The 20 Biggest Celebrity Fails of 2016

We love celebrities. We love the entertainment they provide, the glimpse into glamour they give us, and the escape from the increasingly abundant horrors of everyday life they offer. There are websites entirely devoted to, like, documenting every time Kylie Jenner goes to Sugarfish—and they’re very heavily trafficked! That’s how much we love celebrities. But holy Jesus, they can be so terrible and stupid sometimes.

For every time Chrissy Teigen awesomely calls out Donald Trump, there’s Matt Damon explaining racism to Effie Brown; for every Jesse Williams speech at the BET Awards, there’s a Justin Timberlake tweeting that “we are all the same.” Underneath the designer jeans, Oscar acceptance speeches, and eight-figure follower totals, celebrities are just people, and people are bad. And just as regular people continued to be questionable decision-makers in 2016—over 62 million people voted for Donald Trump—so too did celebrities. They contorted their mouths to voice wildly uninformed opinions, they lied to our faces, they dated Taylor Swift.

Here’s a list of the biggest celebrity fails of 2016—a year loaded with them. Hopefully, this will be enough to convince you to never make a celebrity your role model.

20. Ben Affleck Rants About “Deflategate”

Coming off a very public divorce in 2015, things only got harder for Ben Affleck this year. The 44-year-old actor probably thought he was bestowed a great honor and reaching a career pinnacle when he accepted the role of Batman in Batman v. Superman, but the movie ended up being one of the worst to come out in 2016. And it was all too easy to see how existentially disrupted Affleck was by that fact. So when Affleck joined fellow Boston homer Bill Simmons on the premiere of HBO’s (now-canceled) Any Given Wednesday, he was probably looking forward to a reprieve, a night off where he could simply have a few drinks and talk sports with his buddy. Unfortunately, the thing was recorded, and it only further cemented Affleck’s mid-life crisis. For five uninterrupted minutes, Affleck slurred through a rant, dropped 18 F-bombs, and said “Tom Brady is so classy” multiple times. It was hilarious, but not in the way Affleck was going for. Which is another way of saying that it was plain sad. —Andrew Gruttadaro

19. Gregg Sulkin Sells “Grab Her by the Brain” Hats

To those who are currently asking, “What is a Gregg Sulkin?” he’s a 24-year-old actor most prominently featured on the Disney Channel, MTV’s Faking It, and Pretty Little Liars; he's known for being Bella Thorne’s ex. It might be debatable how much of a “celebrity” he really is, but this is such a fail it just needs to be included on this list. Because it turns out being unwoke and abusing your wokeness is the same thing. Following the leak of Donald Trump’s “grab ‘em by the pussy” comments, Sulkin eagerly took it upon himself to become an advocate for women. How? With hats! That posited another region to grab women by!

Grab Her By The Brain is an initiative dedicated to empowering females of all ages. Honored to take part. https://t.co/9mDt99ygAE pic.twitter.com/wC7ch5VlRr


— Gregg Sulkin (@greggsulkin) October 19, 2016

It didn’t take long for people to one, quickly Google Gregg Sulkin, and two, suggest to him that, “Hey, maybe we should just not grab women at all?”

Among so many other things, 2016 exposed a group of people obliviously patting themselves on the back for being socially aware, as if acknowledging that women and minorities deserve equality is something one should be praised for. Sulkin really went there, and the fact that he did so in service of selling hats makes the whole thing that much more confounding. The guy did apologize—"I am sorry if anyone found the wording offensive, however the intent was to promote women for their intellect and not just their bodies,” he later tweeted. But I don’t know, something tells me he still doesn’t really get it. —Andrew Gruttadaro

18. Justin Timberlake Calls Jesse Williams “Inspiring,” Immediately Says “We’re All the Same”

2016 has been a year where we just can’t have nice things, let alone nice things that don’t immediately inspire stupidity. Case in point: Justin Timberlake. After Jesse Williams’ incredible speech highlighting the Black Lives Matter movement and the constant appropriation of black culture at the BET Awards, JT’s Twitter fingers got itchy. He tweeted out how inspired he was by the speech. Shortly after, one Twitter user responded to Timberlake asking him if he’d take Williams’ speech to heart and stop appropriating black culture, and apologize to Janet Jackson for exposing one of her breasts during their infamous Super Bowl performance. In a display of complete idiocy, Timberlake responded with some ~all lives matter~ garb that no one asked for: “Oh, you sweet soul. The more you realize that we are the same, the more we can have a conversation,” he said in a bizarrely condescending (and now deleted) tweet. Timberlake continued to further fuel the fire by persistently and earnestly responding to his mentions, which made it that much clearer that he would never truly not Get It. Of course Timberlake felt “misunderstood,” but in the end he apologized for his dumb AF tweets, which however thoughtful, still reinforced his previous All Lives Matter stance. Delete your account, brah. —Kerensa Cadenas

17. Blake Lively Says Woody Allen Is “Very Empowering”

Blake, Blake, Blake. Girl, maybe you just shouldn’t say a goddamn word, or maybe you should start consulting with your publicist first. Summer of 2016 gave Lively too much of a podium to talk while publicizing her two big movies of the summer, The Shallows and Cafe Society, the latter directed by none other than rapist Woody Allen. After a French comedian made a pointed joke about the long-gestating sexual assault allegations against the director, Lively felt the need to defend him by saying a bunch of gobbledygook. “I think any jokes about rape, homophobia or Hitler is not a joke. I think that was a hard thing [to] swallow in 30 seconds. Film festivals are such a beautiful, respectful festivals of film and artists, and to have that, it felt like it wouldn't have happened if it was in the 1940s. I can't imagine Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby going out and doing that.” Alright, Blake, I don’t wanna break this to you, but saying “this wouldn’t have happened in the 1940s” is basically like saying, “make American great again.” Yes, neither Fred Astaire nor Bing Crosby would have dragged a sexual predator in the ‘40s, but in the ‘40s, women were barely considered viable employees, and in much of the country BLACK PEOPLE COULDN’T EVEN VOTE.

Of course after that, Lively insisted on going one step further and claiming that Allen is “empowering to women.” Wait, what? Has she never seen a Woody Allen film? Does she not remember that Rachel McAdams played a one-note complaining shrew in Midnight in Paris? Did she not have problems with Mariel Hemingway’s TEENAGE protagonist having a relationship with Allen in Manhattan? Guess not! It seems safe to say Lively will be in Woody Allen’s next 27 movies, right? —Kerensa Cadenas

16. Zac Efron Is Thankful for Martin Luther King, Jr. (and His 10 Million Followers)

I decided this year that there's so much actually evil, racist shit happening in the world that I should go easy on corny white people who are, at the end of the day, well-intentioned. But damn can they be tone deaf sometimes. No one expects much in the intellectual department from the beautiful hunk of meat that is Zac Efron, but his Martin Luther King Day tweet this year was just peak white shit. On January 19, 2016, the Neighbors star thought he'd shout out MLK—cool—but IN THE VERY SAME TWEET also humblebrag about reaching 10 million followers on Instagram. Those are comparable things and deserve equal acknowledgement, right? Zac soon realized he was being an insensitive ass and took to Instagram with an apology note: "I have nothing but the greatest admiration and respect for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I realize that last night's post was completely insensitive and I apologize to anyone who I may have offended. So sorry. Z." So it's all good guys, we can continue watching Zac Efron movies without guilt. —Kristen Yoonsoo Kim

15. Mischa Barton Comments on Police-Related Killings… From the S.S. White Privilege

After Donald Trump was elected president, as in the President of the United States, a hilariously futile and clueless way to support the vulnerable made its way to the internet: wearing a safety pin. Those smart enough to see through the bullshit were quick to call out the gesture, resulting in what I’d like to nominate as the tweet of the year. Of course, this was far from an anomaly. White people have been handing out tone-deaf tokens of support all year. Just ask Mischa Barton.

In July, homegirl from The O.C. spoke out about yet another wave of police killing unarmed black men in an Instagram caption alongside a photo of her drinking what appears to be rosé while on what is certainly the back of a yacht. A total lack of self-awareness: check. An ostentatious display of wealth: check. The minimum degree of effort: check, check, check. Aren’t you glad to have another ally? —Ian Servantes

14. Sean Penn Writes a Very Bad 'Rolling Stone' Story About El Chapo, Inadvertently Snitches on El Chapo

Why oh why must actors assert that they are so much more than pretty faces who read dialogue written for them? Unsatisfied with the cultural impact he made as a performer, Sean Penn went to great lengths to unlock his inner Hunter S. Thompson in January, meeting with fugitive cartel leader El Chapo for a Rolling Stone cover story. The resulting article, you may have guessed, was laughably bad and embarrassingly self-indulgent. Penn actually wrote lines like “At 55 years old, I've never learned to use a laptop. Do they still make laptops? No fucking idea!” and “Espinoza is the owl who flies among falcons.” Which I guess is impressive in some regards, because I’ve never been able to write and jerk off at the same time.

The most hilarious part though, is that Penn’s endeavor inadvertently got El Chapo caught. A Mexican official told Al Jazeera that it was, in fact, Penn’s Rolling Stone article that led authorities to El Chapo’s hiding spot in Mexico. So to recap: not only is Sean Penn a terrible writer, he’s an accidental rat. —Andrew Gruttadaro

13. Hilary Duff and Her Boyfriend Get Racist on Halloween

Hilary Duff may be the most grounded former child actor around (I mean, look how her peers Lindsay Lohan and Amanda Bynes are doing right now), but she still lives in this Venn diagram of a bubble where "fame" and "white privilege" intersect. Sidenote: Remember when Julianne Hough did blackface for her Orange Is the New Black costume? BLACKFACE. IN 2013. Anyway, for Halloween this year, the ex-Lizzie McGuire star dressed up as a sexy pilgrim (which is already offensive enough as is), while her boyfriend Jason Walsh, a white man, committed a far greater crime by showing up as a Native American—headdress, face paint and all. Let me repeat: a white man in a Native American costume. This is never a good idea. Of course, Hilary Duff and her boo got properly dragged on social media, and the actress/singer took to Twitter to apologize: "I am SO sorry to people I offended with my costume. It was not properly thought through and I am truly, from the bottom of my [heart emoji] sorry." As long as we learned a lesson, Hil. —Kristen Yoonsoo Kim

12. Kit Harington: Victim of Sexism in the Workplace

In case you weren’t invited, Game of Thrones actor Kit Harington threw himself a pity party during an interview with the Sunday Times in May. On playing a hot guy on TV, the 29-year-old told the British newspaper, “I like to think of myself as more than a head of hair or a set of looks. It’s demeaning.” He continued, “Yes, in some ways you could argue I’ve been employed for a look I have. But there’s a sexism that happens towards men.” The entertainment industry is an objectification despot that spares no one, and men in Hollywood are certainly not exempt from being treated like nothing more than a pretty face. But Harington should be aware that reverse sexism is not a thing. And a cis white guy making somewhere between $300,000 to $500,000 per episode—in an industry that grossly underpays and underrepresents women—needs to check his privilege before complaining about the perils of “sexism.” —Lauren Zupkus

11. Chloë Grace Moretz Goes to War With the Kardashians

Long story short: Moretz, a socially active young actress with admirable stances on gun control and sexism, oddly contradicted her declarations of female empowerment when she lectured (and low-key shamed) Kim Kardashian for posting a nude selfie. “I truly hope you realize how important setting goals are for young women, teaching them we have so much more to offer than just our bodies,” she tweeted. She would double down on her apparent disgust for all things Kardashian the day after Kim set the internet afire by leaking Kanye West’s “Famous” phone call with Taylor Swift. Chloë tweeted, “Everyone in this industry needs to get their heads out of a hole and look around to realize what's ACTUALLY happening in the REAL world. Stop wasting your voice on something so petulant and unimportant.”

Now, regardless of if you agree or disagree with any of Chloë’s tweets—Donald Trump is president now, so she kinda had a point with that second one—she takes an L for going to war in a forum against a group of people who have that forum on lock. Didn’t she learn anything from Meek Mill’s feud with Drake? It doesn’t matter that she maybe had a point, or good intentions, or that Khloe Kardashian clearly crossed a line by tweeting a picture of a girl’s bare ass (which ended up not being Chloë) in response. The Kardashians are the internet—you can’t beat them #onhere. —Andrew Gruttadaro

10. Dumb Celebrities Attack NFL Players’ Protests

Oh, celebrities and their unsolicited opinions. After San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick peacefully protested recent acts of police brutality by kneeling during the National Anthem, a bunch of white C-listers came out of the woodwork to throw in their completely unwanted two cents. Extremely relevant singer slash white rapper Kid Rock, for example, took it upon himself to eloquently announce during a concert, “F*ck Colin Kaepernick.” I’m going to take a wild guess here that Kid Rock, who has a real song called “Bawitdaba,” either doesn’t realize or care that the National Anthem was written by a man who owned seven slaves. Model Kate Upton also felt the need to blast Kaepernick and other NFL players for kneeling during the anthem, calling the act “unacceptable.” Yet, as Complex noted in September, Upton and other critics of Kaepernick were silent when Terence Crutcher, an unarmed black man, was gunned down by police just a few days later. Be better, uninformed celebrities. —Lauren Zupkus

9. Susan Sarandon Says Hillary Clinton Is “More Dangerous” Than Donald Trump

We were all rooting for you, Susan! Sarandon seemed like the rare woke, cool, eternally beautiful celeb. It was dope when she shut down Piers Morgan's sexist/ageist remarks about her bomb cleavage, and when she was a hardcore Bernie Bro it seemed to reaffirm the idea of her being on our side. But when Bernie lost, Sarandon morphed into a goddamn Jill Stein supporter, and that's when things went seriously downhill. While stanning for Jill Stein arguably warrants a massive eyeroll, she took it a step further by claiming that Hillary Clinton was "more dangerous" than Donald Trump. Ugh, Susan Sarandon, you troll. Of course, it's hard to gauge how one celebrity endorsement affected the election results (especially when all those big-name endorsements for Hillary didn't seem to do much), but it's still a big ol' fail at the end of the day. She recently got defensive about her Stein support by tweeting this BS, but we're still stuck in Trump's America, and it doesn't absolve her. —Kristen Yoonsoo Kim

8. Tom Hiddleston Becomes Taylor Swift’s Concubine

Before the summer of 2016, Tom Hiddleston was a cool British actor. He outshined a ton of extremely famous dudes as Loki in The Avengers, and a considerable amount of people actually wanted him to become James Bond. But then, on the afternoon of June 15, pictures surfaced of Hiddleston and Taylor Swift on rocks in Rhode Island, nuzzling, taking selfies, and yes, kissing. For the following two months, Hiddleston and Swift traveled the world together, met each other’s parents, and engaged in a relationship that most concluded was a ruse. For Swift, it made sense—this was a great distraction from the debacle that was her phone call with Kanye West—but for Hiddleston, there didn’t appear to be any benefit.

And throughout, Hiddleston looked like a man trapped; a guy who couldn’t remember how he willingly ended up in such a emasculating situation. But the worst moment happened on the Fourth of July, when Hiddleston, among Swift’s usual horde of frolicking white women, was spotted wearing a white tanktop with the words “I ❤️ T.S.” written on it. Oh, Loki, how I wish I could’ve been there to yell, “Don’t do it! Reconsider!” —Andrew Gruttadaro

7. Amy Schumer’s Entire Year

Amy Schumer may have been riding high (on a jet ski with Jennifer Lawrence) in 2015, but in 2016, she consistently took Ls. There was the time she called going to the Met Gala a “punishment.” Aww, she had to wear an Alexander Wang dress and chat with Beyoncé? Poor girl! Then there was her handling of the Kurt Metzger incident, in which one of the Inside Amy Schumer writers continuously mocked women on social media who claimed to be victims of rape and sexual assault. In response, Schumer gave a defensive, half-assed apology about his employment on her show via Twitter and later said in a Lenny Letter interview with Lena Dunham, “Why are these women treating him like he raped someone? He’s not Bill Cosby.” Still, Schumer’s biggest fail of all this year was probably her “Formation” video, which she now claims was “never” intended to be a parody. Why the Trainwreck star ever thought it'd be a good idea to put her own spin on Beyonce’s powerful video about the black female experience is beyond comprehension, but it probably had something to do with promoting the comedian’s upcoming movie with Goldie Hawn. —Lauren Zupkus

6. Lena Dunham Accuses Odell Beckham Jr. of Sexism

Lena Dunham, never one to let her work speak for itself, had to go and fuck up all the goodwill built up from an excellent fifth season of Girls. The narcissistic queen of White Feminism found herself sitting next to Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. at the Met Gala. The two never spoke, which could have been for a variety of reasons. Perhaps Beckham Jr. had no idea who she was, perhaps he was a huge fan but was too nervous to make the first move, or perhaps Dunham was too busy conjuring up another perceived injustice to reach out and say, “Oh shit, wadup?”

Who knows what led to the common occurrence of two New Yorkers in close proximity not speaking to each other, but Dunham used an interview with Amy Schumer to chalk it up to her not being fuckable enough while indulging in historical stereotypes that paint black men as ravenous sexual beasts. “It was so amazing because it was like he looked at me and he determined I was not the shape of a woman by his standards,” she said. “He was like, ‘That’s a marshmallow. That’s a child. That’s a dog.’ It wasn’t mean—he just seemed confused.”

The internet promptly shut this shit down, and Dunham issued the inevitable (semi) apology. She admitted the story was really about her insecurity but also called out the “outrage machine.” So did she really learn anything? Probably not. —Ian Servantes

5. Ryan Lochte Destroys a Brazilian Bathroom, Lies to the World About It

Oh, Ryan Lochte, if only you could have stayed frozen in pop culture history as one of the dumbest people to ever be given a reality TV show. (#TBT to the time he earnestly asked his show’s producers what the definition of “douchebag” was.) This summer, the Olympic swimmer’s relatively harmless rep was forever tarnished when he completely lied about being held at gunpoint in Brazil. Originally, Lochte claimed that Brazilians outside the Olympic Village robbed him and his U.S. swim teammates, but authorities in Rio quickly found cracks in the 32-year-old’s story, including surveillance footage that showed the swimmers breaking down a gas station restroom door and fighting with a security guard. In the end, Lochte was suspended by the U.S. Olympic Committee for 10 months and lost endorsement deals from sponsors including Speedo and Ralph Lauren. Naturally, Lochte tried to win back the American people by competing on Dancing With the Stars, where, during the show’s live premiere, he was nearly attacked by two men in the crowd. After that, he probably lost whatever dignity he had left somewhere between befriending Vanilla Ice and dancing the cha-cha to The Weeknd’s “Can’t Feel My Face.” —Lauren Zupkus

4. Billy Bush Talks Molesting Women With Donald Trump

Writing about Billy Bush and that leaked 2005 Access Hollywood tape just a few weeks before Donald Trump is sworn in as the 45th president of the United States feels like a fever dream. Here was the soon-to-be president-elect bragging about sexually assaulting women. Here was the soon-to-be president-elect boasting that his celebrity was a pass to degrade and abuse any woman in his path.

Astonishingly, Billy Bush managed to suffer harsher consequences for what was said on that tape—he was promptly fired from the Today show by NBC—than the cretin running for president, which shouldn’t have happened. But I’m glad he suffered. It was a perfectly crystallized moment of what happens when two toxic beta bros who have convinced themselves they are alphas because of the accomplishments of their families (Bush is a cousin to the former presidential family) speak about their entitlement to women’s bodies as if they were toys that could be bought. When sexual predator Trump tells his minion that he “grabs women by the pussy,” Bush can be heard laughing along and encouraging his declarations of assault like a douche fratboy who thinks sexual conquests are a measure of self-worth. Bush deserves eternal shame, and I’m glad he lost his job. At the same time, I just wish it were Trump who got fucked. —Erik Abriss

3. Jared Leto “Prepares” to Be the Joker

Have I shit on Jared Leto enough this year? Well let me do it one more time before the end of the year, because this was probably the greatest pop culture embarrassment slash annoyance of 2016. Not only was Jared Leto the worst part of Suicide Squad, a god-awful movie, he destroyed a legacy (one perfected by Jack Nicholson; one that won Heath Ledger a posthumous Oscar). On top of it all, he annoyed the shit out his poor cast mates, who had to put up with this corny method acting, which was mostly limited to sending them used condoms and anal beads. I'm sorry Jared Leto, but ain't nobody wants that shit. My queen Viola Davis certainly deserves better. (She'll probably win a much-deserved Oscar next year for Fences. When they're presenting her with the golden statue, can someone just give her mad props for enduring this piece of shit? Just a little shout-out, you know?) Anyway, it'd be one thing to be an insufferable ass to deliver some incredible, life-changing performance, but Leto's appearance as The Joker in Suicide Squad was, truly, a joke. But what else did we expect in such a trash year? —Kristen Yoonsoo Kim

2. Jimmy Fallon Tousles Donald Trump’s Hair, Cozies Up to Fascism

Where were you when America’s most popular late night host pet proto-Hitler like an adorable puppy? In the toupee tousle heard around the world, Jimmy Fallon—the embarrassingly infantile, feckless fuccboi who transformed the adult space of late night into a child’s playpen—gleefully humanized an unhinged racist, sexist, xenophobic, Islamophobic presidential candidate, all in the name of “entertainment” and “fairness.” He had Donald Trump sit on his couch just to be treated like he was a normal celebrity guest. Fallon laughed sycophantically at Trump’s objectively unfunny jokes. Fallon told Trump he has been “fascinating to watch.” Then, in what would be the most nauseating moment on television this year, he politely asked Trump if he could rub that moldy Brillo-pad of his.

Look, anyone who says Fallon doesn’t have a responsibility as an entertainer to hold Trump’s feet to the flames is full of shit. The real job of the court jester is to mock the king, to throw a pie in the king’s face and expose the absurdity of unchecked authoritarianism. Trump hadn’t been elected yet, but his rhetoric was already that of a ruthless tyrant, threatening the daily existence of anyone who wasn’t a straight, white, Christian male. Of course Fallon didn’t feel threatened by the cancer staring at him from across his desk. Comedy is supposed to punch up at the tyrant. Fallon chose to reach out laterally and give the tyrant a hug. David Letterman would never. —Erik Abriss

1. Taylor Swift Tries to Play the World, but Plays Herself

Without losers, we would have no victors. I don’t mean to get all hyper-capitalist on you, but that’s just the dualistic nature of life. Often, it’s an unfortunate truth. And in the case of Swift v. Wests, the L was just as sweet as the W. Kanye West’s long-running, on-again, off-again feud became very much on again when he premiered The Life of Pablo at Madison Square Garden. The aux cord spectacle was full of surprises—a rare Lamar Odom appearance, Young Thug dropping “With Them,” the debut of a ubiquitous merch format—but the most controversial moment was on “Famous,” when Yeezy rapped, “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex. Why? I made that bitch famous.”

Swift’s camp quickly denied reports that Kanye had received pre-approval for the lyric, sparking a trademark @KanyeWest Twitter rant. “I called Taylor and had a hour long convo with her about the line and she thought it was funny and gave her blessings,” he said, adding that the “made her famous” sentiment was actually her idea. Taylor stood her ground, and actually dug her heels in deeper by delivering an acceptance speech at the Grammys that was universally assumed to be a shot at Kanye. For months after, fans were left alone to decipher the “he said she said,” with allegiances largely falling into party lines.

Enter Kim. The Wife of Pablo, sick of seeing her husband dragged through the takes once again, used a GQ profile to reveal she had video footage of the alleged phone call. A month later Kim came through with receipts as promised, posting the smoking gun to Snapchat. It was a Mortal Kombat fatality, a reveal of all reveals (although to be fair, in the Snapchat video, Kanye doesn't appear to play the "that bitch" line to her). Either way, it seemed Swift’s image as a victim was finally shattered. Many had tried to unmask Swift before, but only Kim and Kanye were actually able to do it. —Ian Servantes