Being a celebrity isn’t without its challenges. Sure, they enjoy money, parties and luxuries we all wish we had like personal chefs and weekly esthetician visits, but they also can’t leave the house without a bodyguard and everything they say and do is constantly under public scrutiny.
And every so often they crack under the pressure. Here are the top five social media meltdowns by the famous (and infamous) of 2013, so far.
Reese Witherspoon
Video of a drunk Reese Witherspoon has captured more than 2.6 million views on YouTube. In the clip posted by TMZ in May, an officer who had pulled over her husband for drunk driving becomes annoyed with Witherspoon because she didn’t obey his “command” to stay in the car.
“I have to obey your orders?” she asked him incredulously. “Do you know my name, sir?”
“Don’t need to know,” the Atlanta officer drawled.
“Oh really? OK, you’re about to find out who I am,” she responded.
While you might think the video depicts Witherspoon in a negative light, she later apologized.
"But I do want to say, I clearly had one drink too many and I am deeply embarrassed about the things I said," she said in a statement. "It was definitely a scary situation and I was frightened for my husband, but that is no excuse. I was disrespectful to the officer who was just doing his job. I have nothing but respect for the police and I'm very sorry for my behavior."
Amy and Samy Bouzaglo
In May the owners of a Scottsdale, Arizona food venue, Amy's Baking Company—one that appeared briefly on the show “Kitchen Nightmares” (although chef Gordon Ramsay dumped them for being difficult)—took to Facebook to defend themselves against criticism.
At first the Bouzaglos asked supporters merely to pray for them. But quickly the couple switched to yelling in all caps and calling people things like “stupid” and “pussies.” Even worse, they interspersed their tirade with mentions of God while slathering it in bad grammar.
It’s the perfect example of what not to do if you’re using social media to connect your brand with fans and customers. Then again, when their freak out started only a couple thousand people had liked their Facebook page. The Bouzaglos’ now have 117,000 fans thanks to the fact that their rants went viral on Reddit and people started following them just to stay updated on the craziness.
It’s sad to say they’re still trying to defend themselves on Facebook, just last week posting a long explanation of how they never took money from their employees.
“I completely forgot I was following these nut jobs!” wrote one person in response.
Amanda Bynes
The 27-year-old former Nickelodeon star has been all over the tabloids in recent months for her erratic—some would say, crazy—behavior in recent months. In July, Bynes was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital after starting a fire in a stranger’s driveway. And just the other day a judge granted her mother a temporary conservatorship that allows her to make decisions about her daughter’s care in case she is released from the facility where she’s being treated.
While she’s not tweeting now and we hope she gets better, her Twitter stream is chock full of random and strange ideas.
Kanye West
There no question about how this recording artist feels about the paparazzi. In this July clip a TMZ photographer pushes all the right buttons to get West to flip out.
“Don’t talk to me. I don’t want to hear paparazzi talk to me or anybody I know,” West said while holding the camera away from himself. “Don’t talk to me at all. And don’t talk to anyone I know at all. And tell everybody never talk to anyone that anyone knows. Don’t talk to themselves. Don’t talk ever again!”
Well, the jerk paparazzo continued to badger West to the point that the star grabbed the camera and stopped the show. You can hardly blame West for acting out, though he did fall right into the photographer's trap.
Alec Baldwin
The “30 Rock” star was anything but funny when he flipped out on Twitter in June after a Daily Mail writer accused his wife, Hilaria, of tweeting during the funeral of “Sopranos” actor James Gandolfini. The Huffington Post captured a screenshot of his expletive-laden rant before he deleted the half-dozen tweets he fired off in a couple of minutes. “I’m going to find you, George Stark, you toxic little queen, and I’m gonna… f#$%... you… up,” reads one. “If (sic) put my foot up your f@#$%^& ass, George Stark, but I’m sure you’d dig it too much,” another says.
Baldwin later apologized to a New York City-based LGBT group for his comments but then in an interview with Howard Stern he lashed out at a CNN reporter who tweeted “Why does #AlecBaldwin get a pass when he uses gay slurs? If a conservative talked of beating up a ‘queen’ they would be vilified.”
"Anderson Cooper has a job to do,” he said. "And that job is to try to reinforce his credibility in the gay community after the fact that you couldn't get him out of the closet for 10 years with a canister of tear gas. Now he's the sheriff; now he's running around writing everybody a ticket!"
Want more? Just search YouTube for any name along with “meltdown” and you can watch for hours.
