Celebs Who Destroyed Their Interviewer

Celebrities aren't machines, as much as their Instagram accounts are Face Tuned to perfection. Sometimes, they're rubbed the wrong way by an interviewer asking a tough (or really, really dumb) question. Where our quick eye-roll would pan out in a flash to be forgotten forever, theirs is inevitably GIF-ed into oblivion (which by all accounts is permanent unless some sort of Y2K 2.0 actually happens). 

These celebrities are all masters at shutting down their interviewers — but the techniques vary. For some, a well-placed "Do you know who I am?" does the trick. For others, it requires a table flip and body slam (though, really, we can't condone violence). Other times, they simple disconnect the line after balking at the screen.

From Jerry Seinfeld, whose Larry King burn went down in history, to Taylor Swift, who's sick of being labeled boy crazy, these celebs have mastered the art of destroying journalists who dare to ask unfavorable questions.

R. Kelly's 2019 CBS interview with Gayle King was so unbelievably unhinged that it sent shockwaves across the Internet. It's still unclear why his publicist told CNN that the televised breakdown was actually helpful in some way. In case you're wondering just how bad we're talking: it warranted a spoof on Saturday Night Live. The Trapped in the Closet star, who's been charged with 10 counts of sexual abuse, according to The New York Times, denied all of the claims of against him. Things began to fully unravel when King asked if he ever held girls against their will.

"I don't need to. Why would I? How stupid would that be for R. Kelly ... to hold somebody — let alone four, five, six, 50 you said — how stupid would I be to do that?" he aked.

That's around the time that Kelly started screaming, "I'm fighting for my f***ing life. You're killing me with this s**t," as he got out of his chair and pointed in King's face. At one point, his publicist even emerged from the shadows in an attempt to calm him down. The journalist never lost her composure, despite how scary it looked from the outside.

"I did worry at some points that he might accidentally hit me," King later told O: The Oprah Magazine, adding, "Because he was so angry that he was flailing. But I knew that I wasn't in any real danger." 

Rashida Jones had an epic quip when a reporter made a major flub — neglecting the fact that the star is, indeed, biracial. Embarrassing. TNT's Danielle Demski, for some reason, must have forgotten that the Parks & Recreation star's famous parents are legendary music producer Quincy Jones and Golden Globe-winning actress Peggy Lipton. Whoops!

The incident occurred at the 2015 SAG awards when Demski was commenting on Jones' red carpet look. The actress was wearing a blue-trimmed, Emanuel Ungaro gown with a plunging neckline and black and white print. Her hair was pulled back in a low ponytail.

"You look like you've just come off an island or something. You're very tan, very tropical," Demski said. Jones, a Harvard graduate, dryly replied, "I mean, you know, I'm ethnic."

Honestly, the only person who probably didn't cringe at this interview was Giuliana Rancic, who undoubtedly was glad that someone else made a racially oblivious comment on camera. Breathe easy, girl! It was someone else's time to shine.

Cara Delevingne's 2015 interview with Good Day is the visual equivalent of some creepy dude asking a pretty girl to smile when she's clearly annoyed. The whole thing was completely uncomfortable, and Delevingne wasn't here for it, like at all. Things were dicey from the get-go when one interviewer asked the star, who was promoting Paper Towns, if it was easier to focus on work because she's busy. Delevingne replied, "No, I don't know where that comes from." When she's asked what she likes about her character, she snapped back with a sarcastic, "No, I actually hate her."

The interview finally came to a disastrous halt when a host asked her why she didn't seem more excited. "Are you just exhausted?" he asked. Delevingne has clearly mastered Taylor Swift's death stare (they were, after all, part of the same squad). "Oh, uh, no. I mean, I'm still very excited. The premiere was last night. It was an emotional night ... but I'm not any less excited than I was a couple of weeks ago. Maybe I had a bit more energy. It's the morning," she said.

The hosts kept pushing, and one even claimed the star seemed "a bit irritated. Perhaps it's just us."

"Yeah, I think it's just you," Delevingne snapped before the control room seemingly muted her microphone, leaving her awkwardly staring into the distance as the Good Day hosts chuckled away. 

This 1994 ESPN2 interview with former New Orleans Saints quarterback Jim Everett makes The Maury Show look tame. According to The Washington Post, even host Jim Rome admitted he went too far, but ESPN didn't take disciplinary action against him. Apparently, getting smashed to the ground on live TV is punishment enough (though Everett should have kept his cool).

The issues began when Rome called the NFL star "Chris Everett," a apparent reference to a female tennis player (Rome was apparently not above gendered, school yard insults). This was the first time the Talk2 host ever said the long-running slight to the QB's face.

"If you call me Chris Everett to my face one more time, you better ... take a station break," Everett sternly said. " ... It's good to be here with you, though, you know, because you've been talking like this behind my back for a long time." The final straw was when Everett said, "You probably won't say it again," and Rome replied, "I bet I do ... Chris." Everett ended up flipping the table and shoving Rome to the ground.

Everett later said in a teleconference (via The Washington Post) that he has no regrets. "I really don't condone my actions, but I was put in a position that I thought was going to be in a journalistic-type interview and, instead, I was put into what I felt was a taunting attack," he said.

You might think the last time any human has ever uttered the world "glib" was during an SAT practice test, but in 2005, the universe gifted us with a very sour Tom Cruise. In an interview with Matt Lauer on NBC's Today show, we got to see the rare word roam around in the wild as Cruise rattled off his knowledge of the pharmaceutical industry (we use the term knowledge loosely).

Scientologists don't believe in taking what they call "mind-altering psychotropic drugs," prescribed by a licensed professional or not. That's probably why Cruise's conversation with Lauer slowly devolved into name-calling. The TV host kept talking about people he knew who were helped by medication, including Brooke Shields, who took antidepressants for postpartum depression, but Cruise kept shutting him down. The highlights consist of Cruise calling Lauer "glib," claiming Lauer didn't "know what Ritalin is," accusing Lauer of not knowing "the history of psychiatry," like Cruse does, and suggesting people take vitamins and exercise instead of using a "pseudoscience" that requires doctors to attend years of medical school.

Years later, Lauer recreated the interview on Watch What Happens Live and claimed the incident was "one little moment" in his very "good friendship" with Cruise.

Robert Downey Jr. wanted absolutely nothing to do with the personal questions asked by Channel 4 News' Krishnan Guru-Murthy during the press rounds for Avengers: Age of Ultron. After all, he was there to promote a superhero movie, not dig into his past. Nonetheless, Guru-Murthy decided to ask the ask the actor about his "dark periods." Although he did ask permission to get personal first, but you could tell RDJ only hesitantly obliged. As soon as the interviewer brought up the actor's father and his past relationship with alcohol and drugs, RDJ flew out of there faster than Iron Man.

"I'm sorry. I really don't — what are we doing?" asked the star, before abruptly saying, "Bye," and walking off camera.

In an interview with Howard Stern, Downey Jr. admitted he wished he left the interview even sooner, which would have been a super hero-like speed.

"This has nothing to do with your creepy, dark agenda ... all of a sudden I'm feeling ashamed and obligated to accommodate your weirdo s**t," the actor said, openly addressing the Channel 4 News host. "What I have to do in the future is give myself permission to say 'That is more than likely a syphilitic parasite and I need to distance myself from this clown.'"