylor’s privacy as well as intruding on Jack and Margaret’s big day.
Many people brought up Taylor’s reaction to the crowds gathered outside her home in her Netflix documentary Miss Americana.
9.
Similarly, in 2017, Taylor Swift was a bridesmaid in her childhood best friend Abigail Anderson’s wedding. Security shielded Taylor from the crowd gathered outside the venue with drapes and an umbrella. Some fans reportedly booed her and chanted, “Very disappointing, not cool.”
10.
Lauren Jauregui was outed when Fifth Harmony fans found pictures of her with her girlfriend in a private family album, and Perez Hilton got ahold of them. On Red Table Talk: The Estefans, she said, “I’d been dating the girlfriend that I had at the time for probably a year at that point, but we had fallen in love when I was 15. I was at my uncle’s wedding in New Orleans, and my aunt very innocently posted the photos from the photo booth onto her Facebook page. It was a link for the family to be able to click on, and my fans are just a little wild, and they found the picture where my girlfriend and I — we were drunk — so we were kissing. [Perez Hilton] definitely outed me.”
She continued, “I wasn’t ready because I’m also Latina. There was that whole looming thing of, ‘What is my community going to feel about me? Are they even going to accept me?’ I know that my family obviously accepted me. But was that something that I was willing to deal with on a public scale? I felt like my own process was violated.”
11.
When Fifth Harmony was on tour in Mexico, a crowd of fans greeted them at the Monterrey airport. One fan yanked Ally Brooke while attempting to hug her, holding on and pulling her with them as security tried to separate them.
In response, Ally tweeted, “Hi my loves, Just to let you know, I am okay after the airport incident. Please be careful and gentle so nobody gets hurt. That was scary. Thank you! Monterrey, I couldn’t be happier to be here! It’s been a dream of mine since I was little. My favorite singer Selena Quintanilla had many beautiful performances here. And now I get to perform in this city! I am beyond honored & proud.”
12.
Ashley Benson told BuzzFeed, “So, I was at a Korean spa — I’ve told this before, but like, it’s just so insane that this happened. But I was in a Korean spa, and I was in the shower. And obviously, like, everyone is completely naked. This girl, like, came into my stall and was asking me questions like, ‘Who’s A? Who’s this?’ whatever. And I was like, ‘Whoa, I’m literally naked.’ She fully came into my shower stall and was having a conversation. I was just covering myself, so embarrassed, and being like, ‘What is happening?’ Then she was asking for photos. I was like, ‘This is insane. Oh my God.'”
13.
Dax Shepard told MTV, “This woman was convinced that I was the father of her kid, and I’d never, ever met her. She marches in the restaurant. Restaurant’s full, and she goes, ‘Ahem. Are you gonna deny that he’s yours?’ And I go, ‘What?’ She goes, ‘Are you willing to take a paternity test or not?’ And I go, ‘What?’ She goes, ‘He’s your son!’ And that was a very surreal experience.”
14.
John Travolta told People, “I lived in Santa Barbara about 30 years ago, and someone snuck into my house. I opened the closet, and there she was. It did scare me, but it turned out to be an innocent person. She was a girl who probably wanted to meet me and didn’t know how to do it.”
15.
Da’Vine Joy Randolph told BuzzFeed, “Last year, when we were on the press tour for Dolemite Is My Name, there was one group of people that always seemed to be where I was, whether it was a restaurant, at a hotel, or even doing press at 30 Rock. They just always knew my comings and goings. I was like, ‘Who’s leaking this?’ So that was a little like, ‘Oh, I don’t do well with stalkers.'”
16.
Finn Wolfhard told ABC News, “I got followed back from my house by a couple in Toronto. And the minute I got to my door, they were just like, ‘Can we take a picture with you?’ I was like, ‘No, you followed me back for four blocks, that’s super creepy.'”
17.
Once, when Millie Bobby Brown was a kid, she fell asleep whole on a mostly empty plane to the Philippines — and a fan sat next to her. Millie told ABC News, “You know when you just, kind of, wake up and she’s sitting right there? I’m like, ‘Hi.'”
She felt that the fact she and the rest of her Stranger Things castmates were still children made such situations more uncomfortable. She said, “I just think that for me, because we’re so young at the moment, it’s like we haven’t experienced this stuff yet, so for us, it’s like, ‘Whoa. That is just weird.'”
18.
Chappell Roan has had multiple scary encounters with fans, such as when they figured out her flight information and tried to make the airport into a meet-and-greet. One man got so angry that she wouldn’t sign an autograph that airport police had to be called. She later saw him amongst the paparazzi in LA. She told Rolling Stone, “I got home and dropped to my knees. I have a hard time crying now because of my meds, but I sobbed and was screaming.”
Another time, a fan was at the same bar where Chappell was celebrating her friend’s birthday. Grabbing her, the fan kissed her. The same night, her father’s phone number was leaked on the internet, and a fan called him. It prompted her to post a TikTok calling out harassment from fans. In another video, she said, “I don’t care that abuse and harassment, stalking, whatever, is a normal thing to do to people who are famous, or a little famous. I don’t care that this crazy type of behavior comes along with the job. … That doesn’t make it okay, that doesn’t make it normal. I don’t want whatever the fuck you think you’re supposed to be entitled to whenever you see a celebrity…”
19.
In 2019, Ethan and Grayson Dolan announced the passing of their father. Fans of the Dolan Twins YouTube channel began sharing (fake) details of the funeral, posting about attending, and using hashtags like #SeanDolanFuneral and #SeanDolanMeetupParty. Some of their fans reportedly blamed the situation on K-pop fans who were allegedly trolling, but regardless of who was behind it, the Dolans were pushed to publicly ask for privacy.
Grayson tweeted, “We want this ceremony to be an opportunity for the people who had a close connection with my Dad to say goodbye and pay their respects. We appreciate all of our fans so so much. Please respect My father Sean, Ethan, my family, and me send your love through social media only! … Your kind posts about my Dad have been heartwarming. Thank you all. Again, please do not show up to his wake, funeral, or any of his services.”
Likewise, Ethan tweeted, “If you are a fan of Grayson and I we love you and appreciate you so much. The best way you could support us during this tough time is to NOT show up at our fathers wake or funeral. thank you guys and please please please respect my wish.”
20.
Some of Joe Locke’s fans tried to get in direct contact with his family members. A few called his grandmother’s phone, and others messaged his mom on social media and tried to figure out where she was, prompting her to make new accounts for privacy. He told Teen Vogue, “It’s a weird guilt I sometimes feel that, by association, their lives are affected by choices in my life… It’s a mutual thing. I need to learn my boundaries, and people need to learn their boundaries. Most attention comes from a really good place, and I hope I always appreciate that.”
21.
Joe Jonas told Digital Spy, “The craziest thing we’ve ever been given is definitely a dead shark.” Nick added, “It wasn’t a real big shark, though. It was only a baby shark, but they’d preserved it in this tube for us. That was odd… They didn’t even leave a note explaining. It was just, ‘Here’s a dead shark.'”
22.
And finally, on TikTok, singer Jake Miller said that he’s “legally a dad” because, after a show in about 2015, he went outside to take selfies and sign autographs for fans. He was moving quickly down the line because it was dark, cold, and “not in the best area.” He said, “As I’m going down the line, I see some girl with a paper. I’m like, ‘That looks kinda weird. What’s that?’ She’s like, ‘It’s nothing. It’s just my math homework.’ And I’m like, ‘Okay, good luck. Hope you get an A.’ And then I sign it, and I walk away. And then a couple minutes later, some girls were like, ‘Jake! You gotta come back! This girl lied to you!'”
He continued, “So I’m like, ‘Oh, okay. I’m back. What’s up?’ And they were like, ‘This girl just tricked you. That wasn’t math homework. That’s an adoption paper.’ I’m like, ‘What the fuck?’ And they’re like, ‘That’s an adoption paper.’ So I call my manager… over, and he rips that shit up. And she starts hysterically crying. I’m like, ‘No wait, don’t cry. But also, what the fuck? You tricked me. Am I legally your dad?’ And she was like, still crying, and I was like, ‘This is fucked up.'”
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