Assault, Court Or Death: Stories Of Paparazzi Who Pushed Celebrities Way Too Far
Mark Zuckerberg recently said that privacy is a value of the past. Quotes like this have a huge effect on our privacy, because if there is no norm to privacy, there is no legal right to privacy.
If you look at privacy laws, there is no legal definition to privacy, its only what we consider to be a gross violation of privacy is how privacy is defined. In the case of a celebrity, we believe they deserve no right to privacy, due to their very public personas, so they practically don’t have any legal right to it. They're fame naturally comes with their public ownership, they “asked for it,” and their fame makes their every move in "the public’s interest." So, the same laws that govern journalists and their investigations into politicians, paparazzi argue they publish stories we need to know.
That’s how paparazzi legally harass celebrities, but that doesn’t prevent celebrities from losing patience sometimes. Here’s a list of different celebrities battling, winning, or sometimes even dying as they fight to maintain a semblance of privacy from the paparazzi.
If you can’t join them, beat them? Many celebrities have lost their cool, and assaulted photographers and reported who get in their face or cross red lines.
After being pushed past his limit in 2014, Bieber threw punches at the paparazzi in Paris after they had been bugging him for pictures with model Kendall Jenner during their dinner date, Kendall would also go on to punch one paparazzo in his face. Bieber has had several physical confrontations with the paparazzi, including a 2013 brawl where Bieber tackled a paparazzi, even hitting one with his car by "accident."
Bieber finds himself in good company, with many celebrities, punching, slapping and beating a paparazzi at least once before. Some stay a night in jail, but when a photographer tries to take a picture up your wife’s skirt, as in the case of Brand, is it any surprise the reaction?
Perhaps the two most legendary physical encounters were Britney and Bjork. Both who had been hounded mercilessly for years by a particularly nasty photographer both snapped in now infamous moments of justice.
Jennifer Aniston
Is the pen mightier than the fist? Jennifer Aniston wrote an essay for HuffPost that went viral for its hardline stance against what she described as the "absurd and disturbing" objectification of women and their bodies from the tabloid industry.
In 2003, Aniston won a $550,000 settlement from Francois Navarre, the owner of Los Angeles paparazzi agency X-17, after one of its photographers allegedly "scaled a neighbor's 8-foot wall" to take shots of Aniston sunbathing topless in her backyard.
Two years later, she was back in court, this time suing photographer Peter Brandt for allegedly using "'a high-powered telephoto lens to capture images of her partially clothed within her property." The photographer attempted to defend his peeping by saying it was outside her property, the pervert still got sued though.
J.K Rowling
The billionaire author had always wanted to maintain the privacy of her children, especially when paparazzi sent home letters in her children’s bags, broke into classrooms to take pics of her children, and eventually she was forced to move, as she attempted to block every tabloid a chance to take a picture of her new child.
However, when a collection of private photos, including one of her underage daughter in a bathing suit was released online, she went to war. She argued that the paparazzi targeted her in a “spiteful” attempt at retribution against her for protecting her privacy.
She led a national campaign against the paparazzi which put a spotlight on their unfair practices.
The campaign led to a Parliamentary inquiry of the major UK tabloids, particularly investigating media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who owns "Fox News" and the UK’s "The Sun" magazine. The investigation uncovered that Murdoch’s "The Sun" had pushed for a massive campaign of information theft, hacking the info of thousands of celebrities. There was a national outcry, but due to some technicalities, there wasn’t much the courts and legal system could do about it.
Jodie Foster
After playing an underage prostitute in the movie “Taxi Driver,” Foster was stalked by a number of men who copied Robert DeNiro who stalked Foster’s character. Two men wanted to kill her, and a third eventually attempted to assassinate then President Ronald Reagan to impress Foster while she was in college. This made her an even bigger target for the paparazzi, she has fought for privacy her whole life helping to pass an anti-stalking law.
Nicole Richie
Nicole Richie won a solid legal victory over paparazzo Fabricio Luis Mariotti in 2010 after he crossed all lines of decency, and was caught "lurking" at her then-2-year-old daughter Harlow's preschool, according to TMZ.
Getting a restraining order against Mariotti for 30 meters was pathetic, so Richie went a step further, seeking sue the photographer.
Richie testified that in addition to trespassing on school grounds, "[Mariotto] drives erratically around my children and others, yells, screams and attempts to scare us so that he can photograph our reaction."
Halle Berry
There’s not much celebrities can do to protect their own image and privacy, but when it comes to their children everyone agrees they are entitled to privacy.
Halle Berry and Jennifer Garner fought to pass a bill protecting the privacy of the children of public figures, which they have said is one of their proudest accomplishments.
"These are little innocent children who didn't ask to be celebrities," Berry said in 2013, while testifying that photographers had bullied her daughter Nahla.
George & Amal Clooney
Things went too far when a photographer for the French magazine, Voici, climbed a fence and a tree outside of the couple's Italian home in order to take pictures of their one-and-a-half month old twins.
The Clooney’s brought charges against everyone, stating, "make no mistake—the photographers, the agency and the magazine will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. The safety of our children demands it."
Including an illegal snap of the twins, a month before the paparazzi had caught a picture of a 13-year-old friend of their older child changing in an upstairs bedroom which caused the girl extreme distress.
Dax Shepard & Kristen Bell
Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell fought their battles in the press and on social media rather than the courtroom, which generally just results in a fine that has no effect on the profits and readership of the tabloid. They started a hashtag campaign and boycott called "No Kids Policy," which asks publishers of celebrity content to take a pledge to not purchase and/or publish "unauthorized" photos of celebrities' children. Culminating in a public debate with the owners of a paparazzi photo agency on Access Hollywood, they argued that there is an inherent moral failing with taking photos of celebrity kids.
Surprisingly it worked, People Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, The Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, and more agreed to "stop sharing, buying or posting photos of celebrities' children taken without consent." Bell also said that the effect of the agreement was felt by other famous parents, who have acknowledged that it "quite literally changed their day to day lives with their kids."
You can see a video of Hillary Duff confronting a paparazzo referencing this ruling. It helped give celebrities a chance to fight back without hitting the annoying reporters.
Princess Di and Dodi Fayed and the British Royalty
Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle have been targeted by vicious paparazzi but perhaps the most famous case of paparazzi harassment targets the British royalty, particularly the death of Princess Diana, Dodi Fayed, and their driver. The couple had been pursued for weeks by a mob of paparazzi, culminating in a car accident that killed the couple and their driver as they sped to avoid the paparazzo. Many of them were charged with criminal cases of manslaughter for gross harassment.
In fact, of all the paparazzi relentlessly pursuing the couple in the days leading up the crash, only three were ever convicted for the much lesser charge of "invasion of privacy for taking pictures of the couple." They were each fined one euro.
