Can we stop pretending?

I moved recently, so this isn't as timely as I wanted it to be.

If you're a socially aware person, you know that Chris Brown performed at the Grammy Awards. If you're a celebrity gossip lover, like myself, you know that three years ago Brown had to cancel his performance as well as his then-girlfriend's, Queen Rihanna, because he beat the shit out of her in the car on the way over. So he performed, twice, and people cheered and gave him standing ovations and everyone was so happy to finally have a golden talent in their midst again. And I am furious. Thank you, Chris Brown, for inspiring me to make this list of verbally and physically violent people who I am sick of seeing people fawn over. I don't know about you, but I hold a grudge and never forget that someone did shit. You shouldn't either. (Check out this stunning piece on HelloGiggles for more insight into why.)

So here is my list of horrible men praised in Hollywood. Enjoy.

Obviously Mel Gibson is a terrible person and totally worthy of this list. My beef isn't just that he's racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic and a psycho brand of Catholic. He also allegedly knocked his ex-girlfriend and baby mama's teeth out. You're thinking, "Of course he's awful! Everyone knows! He's been blacklisted by Hollywood and no one will go near him with a ten-foot pole!" Yes, yes I know. But why was he blacklisted? Because of his racist and anti-Semitic language. Not because of his terrifyingly rage-filled recorded phone call to the mother of his youngest child. When that whole thing was going down, people had a hard believing Oksana Grigorieva. People thought she was lying about it and exploiting it for money because she's SUCH a gold digger. Why are people more upset by his drunken anti-Semitic rant and not the fact that he punched a woman in the face and threatened to put her in the ground?

So, we all know that if Mark Wahlberg the Golden God had been on one of the planes on 9/11, terrorist attacks wouldn't have happened. But since he wasn't, he's still a piece of shit. No, he's not a woman-beater, thank goodness, but he is a violent motherfucker. Racist one, too. Let's see-- at 15 he harassed some black school kids and threw rocks at them, calling them 'niggers' with his friends. At 16 he randomly attacked a Vietnamese man with a stick, hitting him over the head and knocking him unconscious while calling him "Vietnam fucking shit." Right after that he attacked another Vietnamese man, leaving him blind in one eye. A few years later he attacked a neighbor unprovoked. Good thing he feels at peace with himself, though:

"I did a lot of things that I regret, and I have certainly paid for my mistakes." He said the right thing to do would be to try to find the blinded man and make amends, and admitted he has not done so, but added that he was no longer burdened by guilt: "You have to go and ask for forgiveness and it wasn't until I really started doing good and doing right by other people, as well as myself, that I really started to feel that guilt go away. So I don't have a problem going to sleep at night. I feel good when I wake up in the morning."

Then he gave us Entourage. Asshole.

Terrence Howard is currently going through what seems to be the worst divorce ever. His current quasi-wife is claiming he hit her. He's claiming she hit him. I believe both of them because both seem to be pieces of shit who deserve each other, to be honest. Anyway, he's a damn woman beater. In 2001, he was having an argument on the phone with his estranged wife and mother of his three kids when he said 'Don't disrespect me by hanging up on me or I'll come over and hurt you.' She hung up on him and he followed up on his promise. He came over, beat the door down and punched her twice in the face. He plead guilty and got a disorderly conduct' sentence.

I will never pay to see a Roman Polanski film. Ever. Almost everyone knows that he drugged, raped and sodomized a 13-year-old girl in the 1970s. Except for the fact that he plead guilty, he doesn't think there was anything wrong with it, either! He didn't go to jail, though, because he fled the country and hasn't been back to the United States since. When he was 43 or so, he had a relationship with a 15-17 year old actress. He's stated in his autobiography how shocked he is that “I should be sent to prison, my life and career ruined, for making love.” (barf) Hollywood keeps acting like it's a damn travesty that he can't come back to the States to make a film. I'm sorry, but dude deserves to go to fucking jail and I refuse to act like sodomizing a 13-year-old girl is something that can be ignored for some movies. Hollywood is pissing me off with petitions like this trying to get him back. 

Side-eying the shit out of you, Aronofsky, Scorsese, Swinton, Wes Anderson. Not surprised by you, Woody Allen.

I realized I left off Sean Penn and ran all the way home to add him. This motherfucker.. don't even get me started. Oh wait, that's the whole point of this post! WELL, before he became the biggest douche in Hollywood, Mr. Self Righteous beat the shit out of Madonna. MADONNA. They were married in the 80s (for you young ones). I'm really surprised they don't mention this on his Wikipedia, but on one occasion, he drunkenly scaled a concrete wall, broke into her home, tied her up in a chair and beat her for NINE HOURS. That's right. Sean Penn tied up Madonna and beat her for nine hours and made her "perform a degrading sex act" on him. Once she freed herself, she ran the fuck out of there and into the nearest police station where they didn't even recognize her at that point. It was either on this occasion or another where he hit her over the head with a baseball bat and she had to go to the hospital. Hey, Penn, how about you stop trying to be King of Haiti and worry about your damn self? I HATE YOU.

HONORABLE MENTION:

This one makes me sad. He's really handsome. The best-looking Mr. Rochester ever in the best Jane Eyre adaptation ever. He likes black girls (holla). Also, Michael Fassbender may or may not have drunkenly assaulted his ex-girlfriend once a few years ago. She never filed a report, though. While I'm not a fan of victim blaming or not believing claims of abuse, I'm also not a fan of condemning someone who has a good chance of not having done something. I'm going to keep him on the back burner and continue to think Fassy is good-looking and a good actor and very likable on NPR's Fresh Air.












There are more, I'm sure. There always are. But at least you know why these men are unworthy of America's love and adoration.