Top 10 Times The Streisand Effect Backfired On Celebs

In her book “Celebrate: A Year of Festivities for Families and Friends” Pippa Middleton offered party tips and recipes. Some reviewers pointed out that her suggestions for a memorable event were pretty basic. The parody Twitter account @Pippatips played off this idea and offered their own overly obvious advice in bite sized tweets. Fake Pippa offered gems like, “A wedding toast is usually accompanied by Champagne and not peanut butter.” Although the description clearly states it's a fake account, Middleton didn’t appreciate the humor. Her legal team sent a letter demanding the site be taken down, which only drew more attention to the parody. In fact, you can even purchase a book full of ridiculous parenting advice authored by the creator of @Pippatips.

Although Tom Cruise’s movies bring in millions, he’s definitely had his media ups and downs. In 2008, a video of the star enthusiastically praising the Church of Scientology was leaked onto the internet. The theme from “Mission: Impossible” played while Cruise expounded on his religion. The church went to great lengths to get it removed, claiming it was edited from a much longer presentation for a Scientology event. As they tried to force the take down of the video, it was quickly picked up by the media. Once it became a news story, use of the video fell fair use/dealing making it difficult for the Church to remove the video on copyright grounds.

Nobody calls Nicki Minaj a cocaine user and gets away with it. Actually, that’s pretty much what happened in 2022. Marley Green, a blogger also known as Nosey Heaux, posted on her Twitter account that Minaj was an addict. The rapper said that although Green was a nobody, she believed it was part of a larger attempt to discredit her reputation. The threatened lawsuit brought a lot of attention to the accusation. The result was a much larger following for Nosey Heaux. Just a week after Minaj’s complaint, the Twitter account added over 1000 new followers. If she’d ignored the jab from this relatively unknown personality, it may have gone completely unnoticed.

During a pick up game at a basketball camp, college player Jordan Crawford dunked on pro LeBron James. You'd think this move would mean bragging rights for the young player. Sadly, videos of the game were allegedly confiscated by James’ sponsor, Nike. There was a quick backlash against the pro player for what seemed like a petty power play. James has dunked on many a player in his career. So, why not let the college kid have his moment of glory? If the videos had been left alone, they’d probably have come and gone pretty quickly. Instead the takedowns brought more attention to other incidents of poor sportsmanship on the court by James.

We’ve all had a bad photo taken now and then. Usually, we instantly delete them with no worries. Axl Rose wasn’t so lucky. Some unflattering photos accompanied a review of a 2010 Guns N’ Roses concert. Although the original article was positive, the photos were picked up by another news site with the headline, “OMFG Axl Rose is fat.” This led to an unfortunate meme called “Fat Axl.” People all over the internet took the photos and added titles with reworked Guns N’ Roses lyrics. It’s definitely not OK to mock someone’s body, and thankfully most memes eventually fade away. Unfortunately for Rose, trying to get people to stop posting the pictures only made them want to do it more.

Professed Céline Dion fan Nick Angiolillo decided to have a little fun by creating a Tumblr page that featured photos of the singer making bizarre facial expressions. The Canadian songstress is so expressive that finding wacky photos isn’t too difficult. However, the singer demanded that the site be taken down. Angiolillo didn’t have the time or money to go into a legal battle, so he complied. However, the kerfuffle around the incident brought even more attention to the collection. Thanks to the mighty powers of Google, it’s pretty easy to find those photos with a simple search. Meanwhile, Angiolillo now contents himself by working on his new fan page “Star Jones in Hats”.

If you want people to notice something, try to suppress it. It’s the basic tenet of The Streisand Effect. Khloé Kardashian experienced the full ramifications of this when her bikini photo was inadvertently posted online. She issued notices to have the pic taken down which, of course, made everyone want to see it. You may wonder what’s wrong with the photo. Was it scandalous? Shocking? No, the photo was simply a casual pic that wasn’t filtered or photoshopped. The legal team worked hard to remove it from the internet, but it’s still pretty easy to find. Unfortunately for celebrities, the more fuss you make, the longer something sticks around.

College student, Jack Sweeney, used public information to track the movements of Elon Musk’s personal jet. It was just meant as a fun project because he was a fan of Tesla and SpaceX. In November, Musk brought attention to the account by making a big deal about leaving it alone. He posted, “My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk,” However, just one month later Musk changed his mind and blocked Sweeney’s accounts. The seeming hypocrisy brought it to the attention of the media, and Sweeney was interviewed on many major news sites. He’s now started ElonJetNextDay, which stays within Twitter’s rules by having a 24 hour delay.

In 2013, Buzzfeed chose to include some less than glamorous shots of Beyoncé’s Super Bowl halftime show. It’s a fine line between a fierce photo and a funny one, and Queen Bey wasn’t impressed. When her publicist sent Buzzfeed a takedown notice they stood their ground. They re-posted the photos and this time included the take-down email with them. This second article was even more clickable than the first and brought in a slew of views. Even 10 years later, the photos are still very easily found on the internet. However, we would argue that there’s no such thing as an unflattering picture of Beyoncé.

You won’t be catching Barbra Streisand’s home on any kind of Hollywood tour. In fact, her focus on keeping it out of the media inspired the term “The Streisand Effect.” In 2003, Kenneth Adelman took a series of aerial photos of the Pacific Coast. The goal was to track environmental impact on the coastline over time. However, one of his photos included a picture of Streisand’s Malibu mansion. Her $50 million dollar lawsuit demanded the removal of the photo. Prior to the lawsuit the image had only been downloaded six times. Far more people got a glimpse of her private space from her lawsuit than if she’d just left it alone.