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10 ~ Reege's Racket: "I am the sorest loser," Regis Philbin once confessed. It was his Irish temper, he said, which led him to get violent and kick or throw things. For example? After losing a tennis match while visiting a director's home one day in the 1970s, Reege, in fine John McEnroe form, lobbed his racket into the air. For the next 25 years, he blushed with embarrassment whenever he drove past the director's home and saw the racket, which remained clearly visible ("like a dagger in my heart") right where it had landed: on a neighbor's roof.
9 ~ Thelma's Cats: One day in 1981, Ozzy Osbourne's first wife Thelma came home and found her husband under the piano wearing a white suit. He was drunk. In one hand was a shotgun, in the other a bloody knife. Ozzy had gone "crazy" and killed every one of her 17 cats because they were making too much noise.
Thelma and Ozzy (who also dragged her around by the hair, shot their chickens, and cut up the doors of their home with an ax) were soon divorced.
8 ~ Teen Poop! In 1987, Johnny Depp was cast in "21 Jump Street" and, to his immense annoyance, suddenly became a huge teen icon. He quickly tired of giving inane interviews to "Sixteen! Teen Beat! Teen Dream! Teen Poop! Teen Piss! Teen Sh*t!" and starting acting out, hoping to be kicked off the show and released from his contract. He argued that his character should develop a curious obsession with peanut butter and once arrived on set flamboyantly dressed as Elton John. But the kicker came some time later, when he discovered that his trailer had not been cleaned. Johnny's response? He raised hell on the set – and set fire to his underwear.
7 ~ Mark Hotel: In September 1994, Johnny trashed his $2,200-a-night Presidential suite at New York's exclusive Mark Hotel, using his fists and trusty steel-toed boots to smash a glass coffee table and other furniture. Though he offered to pay for the damages, he refused to leave and was forcibly evicted. (Ironically, the guest who first complained about Johnny was none other than The Who's Roger Daltrey, who, with Keith Moon and his other bandmates, once made an art of hotel vandalism.) Johnny's accommodation for the night was generously provided by the NYPD; he was taken to three different jail cells (and was mobbed by female cops at each location). Johnny later blamed the damage on various animals running amok, among them a dog, a rat, an armadillo in a closet, and a cockroach "the size of a baseball." And speaking of size… according to one witness, the destruction was sparked by Kate Moss declaring, "You know what your problem is?" – and commenting on Johnny's reportedly miniscule manhood. Years later, he was asked about the "notorious hotel incident." His reply? "Which one?"
Johnny had been arrested in Vancouver in 1989 for fighting with hotel security and would be again, in 1999, for scrapping with paparazzi. Ironically, the Mark bore no ill will toward him. "The owner approached my publicist about two years later," Johnny recalled, "and said, 'It was so great for us that Johnny got arrested at our hotel and sent to jail. You can't imagine the business we got out of it!'"
6 ~ Total Control: "Tiger is like John Daly but with total control," Paul Goydos once remarked of Tiger Woods. Perhaps Goydos was not present when Tiger (raised as a Buddhist by his mother, Kultida) hooked a drive into Carmel Bay on the 18th hole of the second round of the 2000 US Open (before bogeying the hole for a 69 to tie the 36-hole record of 134). His response? "Godd*mn f***ing pr*ck!"
On another occasion, Mel, who once affectionately named his Viking-horned "bestial" alter ego Bjorn, yelled at the three living Beatles for making noise on a sound stage. "I felt terrible," he later confessed. "They're funny and little and I was looking down on all three of them, and they're hairy."
5 ~ Cinderella Man:: In June 2005, Russell Crowe was charged with second degree assault for throwing a telephone during an argument with Nestor Estrada, an employee at New York's Mercer Hotel, three days after announcing that Cinderella Man had taught him never to resort to violence. Robin Baum, Russell's publicist, issued a statement claiming that her client had simply asked the front desk to replace a faulty phone in his room – and got only "attitude" from the clerk on duty: "Crowe brought the phone down to the front desk in an effort to address the situation in person. Words were exchanged, and Crowe wound up throwing the phone against the wall. He regrets that he lost his temper, but at no time did he assault anyone or touch any hotel employee." A few days later, security camera footage confirmed Estrada's account and revealed that Russ had also broken an expensive vase.
4 ~ The Landscaping Incident: The ImClone fiasco was hardly Martha Stewart's first brush with the law. She once paid an East Hampton neighbor's landscaper (Matthew Munnich) an undisclosed amount to pre-empt an embarrassing civil lawsuit. The man's complaint? That during an incident in May 1995 (after losing a zoning battle), Martha called him a "f***ing liar" and pinned him against the fence that he was building on the disputed boundary – with her GMC Suburban truck!
3 ~ Passion of Mel: Mel Gibson was not amused when New York Times columnist Frank Rich called The Passion of the Christ (2004) anti-Semitic and suggested that Mel's ultra-Catholic father (his "personal hero") was a Holocaust denier. Mel's response? "I want his intestines on a stick. I want to kill his dog… He's a p*ssy and I hope I never meet him because I'd tear his f***ing face right off!"
2 ~ Hold the Mayo: One day in 1978, 18-year-old Mackenzie Phillips found herself making tuna sandwiches with Mick Jagger and her father (John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas). When John left for a minute to find some mayonnaise Mick quickly pounced. "He turned around and locked the door," Mackenzie recalled. "He said, 'I've been waiting to do this since you were ten years old!'" Mick and Mackenzie got it on, with John banging on the door and begging Mick to be gentle with his daughter… The karma police arrived in 2002, when Mick learned that his own 18-year-old daughter, model Elizabeth Jagger, was dating a 44-year-old man. Mick reportedly went ballistic.
And our favorite Tantrum Anecdote...
1 ~ Palm Reader: After checking into a Las Vegas hotel one day, Clint Eastwood, annoyed that his closet would not open, lost his temper and put a fist through the door. Later that night, while eating dinner, Clint's hands (with their scratched and bloody knuckles) were read by a so-called palm reader. Her verdict? "You are a very tranquil man."
On another occasion Clint rammed animation producer Stacy McLaughlin's car and smashed her windshield with a large ball peen hammer. What prompted this extreme response? Stacy made the mistake of leaving her car in one of Clint's designated parking spaces.
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