25 Stories Of The Kindest And Rudest Celebrity Encounters

We often become fans of a creative artist’s work and develop emotional connections to individuals we’ve never met. Even though we may not be on these artists’ radar, we feel like we know them on a deeper level because of our admiration. We might fantasize about their personalities and wonder if we would get along if we ever met them. Some people get the chance to turn these dreams into reality and actually meet their celebrity heroes. These encounters can go in different directions, according to Redditors. Some find that their heroes are wonderful and kind, while others discover that the person they idolized isn’t as pleasant as they imagined.

#1 I met Weird Al and got starstruck and didn’t know what to say to him. I finally blurted out, “I know you probably hear this a lot, but I’m a huge fan.” He smiled and responded “I do hear that a lot, but I’ve never heard it from you.” Made my day.

Image source: NOLAComicsFan, slgckgc

#2 I’ve loved Alan Cumming since the very start of his career. I saw his first tv appearance with Forbes Masson. Fast forward almost 30 years, I’ve moved to the USA and met my now husband, who casually mentioned that he knows another Scottish guy, yup you guessed it, Alan Cumming.

Image source: BeardadTampa, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon

We met up with Alan when he came to town to perform and despite him just coming off stage and exhausted, he was incredibly friendly and delighted to meet me and the kids . We get together any time he’s in the area and have met up with him in NY. He’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, and he adores our kids , he has sent them wee videos on their birthday a few times too. Just a wonderful guy.

#3 I saw Nick Offerman do a show at a theater with his wife Megan followed by a book signing afterward. So the show ended fairly late and it was a theater full of people waiting in line to get a book signed so it was obviously going to take a long while.

Image source: jesterguy, Deedle-Dee Productions

Nick was the best. He chatted with everyone, didn’t rush anyone along, stayed until after midnight to make sure he talked to everybody and got them a book. About halfway through the line he recognized a couple ladies and brought them out. He announced something like “sorry everyone I just need to stop for a moment because these two are royalty. This is so and so, they did the wardrobe for me on Parks & Rec and I haven’t seen them since.” and shared some brief memories of them working together. The ladies were so excited he remembered them and made them feel extra special. I’m glad Nick lived up to and exceed my expectations.

#4 I’m a huge fan of “The Wire”. IMO, the greatest show ever made, by a mile. I admire all of the cast, but Wendell Pierce in particular. Not just for his portrayal of Bunk, but he’s done a lot of great humanitarian work too.

Image source: DiscoStu1972, HBO

I was at an event and saw that he was also in the audience. I normally try to leave celebrities alone, figuring that they just want to be treated like a normal person when out it public, but in this case I couldn’t resist. After the event, I went over and said hello and told him how much I appreciated his work. He was completely gracious and humble. Insisted that I call him by his first name, asked me mine. After chatting for a bit, he asked me what I did for work. I told him I’m a structural engineer. He then wanted to know my full name. I told him. “You’re (my name)!”, he exclaimed, “we were just talking about you at dinner last night!”. He had had dinner with one of my clients the previous night and was so impressed by a structure I had designed that he asked the client who had designed it. Now I am not a famous engineer by any stretch (if there even are any). It was just an amazing bit of luck, plus the fact that he’s a genuinely great guy.

#5 Okay, I have never shared this. When I was 17 (now 40F), my friends and I got tickets to see Mitch Hedberg in a small club in my hometown. We were .vsall in high school, so my mom had to accompany us. We all loved him, listened to his album, quoted him.

Image source: Fremenade, Conan O’Brien

He was known for kinda having his eyes closed during his set, so at one point, I snapped a flash photo which was allowed at this venue. He said something else then asked, “Hey, did somebody take a picture?” I was too embarrassed, and my mom shouted, “she did!!” So I raised my hands thinking like oh, he’ll throw me a t shirt or something. No. He called me onstage to take a picture with him!!! I was cheesing so hard. Then my mother yelled, “Let her tell a joke!!” And he handed me the Mike. My mind went blank, and I told the most recent one I’d heard. A stupid joke about whale sounds that got no laugh.? I went to sit back down and he was cracking jokes throughout the set about “I don’t know how I’m supposed to follow Fremenade” I was dying. I met his opener and got a pic after the show but I was too embarrassed to go back to Mitch and say hi. Got a great Pic with him onstage, tho!

#6 When I was in Junior High, I wrote a paper on Thor Heyerdahl and Easter Island.

Image source: wjescott, Roger W

In High School I wrote another about his reed boat Atlantic crossing attempt.

I went to college to study anthropology, both because of him and Indiana Jones (I was 15, give me a break).

Through a series of familial misadventures, my money for grad school vanished, and I joined the military to get the cash to finish.

While stationed in Charleston, SC. I was with a buddy walking along the pier when I see this gorgeous three master sitting up ahead. I want to go look at it, and see it’s flying a Norwegian flag. I get closer and start taking with one of the girls on the ship. She says they’re college students and this is sort of an foreign study credit, sailing the ship. From Bergen all the way around to South America. That sounds amazing.

As I’m looking around, I notice that the ship is called the Heyerdahl. I comment that I wrote papers on Thor and got my degrees based on my admiration. She asked if I ever met him, and I just laughed…I was a poor kid from Western South Dakota… What were the chances I’d ever get to meet him?

She said he was right over at a cafe less than a block away.

I remember with unbelievable clarity. He was sitting on a little white bench outside the place with a disposable cup of something, with a book in his hand. There was a small table and chair not far away, and I could only just sit and look.

He looks up about a minute or two later, sees me and says, “I’m sorry, but are you alright?” I didn’t even realize I was crying.

Over the next hour and a half I talked and listened to him, watched him smile and talk about how adventure still existed, you just had to find them, and live them whenever you could.

He invited me to visit him if I was ever in Norway, and we both laughed at that.

When he died in ’02, I bawled my eyes out.

I live in Atlanta now, and a little over a year ago my wife and I went to Charleston for a few days. After dinner one evening we were walking along the pier and I saw where the ship had been tied up. Nothing there at that moment. Then I turned to where the cafe was, and saw the bench.

I sat where he sat for a while.

#7 I met Robin Williams while working on a comedy show and he couldn’t have been more kind and friendly, with me gushing about how I wore out his first comedy album on vinyl and had to buy another one. He said “your parents must have been pretty cool, most of them would *ksssht!” (pantomimes breaking a record over his knee)*

Image source: ufotheater, Miramax

After the first day of the shoot, all us camera operators had to be told to back off Robin because we all wanted to be around him, and we had too much footage of him already. He spent a lot of time talking to fellow legend Mort Sahl.

#8 My then teenage daughter met Alice Cooper at a convention. She waited for the line to clear and shyly approached him for a signature, then asked for tips as she intended to have a career in music. He was very kind and took the time to talk to her about it and tell her about his own experience.

Image source: Anianna

#9 Julia Child winked at me. She was just a genuinely fun person.

Image source: AlanMercer, Julia Child on PBS

#10 The nicest I have met was Sir Michael Palin – a truly lovely man. He felt like an Uncle I’d known my whole life, and I was the one who had to end the conversation with him as I had to get to university. If I hadn’t had to go I think I’d still be talking to him 20 odd years later!

Image source: Nige78

#11 I met Wil Wheaton at a big SciFi con a few years ago. It was like halfway through the third day and he’d been signing stuff for hours.

Image source: zardozLateFee, CBS Television Studios

I got to the front of the line and he jumped out of his chair in excitement and yelled “Are those BAT’LETH EARRINGS?! So cool!”

He then proceeded to sign my dorky old TNG comic (with Wesley Crusher on the cover of course) and we put an earring on the cover so he could take a photo of Wes with it. We talked about Open Source software and EFF.

Whole interaction took 3-4 minutes but he was just totally there for it, despite having a hundred other people he’d have to interact with.

He later included the photo in his blog.

#12 Went to see Penn & Teller in Vegas…and one of their magic tricks during the show involved the audience. The trick worked for everyone in my family, but not for me.

Image source: agbishop, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon

Now they’re well known for meeting people after their show…so we stayed, got autographs and photos with them…even Teller was talking – they couldn’t have been nicer. Penn asked me what’d you’d think of the show….so my stupid mouth just fired back, “your audience trick didn’t work.”

He then asked my family, “did it work for you?”

They all nodded and with an enthusiastic – YES

Without missing a beat, he turns to me, “Well, there’s the problem, you’re an idiot.”

Getting personally insulted by Penn was the high point of that Vegas trip :-).

#13 I met Terry Pratchett while battling very aggressive ovarian cancer. He told me that my hat was ‘really neat’. I carry that in my heart today.

Image source: turingthecat, ABC News (Australia)

#14 Not mine, but a friend’s:

Jason Alexander, George from *Seinfeld*, came to give a guest lecture on acting at the university my friend attended. My friend was on his way to class, when he ran into Jason Alexander who had just finished up his lecture. Instead of saying “You’re George from Seinfeld!” my friend said “Holy c**p, you’re Jason Alexander!”
Jason Alexander heaved a sigh of relief and said “Nobody remembers my name, it’s awlays George this, Festivus that. Know what, kid? Want to get lunch together?”

And my friend says, “Oh, sorry, I’m late for class!” and took off for biology.

He gets to class, sits down, and suddenly realizes he just turned down lunch with Jason Alexander.

Don’t meet your heroes, because sometimes you’re really dumb, and they’ll see it.

Image source: unklethan

#15 Wife took the kids to Pittsburgh to see Def Leppard. The night before, they’re in a restaurant when an older, one-armed guy walks in. Turns out it’s the drummer for the band. They chatted him up and got a selfie. He was happy to see teenagers still liking his music.

Image source: InigoMontoya1985, Michael Kensinger

#16 Not sure this is a “Never Meet Your Heroes” story, but it’s a great example of why you shouldn’t always listen to that advice.

Image source: ConstantlyNerdingOut, Tim Drury

I met Terry Farrell, the actress who played Jadzia Dax on Star: Trek Deep Space Nine, at a convention QnA session when I was 15. She and another DS9 actress (Nana Vistor for the Trekkies out there) were up on stage answering questions, and there were two lines leading to a microphone on either side of the stage. Well suddenly on Terry’s side, the mic went out, and without skipping a beat, Terry got off the stage and started holding out her own microphone to people so they could keep asking questions. Terry even gave a hug to a 4-5 year old girl ahead of me in line. I got to the front, and there I am, an extremely shy 15 year old, arm’s length away from my childhood hero, in front of several hundred people. I manage to tremblingly squeak out that she is my favorite character in all of Star Trek, and before I can say another word, she gives me a big hug. I ended up asking her about her favorite episode (her answer was Blood Oath, for those curious), and went back to my seat.

My dad had also bought me a photo op with her later that day, and when I got there, she exclaimed something to the effect of “Oh, I remember you!” and immediately pulled me into another big hug for the photo. I still have that photo, as well as an autographed photo of her character. Words cannot describe how much that encounter impacted me, I never expected someone who probably met thousands of fans that day to show so much care to one awkward teenager who just wanted to meet her hero like everyone else. Jadzia Dax is everything I wanted to be growing up. She is kind, confident, smart, funny, and adventurous. I still want to be all those things, but more than anything, I hope I can learn to exude even half the kindness that Terry Farrel does.

So yeah, sometimes your heroes really are heroes. :).

#17 My wife and I went to a David Byrne concert (Everything That Happens Will Happen Today tour). I was parked across the street from the lot where there were two tour identical buses parked. We were early, so we were just hanging out in our car.

From (evidently) a stage door, David Byrne comes out and walks over to one of the buses, puts a key in the lock and nothing happens. It wouldn’t turn. He pulled it out and put it back in and tried to turn several more times to no avail. He was standing there staring at the key with a look of frustrated confusion on his face, and I hollered, “This is not my beautiful bus!”

He laughed.

Then he had the good sense to walk over to the *other* bus and try the key there.

It worked.

Image source: BernieInvitedMe

#18 I was at a comic convention and had decided to bring my Batman: The Animated Series poster (one that released as a promotion for the cartoon back when it came out) so I could get it signed by the man himself, Kevin Conroy (voiced batman for those who don’t know).
My SO had stuff she had to take care of first since she was a guest at the con so when she was done we went to the autographs area to see if we could catch him.

I went from happy (when I saw he was still there) to sad (when I saw he was packing up to leave). I was crestfallen but my SO said, “at least say hello and ask when he’ll be back”.
So I walked up and told him I loved his work and asked when he’d be back.
He told me to f**k right off–I’m absolutely joking; he said, “I think we’ve got time for one more–no need to make you wait, right?”
He looked to his wrangler/manager who, clearly, wanted to just go and kind of motioned as such and he just shook his head and said, “it’ll only take a minute”.
He unrolled the poster and admired it for a minute. Saying he hadn’t seen one of these in quite a while. I told him how I’d debated getting it signed because of it’s age and I’d decided that if I could get Batman to sign it then it was worth it. So he signed his name and wrote, “I am BATMAN” on it.
He seemed so genuine and nice. I did not expect him to stop and make time to sign it and would’ve gladly come back but it was amazing that he stopped everything just for me. Everyone I’ve heard who has met him said that they all felt like that when they met him.
He even said the line in his Batman voice and the child in me was filled with pure glee.
He passed away a few months after that. If he hadn’t taken the time then I wouldn’t have ever gotten the chance again (at the time, he came to town pretty frequently so I figured I’d get it next time around). Based on everything I now know–he was already not in great health (he did look really thin at the time). Which, to me, makes it even greater than he took extra time for one last signature.
He was and forever will be the one and only, true, Batman.

Image source: that_guys_posse

#19 I was a huge science nerd in high school, so of course I idolized Bill Nye. I thought he was amazing for how he made science more accessible to everyone.

Image source: Spoonula, Gage Skidmore

My love of science led to me becoming an astronomy major in college during the late ’90s and very early ’00s. At that time, one of my astronomy professors let me know that Bill Nye had been hired to be the main speaker at my university’s Engineering Open House, then asked if I’d like to be one of Bill’s college guides for the day. I was so excited to say yes!

I first realized I was in trouble when one of Bill Nye’s assistants showed up early to debrief us; he told us to not take anything Bill says personally and that Bill is generally an a*****e to everyone.

Bill Nye showed up very late and very drunk, and he refused to do the full science presentation he had been contracted to do. He had been paid to present for a full hour, but he argued loudly that he wouldn’t do more than 15 minutes.

Bill made a few nasty comments about women in science towards me, insinuating that I was in astronomy just to find a husband. Then he started getting aggressively mean towards the young kids who were excited to see him.

Eventually he ended up screaming at a 5-year-old to “f**k off” while mic’d up in front of an entire gymnasium of people. At that point, college officials asked Bill to leave even though he’d been there for only a short time.

To this day, I’m honestly shocked at how many people still love and idolize Bill Nye, as I’ve heard so many similar “Bill Nye is an a*****e” stories over the years.

#20 Greenwich Village. NYC. ‘77. At my car w. a girlfriend when Lou Reed comes (literally) bopping round the corner. Big fan so I say, “ Hey Lou, need a ride ?” He replies, “No man, I’m cool !” And ya know what ? He was, and forever will be, in my book. RIP, baby !

Image source: Trieditwonce, wikipedia.org

AND for all the die-hards, YouTube The Velvet Underground on Lawrence Welk where his orchestra plays Sister Ray.

#21 I met Tim Curry a few years ago and it was a different kind of bad. He was so frail it broke my heart.

Image source: LadyCoru, Twentieth Century Fox

#22 Met Fellowship members Viggo Mortensen and Ian McKellen on separate occasions while I was working as a camera operator for an entertainment channel.

Image source: fireplaceandchair, New Line Cinema

Viggo was a delight, could tell I was really star struck, so he asked me for a selfie before we got rolling. When I told him my friends and I used to pretend to be Aragorn at playtime in our youth he laughed and told me it was “incredibly sweet”.

McKellen saw me accidentally smash a mirror to smithereens while I was setting up my shot, and couldn’t have been kinder delayed him by cleaning up, on what must have been a very busy day for him.

#23 Met Martin Short in an alley in LA on his way in to shoot that Jersey shore spoof he did on some late night talk show. Nicest guy in the world, told security to back off and that he had all the time in the world to talk to the people who put him where he was that day. Took pictures, signed stuff, just chatted like a normal human being. A family friend of mine kept calling him Marty, and he never corrected him. Seemed to get a kick out of it hahaha. Bid the most respectful thank you and goodbye when time really did run out and he was at risk of missing his call time or whatever.

Image source: Annoying-donut, Orion Pictures

#24 Not me, but something very funny that happened once.

My grandpa was a univerity teacher of pharmacy and has made numerous books/paper to his name. I think a building or two too. Anyway, he was giving a conferance in my town, so ofc I went to see him! After the conference I went to chat to him, and like. I’m his oldest grandkid, he kinda helped raised me, he *adore* me. So we are chatting, and then this young profesional barge in, and cut our convo, because he wants my grandpa to help review a study I think. I keep trying to tell my papi that i’ll talk to him later, but the guy interupt me and end up saying something like “can’t you see that this is important??”

Grandpa informed him I was his grandchild, and politely told him to go f**k himself.

It was very hard to not laugh out loud. I had never heard my grandpa swore before.

Image source: Mamaclover

#25 I worked as a cashier in a Stateline, Nevada casino in the early 80s. Part of our training included a warning that Bruce Dern often gambled in the early morning and he did not like to be recognized. I’ve been a huge Bruce Dern fan since Silent Running and it was enough for me to spot him from across the room.

Image source: cherismail, Universal Pictures

One day, I’m training a new hire and Mr Dern came to our window. I had forgotten to warn my trainee about him. After the trainee cashed out his chips, he says, “Has anyone ever told you that you look just like Bruce Dern?” Mr Dern grins and says, “I get that a lot” and walks away. Made my day.