Despite all that air kissing and those fixed kilowatt smiles, things are not always harmonious in the world of showbiz.
Often, when the egos of pampered celebs collide, it’s not long before famous types get (a) personal and (b) public, meaning the rest of us get a ringside seat at their slanging match.
Here’s our round-up of the most memorable celeb beef of recent times…
Sarah Jessica Parker vs. Kim Cattrall
Beef rating: 🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩
They might appear to be bezzies on screen in Sex And The City, but once the cameras stopped rolling, so did Sarah and Kim’s relationship. After Kim refused to sign up for the third SATC movie, she didn’t hold back in letting the world know why. In a 2018 interview, Kim called out SJP, saying: “I really think she could have been nicer. I don’t know what her issue is, I never have.”
But then she really let her have it later that year when SJP offered her condolences after the death of Kim’s brother.
Firing back in an Instagram post Kim wrote: “I don’t need your love or support at this time @sarahjessicaparker. You are not my family. You are not my friend.”
Elton John vs. Rod Stewart
Beef rating: 🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩
Rod Stewart kicked off 2021 by revealing he has finally buried the hatchet with Elton John after a two-year feud. The Maggie May singer said he had Elton were friends again after he apologised for speaking out against his farewell tour, saying it was “money grabbing”. Elton subsequently said Rod had “a fucking cheek” to criticise his farewell tour, discussing the fallout in a new chapter of his autobiography, Me.
But Rod has now revealed that their friendship is back on track. He said: “I say to my kids, ‘A man apologises, go and apologise to your mother’. We’ve always been fierce enemies, as you know, through the years, but it’s always been at a playful level. But we had the worst row, like a married couple. It went on forever. I regret it, I really do regret it. So we’re mates again now. I do love him.”
Madonna vs. Elton John
Beef rating: 🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩
Sir Elton John and Madonna have feuded for several years after Elton branded Madonna’s Bond theme Die Another Day as “the worst Bond tune of all time.” He subsequently accused the queen of pop of lip-syncing at her live shows.
But things really came to a head when they were both nominated for Best Original Song at the Golden Globes in 2012. Elton said Madonna had no chance of beating him, and then she did. Awks. Speaking backstage after her win. Madge said: ”[Elton’s] been known to get mad at me, so I don’t know. He’s brilliant, and I adore him, so he’ll win another award. I don’t feel bad.”
Madonna vs. Lady Gaga
Beef rating: 🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩
Madonna famously labelled Lady Gaga “reductive” in 2011 after Gaga refused to acknowledge there was any similarity between Madge’s classic hit Express Yourself and her song Born This Way. In 2015, Madonna revealed that the only time she had an issue with Gaga was when she felt like she “blatantly ripped off” her song.
“It’s got nothing to do with ‘she’s taking my crown’ or ‘she’s in some space of mine.’ She has her thing,” she said. “I do think she’s a very talented singer and songwriter. It was just that one issue.”
Gaga addressed the beef in 2017, saying that although she “admires [Madonna] no matter what she might think of me,” she was bothered by the singer not coming directly to her. “No matter how much respect I have for her as a performer, I could never wrap my head around the fact that she wouldn’t look me in the eye and tell me that I was reductive,” she said.
These days the pair appear to be getting along just fine, and even posed together at an after-party when Gaga won her Oscar in 2019.
Jon Hamm vs. Kim Kardashian
Beef rating: 🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩
Mad Men star Jon Hamm made some unflattering comments to Elle UK about celebrity culture, singling out Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton.
“Whether it’s Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian or whoever, stupidity is certainly celebrated. Being a fucking idiot is a valuable commodity in this culture because you’re rewarded significantly,” he told the magazine.
Kim responded on Twitter, writing: “I just heard about the comment Jon Hamm made about me in an interview. I respect Jon and I am a firm believer that everyone is entitled to their own opinion and that not everyone takes the same path in life. We’re all working hard and we all have to respect one another.
“Calling someone who runs their own businesses, is a part of a successful TV show, produces, writes, designs, and creates, ‘stupid,’ is in my opinion careless.”
When asked about his comments, Jon told E! News, “It’s surprising to me that this has become remotely a story. I don’t know Ms. Kardashian. I know her public persona.
“What I said was meant to be more on pervasiveness of something in culture, not personal, but she took offence to it and that is her right.”
Gwyneth Paltrow vs. Martha Stewart
Beef rating: 🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩
The battle of the lifestyle gurus that no one saw coming, but everyone was living for, started back in 2014, when Martha ripped into Gwynnie and her lifestyle brand, Goop.
“She’s a movie star. If she were confident in her acting, she wouldn’t be trying to be Martha Stewart,” she told Porter magazine. Ouch.
Later that year, Martha followed up her aside in her Martha Stewart Living magazine with a pie recipe called “Conscious Coupling” – a reference to Gwyneth’s “conscious uncoupling” announcement of her divorce from Chris Martin. A month later, Gwyneth shared her own recipe called “Jailbird Cake,” a dig at Martha’s time in prison for fraud charges back in 2004. Touché.
Nicki Minaj vs. Miley Cyrus
Beef rating: 🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩
When Miley Cyrus presented the VMAs in 2015, Nicki took the opportunity to directly call out the host after she criticised the rapper in an interview with The New York Times for tweeting about the lack of representation after her Anaconda video didn’t receive a nomination for the VMA Video of the Year Award.
After collecting the VMA for Best Hip-Hop Video, Nicki asked “Miley, what’s good?” Miley fired back on stage: “Hey. We’re all in this industry, we all do interviews, and we all know how they manipulate.” Four years later and it didn’t look like things had been smoothed over after Miley released the song Cattitude, which includes the lyrics: “I love you, Nicki, but I listen to Cardi.”
Nicki Minaj vs. Cardi B
Beef rating: 🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩
Speaking of Cardi, after the rapper seemingly exchanged swipes at each other through their music, things came to a head in 2018 in an infamous brawl at the New York Fashion Week Harper’s Bazaar party, where things reportedly got physical with Cardi throwing a shoe at Nicki.
Cardi followed the altercation up with with an Instagram post directed at Nicki, saying she had crossed the line by talking about her child and insulting her parenting skills. More words were exchanged on social media in the weeks that followed until the pair appeared to call a truce a month later, when Nicki tweeted: “Let’s focus on positive things only from here on out. Cardi then responded on Instagram with the caption, “Alright then! Let’s keep it positive and keep it pushing!”
Naomi Campbell vs. Tyra Banks
Beef rating: 🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩
Supermodel Tyra Banks revealed she got anything but a warm welcome from Naomi when she was a new girl coming into the modeling business in the early 90s.
“As much as I was booking every single fashion show, people didn’t know I was going home at night crying my eyes out because a woman I was looking up to seemed like she just didn’t want me to be there,” she said. “And was doing everything in her power to make me go away.”
The pair buried the hatched in 2005 on Tyra’s talk US show, but only last year their feud appeared to have been reignited when Naomi shared an article on Instagram titled “Here’s Why Fans Are Starting To Think Tyra Banks Is The Real Mean Girl, Not Naomi Campbell”.
Tom Cruise vs. Brooke Shields
Beef rating: 🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩
In 2005, Tom Cruise raised eyebrows when he jumped on couches on Oprah’s talk show. He then criticised Brooke Shields, while on the Today show, telling Matt Lauer that the actor should not have taken antidepressants to combat the postpartum depression she was suffering from after the birth of her first child.
The Mission Impossible star, a Scientologist who shuns psychiatry, insisted the depression could be treated with “vitamins and exercise”.
Brooke responded by writing an op-ed piece in the New York Times, writing: “I’m going to take a wild guess and say that Mr. Cruise has never suffered from postpartum depression … And comments like those made by Tom Cruise are a disservice to mothers everywhere … If any good can come of Mr. Cruise’s ridiculous rant, let’s hope that it gives much-needed attention to a serious disease.”
The action star later apologised, with Brooke telling Jay Leno a year later: “He came over to my house and he gave me a heartfelt apology. And he apologised for bringing me into the whole thing and for everything that happened.”
Vin Diesel vs. Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson
Beef rating: 🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩
After the two action stars appeared in The Fate Of The Furious in 2017, The Rock took to social media to blast an unnamed co-star. “Some conduct themselves as stand up men and true professionals, while others don’t,” he wrote. “When you watch this movie next April and it seems like I’m not acting in some of these scenes and my blood is legit boiling — you’re right.”
The Rock followed that up with an Instagram post in which he thanked the cast and crew, but made no mention of Vin Diesel, the film’s co-producer.
Vin Diesel has since played down any beef, saying: “I don’t think the world really realises how close we are, in a weird way. I think some things may be blown out of proportion. I don’t think that was his intention. I know he appreciates how much I work this franchise. In my house, he’s Uncle Dwayne.”
Taylor Swift vs. Kanye West
Beef rating: 🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩
We all witnessed the birth of this beef when Kanye infamously interrupted Taylor’s acceptance speech at the 2009 VMAs. Kanye later apologised and the two music stars buried the hatchet… until Kanye released the song Famous, which featured the lyrics, “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex. Why? I made that bitch famous”.
When Taylor publicly denounced the song, Kanye’s wife Kim Kardashian released secret recordings of a private phone call in which the pop star appears to approve the lyrics… until a leaked version of the full phone call appeared to support Taylor’s insistence that she did anything but.
Taylor Swift vs. Katy Perry
Beef rating: 🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩
It’s not just Kanye that Taylor has famously fallen out with. Despite being good mates for years, things soured between Taylor and Katy Perry in 2014 when some of Taylor’s backing dancers left in the middle of her Red tour to go and work for Katy on her Prismatic Tour.
Taylor responded in musical form with the single Bad Blood, which she revealed was about an unnamed female artist who “basically tried to sabotage an entire arena tour”. Katy then fired back with Swish Swish.
Katy eventually extended an olive branch (literally, in the post) in 2018, which led to Taylor inviting Katy to appear in her video for You Need To Calm Down, dressed as a burger and fries.
Paris Hilton vs. Nicole Richie
Beef rating: 🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩
Before the Kardashians took the reality TV throne, BFFs Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie ruled in the early noughties thanks to their hugely successful reality series, The Simple Life.
But the friendship turned sour in 2005 after Paris failed to invite Nicole along when she hosted Saturday Night Live. “It’s no big secret that Nicole and I are no longer friends,” Paris told People. “Nicole knows what she did, and that’s all I’m ever going to say about it.”
However, the pair eventually kissed and made up and have remained friends ever since.
Paris Hilton vs. Lindsay Lohan
Beef rating: 🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩
The same can’t be said for Paris and Lindsay Lohan. Once the It girls of Hollywood, the pair fell out in 2006 when Lindsay was spotted with Paris’ ex-boyfriend.
The pair have traded insults ever since and as recently as 2019, Paris called Lindsay “beyond lame, and embarrassing”.
Mariah Carey vs. Eminem
Beef rating: 🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩
Eminem and Mariah Carey began to spar after he claimed that they used to have a sexual relationship. Mariah denied the relationship, telling Larry King: “I hung out with him, I spoke to him on the phone. I think I was probably with him a total of four times. And I don’t consider that dating somebody.”
Mariah later mocked his claim in her video for Obsessed, in which she appeared as an Eminem look-alike who was besotted with her.
The rapper retaliated with a number of songs that mentioned Mariah, and even threatened to release nude photos of the singer as well as voicemails to prove they dated. In the song The Warning he raps: “Shut the fuck up before I put up all the phone calls you made to my house when you were Wild N’ Out before Nick, when you was on my dick and give you something to smile about.”
Courtney Love vs. Dave Grohl
Beef rating: 🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩🥩
The two rock stars have been feuding over the rights to Nirvana’s music since the death of Courtney’s ex-husband Kurt Cobain by suicide in 1994. The Hole singer explained why she hates the Foo Fighters frontman, after playing a show in Brazil.
“What I was saying, is Dave makes $5 million a show, he doesn’t need the money. His mother’s a banker, his father’s a stock broker and he’s making $5 million a show. Why the fuck then does he have a Nirvana Inc. credit card and I don’t? And last week he bought an Aston Martin on it,” she said.
The two eventually reconciled after 20 years in 2014.
