Top 10 Obnoxious Celebrities Getting Owned

David Walliams has made his career telling jokes that go close to the line, sometimes crossing it entirely. This was clear when he decided to take the music industry’s most influential figure to task on “Britain’s Got More Talent.” The judges were asked a series of questions by Stephen Mulhern, including which one of them – after Simon – is the most powerful judge. Walliams wrote a joke about Simon having slept with fellow judge Amanda Holden, which Simon thought was a step too far. But it’s always funny when Simon Cowell gets brought down a peg or two.

In 2020, JK Rowling made headlines after vocally and repeatedly criticising transgender rights movements. The scandal began after she corrected an article that used the phrase “people who menstruate” to be inclusive of trans men and non-binary people, which she believed was insulting to women. After receiving a torrent of backlash, she responded to fellow author Stephen King when he retweeted her thanking him for his support. King later said to a different twitter user that he believes “trans women are women”, leading Rowling to completely delete her praise of him and pretend it didn’t happen. Of course, the moment was immortalized by those who managed to take screenshots before the dirty delete happened.

Don’t go on a comedy panel show if you can’t take a joke; Preston from The Ordinary Boys learnt this the hard way in an appearance on “Never Mind the Buzzcocks” in 2007. Host Simon Amstell decided to make fun of Preston’s then-wife Chantelle Houghton by reading a few choice extracts from her autobiography. Preston walked off the show in response and a member of the audience who looked a bit like him was brought on as a replacement. With viewers firmly on Amstell’s side, Preston definitely made a fool of himself – and on top of that, he and Houghton broke up just six months later.

Stewart Lee is easily one of the country’s most legendary comedians, but he’s said plenty of controversial things in his time – including a long rant he went on during a live tour against the team of “Top Gear.” Lee talked at length about his dislike of Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond, including taking shots at Hammond’s near-fatal car crash. But though their careers are still going strong, Lee was ahead of the curve in his criticism; he said they were bullies and called them out for often making offensive jokes. Finally, in 2015, Clarkson was fired from presenting after attacking one of the show’s producers, making Lee even more vindicated.

Vegetarian nutritionist Gillian McKeith was one of the most infamous contestants ever to go into the jungle. Her behaviour in the trials meant she was the public’s first pick in numerous votes, and she had to find increasingly extreme ways to dodge them. This culminated with her epic fainting fit after being voted to do yet another trial. She collapsed and medics were brought on to tend to her, with Ant and Dec quickly going to an ad break. Immediately, she was accused of faking her collapse just to get out of the trial, lambasted not only by the public but also by fellow contestants; in 2019, Nadine Coyle hilariously copied Gillian’s fainting fit.

The country’s most-hated public figure and journalist, Katie Hopkins has been causing scandals from the beginning. While more recently she made headlines by being permanently banned from Twitter and getting tricked into receiving a fake award by YouTube prankster Josh Pieters, her most famous moment came during an argument on “This Morning.” She was on the show to defend her decision to prevent her kids from befriending other children, based on whether their names sounded working class. Though she was already called a snob for this, she dug herself even deeper by saying she hates geographical names, prompting Phillip Schofield to point out that her daughter is called India.

Christopher Hitchens built much of his career on taking down public figures and debate opponents, destroying their arguments with so-called “Hitchslaps.” He certainly didn’t pull any punches when he made this appearance on “Real Time with Bill Maher.” During a political debate, Maher tries to counter Hitchens’ points about Iran by criticizing the Bush Administration as well, which gets raucous applause from Maher’s audience. Hitchens swears at and flips off the audience and says the spectators are “frivolous.” He continues by calling out commentators like Maher for making easy jokes about Bush’s IQ as opposed to substantial criticism.

One of the most divisive journalists in the world, people have been mocking Piers Morgan for his entire career – and co-anchor Susanna Reid is famously no exception. When he decided to rant about seeing friends and family members moan about politics on Facebook and how sometimes he needs a break from current events, Susanna turned the tables and reminded him that this is how she feels every day. The clip went viral and was shared by various celebrities siding with Susanna, including Stephen Fry and Don Cheadle, prompting Piers to show a tragic re-edit of the scene on “GMB”.

Towers of London’s Donny Tourette didn’t entirely realise that he was being made fun of by the show’s resident comedians. Simon Amstell and Bill Bailey take plenty of digs at him, and most sail straight over his head. Tourette’s bad attitude as a washed-up punk is constantly mocked by the panellists, and he even resorts to insulting the audience on more than one occasion. He tries to outwit Amstell and Bailey with little success and spends much of the show smoking and wearing sunglasses indoors. It’s almost sad that Donny still thinks he has the upper hand, complaining at the end of the show that Phill’s team should have won.

Just days into widespread quarantines in the US celebrities already saw fit to try and lift everyone’s spirits. Inspired by a trumpeter playing John Lennon’s “Imagine” on his balcony in Italy, Gal Gadot led the charge in making a montage of famous faces doing their own cover; they sang the melody out of time and without any music. Just days later, Joe Lycett enlisted some of the UK’s best-known comedians to parody the video, changing keywords in the song to “bastards.” There were appearances from Katherine Ryan, Rob Beckett, Harry Hill, Nish Kumar and Noel Fielding to name a few. Everyone saw through the original’s hollow gesture.