Top 10 Worst Things The Paparazzi Ever Did

Ukrainian reporter-slash-prankster Vitalii Sediuk seems to be looking for trouble. At the 2012 Men in Black 3 premiere in Moscow, Sediuk kissed the Fresh Prince. Smith didn’t take kindly to the lip-lock, giving Sediuk a backhanded slap. Perhaps Sediuk forgot that Will played Muhammad Ali. Smith said, “He’s lucky I didn’t sucker punch him.” Perhaps Will was also lucky. Sediuk has since, in separate incidents, given Leonardo DiCaprio, Bradley Cooper, and Brad Pitt what could be best described as red-carpet crotch-hugs. And Kim Kardashian has had two run-ins with Sediuk, one where he allegedly shoved her and another when he tried to kiss her ass, literally.

Reese Witherspoon doesn’t like the paparazzi. Check that: Reese Witherspoon really doesn’t like the paparazzi. Maybe this contentiousness started at her daughter’s sixth birthday party at Disney’s California Adventure Park in 2005. “The Happiest Place on Earth” wasn’t so happy when pap Todd K. Wallace allegedly became angry when Reese and her friends declined to be photographed. Wallace faced battery charges as he, according to prosecutors, struck a 5-year-old girl with his camera and shoved two park employees. It wasn’t Wallace’s first arrest; the previous year, he faced charges stemming from his pursuit of Mischa Barton.

#8: Chris Brown Chase Causes Crash

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Chris Brown hasn’t exactly been anyone’s favorite celebrity since he pled guilty to assaulting Rihanna in 2009. Still, that doesn’t mean we have to like what happened to him in 2013. Brown was driving to an LA-area charity event when two paparazzi vehicles allegedly blocked his car, with the paps jumping out to shoot pictures. Trying to escape, Brown was reportedly cut off by two more vehicles, causing him to swerve into a wall. Brown walked away, but his Porsche was totaled. This may not have been Brown’s only car wreck, but this incident appears to be another example of overzealous paparazzi.

Before Kim and Kanye, there was Ah-nold and Maria. The marriage between the Terminator and Shriver, a journalist who was also John, Robert, and Ted Kennedy’s niece, could be called a marital mismatch made in media heaven. However, a jury determined that paparazzi Giles Harrison and Andrew O’Brien took it too far in May 1997. The two chased — then blocked from leaving — a car carrying the couples’ 3-year old, a five-month pregnant Shriver, and Schwarzenegger, who himself had recently undergone open-heart surgery. The actions were considered so egregious that Harrison got 90 days and O’Brien 60 days in jail, both found guilty of false imprisonment.

In 2013, Kidman was entering Manhattan’s Carlyle Hotel when paparazzo Carl Wu, blazing down the sidewalk on a bike with camera shuttering, lost control and careened into the Oscar-winner. While the actress was knocked to the ground, she was uninjured. Wu, considered one of the most disliked members of the paparazzi, did apologize and called it an accident. While Wu wasn’t arrested, he was issued a fine for reckless driving. With this and a 2010 run-in with Lady Gaga’s bodyguard, let’s just say we’re not surprised that a “Fu--You, Carl Wu” Tumblr page existed.

Off the screen, Lohan has acquired quite the “party-friendly” reputation. Part of that rep comes from the fact that she’s not exactly kind to her cars. However, a crash in 2005 — the same year her film “Herbie: Fully Loaded” hit theaters — can be blamed on an overzealous lensman. Paparazzo Galo Cesar Ramirez followed Lohan, but when she was about to report it to police, Ramirez reportedly rammed her Mercedes. Ramirez was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon, but as it turns out, there was already an outstanding warrant out for his arrest on a $5000 narcotics charge.

Britney has given the paparazzi a lot of stories over the years. Like when she shaved her head, then days later went after a car with an umbrella. Or when she almost dropped her baby in front of a zillion photographers? There are also the countless nights she stepped out on the town sans underwear. So did they really have to block her ambulance? In January 2008, Britney was taken to the hospital for a mental health evaluation. The throng of photogs ignored sirens and honking horns until they got their shots – a move as reckless as it was potentially life threatening.

So no one told Jen life was gonna be this way… back in 1999, at the height of Friends’ popularity, a paparazzo scaled an 8-foot wall at the Malibu home Aniston shared with then-husband Brad Pitt. Armed with a high-powered lens, the photog took several shots of a topless Aniston sunbathing in her backyard. The photos appeared in tabloids worldwide, but Jennifer didn’t take the intrusion lying down. Instead, she sued the photos’ distributor, Francois Navarre, for invasion of privacy, trespassing, and misappropriation of her likeness. The case was settled out of court, with the Friends star receiving over half-a-million dollars in damages.

It was hard to find a higher wattage celebrity couple in the 1980s than Sean Penn and Madonna. After their engagement, countless media outlets salivated at the possibility of getting the ultimate shot: Sean and Madge tying the knot. It took rooting through the couple’s trash for the paparazzi to ultimately unearth the location of the top-secret nuptials: a cliff-side home in Malibu. Held on Madonna’s 27th birthday, multiple helicopters descended on the wedding, whirring so loudly the couple’s vows couldn’t be heard. Madonna responded to the disruptions with a one-finger salute, and Penn wrote “Fuck off” in the sand below. But really, can anyone blame them?

Paris. August 31, 1997. It’s the moment that arguably turned the public and celebrities alike against the paparazzi. Princess Diana, reported boyfriend Dodi Fayed, and their driver Henri Paul died when their car crashed in the Pont de l’Alma road tunnel. At the time, most fingers pointed at the overzealous paparazzi chasing Diana’s car. An 18-month French judicial investigation blamed the crash on an inebriated Paul, while a British inquest found both the paps and Paul equally responsible. However, no paparazzi did time for her death. In the court of public opinion, however, the paparazzi will likely always be inexorably linked to the death of the People’s Princess.