1.
Early this year, Nicki Minaj went on a LONG Twitter rant about Megan Thee Stallion, writing, “Every album she’s ever released = flopped. Paid media all the time. Fraudulent awards = flopped. Horrible ACTOR that can’t cry on cue. … Pathological & manipulative liar. Using ghost writers & still SUCK.”
3.
Paul Walter Hauser kind of randomly dissed Vin Diesel in an interview. When an interviewer jokingly compared the two, Hauser said, “Please don’t say that. I like to think I am on time and approachable.” He continued, “I love people, but when I hear stories about Hollywood actors who get paid really well and mistreat people… I out them constantly, and it’s a blast.”
4.
Lorde was once a bit shady about Justin Bieber, telling MTV, “I really appreciate that people think that I’m doing something good for the ‘kids.’ The ‘young people.’ I feel like the influences that are there in the industry for people my age, like Justin Bieber or whatever, are just maybe not a very real depiction of what it’s like to be a young person.”
5.
She also once tweeted, “One direction are pretty overrated and their music isn’t really good i find it odd they’re famous.”
6.
Speaking about female artists generally, TLC member T-Boz said, “Every time I see you, you don’t have to be naked.” The comment was primarily thought to be about Rihanna and her recent sheer dress. Ri replied by changing her Twitter header to a photo of TLC scantily clad in a photoshoot, writing, “When there’s no changing the fact that I’m me, and they’re well… they’re them.”
7.
In response to rumors that Taylor Swift might play her in a biopic, Joni Mitchell replied, “If she’s going to sing, good luck.”
8.
Billie Eilish also appeared to shade Swift, saying, “Doing a three-hour show. … That’s literally psychotic. Nobody wants that. You guys don’t want that. I don’t want that. I don’t even want that as a fan. Even my favorite artists, I’m not trying to hear them for three hours. That’s far too long. That’s literally psychotic.” Swift’s Eras Tour concert is well-known for running over three hours.
9.
Jack Antonoff (who often collaborates with Swift) appeared to shade Eilish and her song “Lunch” when he said, “You don’t hear good songs about, like, someone’s lunch. The things that cause you pain are usually the things worth writing about.”
10.
In 2009, Trent Reznor, frontman of the Nine Inch Nails, said of Marilyn Manson, “He is a malicious guy and will step on anybody’s face to succeed and cross any line of decency. Seeing him now, drugs and alcohol now rule his life, and he’s become a dopey clown.”
11.
Estelle once shaded artists Adele and Duffy by saying they weren’t soul singers. “I’m not mad at [Adele and Duffy], but I’m wondering — how the hell is there not a single Black person in the press singing soul?” She specifically addressed Adele, continuing, “Adele ain’t soul. She sounds like she heard some Aretha records once, and she’s got a deeper voice — that don’t mean she’s soul. That don’t mean nothing to me in the grand scheme of my life as a Black person. As a songwriter, I get what they do. As a Black person, I’m like: you’re telling me this is my music? F*** that!”
12.
Robert Downey Jr. once referred to Hugh Grant as a “jerk,” “asshole,” and “self-important, boring flash-in-the-pan Brit.”
13.
Lisa Marie Presley once said of Tom Cruise, “I fucking hate Tom. I met him 20 years ago. I said I never want to be in a room with him again.”
14.
Richard Harris is another actor who insulted Tom Cruise, saying, “He’s got very nice teeth, but has he ever read a book?”
15.
Richard Harris also once called Michael Caine “an over-fat, flatulent 62-year-old windbag, a master of inconsequence now masquerading as a guru, passing off his vast limitations as pious virtues.” He also said that Caine was charmless and without sex appeal and “about as dangerous as Laurel or Hardy or indeed both, and as intimidating as Shirley Temple.”
16.
I will never be over this 1998 Jennifer Lopez interview, in which she spilled her thoughts on a ton of celebs. For example, she called Cameron Diaz “a lucky model who’s been given a lot of opportunities I just wish she would have done more with” and said, “When directed, she can be good.”
17.
About Gwyneth Paltrow, Lopez said, “Tell me what she’s been in? I swear to God, I don’t remember anything she was in. Some people get hot by association. I heard more about her and Brad Pitt than I ever heard about her work.”
18.
About Madonna? “Do I think she’s a great performer? Yeah. Do I think she’s a great actress? No. Acting is what I do, so I’m harder on people when they say, ‘Oh, I can do that — I can act.’ I’m like, ‘Hey, don’t spit on my craft.'”
19.
On Claire Danes: “I feel like I see a lot of the same thing with every character she does.”
20.
On Winona Ryder: “I was never a big fan of hers. In Hollywood, she’s revered, she gets nominated for Oscars, but I’ve never heard anyone in the public or among my friends say, ‘Oh, I love her.'”
21.
On Salma Hayek: “We’re in two different realms. She’s a sexy bombshell, and those are the kinds of roles she does. I do all kinds of different things. It makes me laugh when she says she got offered Selena, which was an outright lie. If that’s what she does to get herself publicity, then that’s her thing.”
22.
In Brian Cox’s autobiography, Putting the Rabbit in the Hat, Cox did NOT hold back his thoughts on a bunch of different actors. He says of Johnny Depp, “Personable though I’m sure he is, is so overblown, so overrated. I mean, Edward Scissorhands. Let’s face it, if you come on with hands like that and pale, scarred-face make-up, you don’t have to do anything. And he didn’t. And subsequently, he’s done even less.”
23.
Of Edward Norton, Cox said, “He’s a nice lad but a bit of a pain in the a** because he fancies himself as a writer-director.”
24.
He called Steven Seagal “as ludicrous in real life as he appears on screen”…
25.
….And called David Bowie “not a particularly good actor.”
26.
Elisabeth Moss, who used to be married to Fred Armisen, once said about him, “One of the greatest things I heard someone say about him is, ‘He’s so great at doing impersonations. But the greatest impersonation he does is that of a normal person.'”
27.
It’s not as bad as some on this list, but Gwyneth Paltrow once threw some shade at Reese Witherspoon, saying, “Even actresses that you really admire, like Reese Witherspoon, you think, ‘Another romantic comedy?’ You see her in something like Walk the Line and think, ‘God, you’re so great!’ And then you think, ‘Why is she doing these stupid romantic comedies?’ But of course, it’s for money and status.”
28.
Speaking of Gwyneth, after Gwyneth Paltrow mocked Sharon Stone in an SNL skit, Stone said of Paltrow, “Gwyneth Paltrow is very young and lives in a rarified air that’s very thin. It’s like she’s not getting enough oxygen.”
29.
And Martha Stewart once threw some serious shade at Paltrow and her Goop brand when she said, “She just needs to be quiet. She’s a movie star. If she were confident in her acting, she wouldn’t be trying to be Martha Stewart.”
30.
Stewart was also shady about Orange Is the New Black star Taylor Schilling, saying, “They could have done that so much better. That girl is not good enough, the lead actress. I met the real Piper [Kerman]. She was in prison either the same time or after me, and I talked to her about it.”
31.
Johnny Depp’s Cry-Baby costar Traci Lords said he was “the kind of guy that would be really sweet to a girl and bring her flowers, but still take a pee in the alley.”
32.
Harrison Ford once called Shia LaBeouf a “fucking idiot” after LaBeouf criticized Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, though the full quote is more forgiving: “I think he was a fucking idiot. As an actor, I think it’s my obligation to support the film without making a complete ass of myself. Shia is ambitious, attentive, and talented — and he’s learning how to deal with a situation which is very unique and difficult.”
33.
Alec Baldwin also had some not-so-friendly comments about LaBeouf after they were both cast in a play together. Baldwin said, “When he showed up, he seemed like a lot of young actors today — scattered, as he was coming from making six movies in a row or whatever.” The two didn’t get along during rehearsals, with Baldwin saying LaBeouf had a “jailhouse mentality” and “You could tell right away he loves to argue,” and Shia was fired. Baldwin said Shia seemed shocked. “He had that card, that card you get when you make films that make a lot of money that gives you a certain kind of entitlement. I think he was surprised that it didn’t work in the theater.”
34.
In an interview with Vulture, Quincy Jones had plenty to say about several iconic musical artists. First, he claimed that Michael Jackson “stole a lot of songs” and was “greedy.”
35.
He then called the Beatles “the worst musicians in the world. They were no-playing motherfuckers. Paul was the worst bass player I ever heard. And Ringo? Don’t even talk about it.”
36.
And when asked if U2 was still making good music, Jones simply shook his head.
37.
Mariah Carey was famously shady when she appeared on The Breakfast Club in 2014. When asked about then-rising star Ariana Grande, she was slightly shady when she refrained from commenting on Ariana’s talent or career, saying, “I wish everybody all the best of luck, and if this is the career path they choose, I hope that they can achieve longevity.”
38.
At one point, one of the hosts asks about a rumor that Nicki Minaj was often late to filming American Idol, and Carey asks, “Who?” She also said that she wants to forget her time on the show. “I don’t even remember what that was. That was a moment in my life that I want to press delete.” There had long been reports of a feud between Minaj and Carey, and in another interview, when asked if a lyric in one of Minaj’s songs referred to her, she said, “Don’t know. Don’t know what she’s singing. … I didn’t know she sang, I thought she rapped, or whatever.”
39.
However, most of Carey’s shady comments are about longtime rival Jennifer Lopez. For example, she responded to reports that J.Lo got eight hours of sleep a night with, “If I had the luxury of not actually having to sing my own songs…I’d do that, too.” In a different interview, she said Lopez had nothing to do with her, saying, “My whole thing is singing [and] writing songs. … Singing is, first and foremost, it’s a God-given talent that I’m grateful for. Her thing is something different.”
42.
Mariah replied, “I haven’t paid attention to Madonna since I was in seventh or eighth grade when she used to be popular.”
43.
One last Madonna one — when Janet Jackson was asked about comparisons between her music and Madonna’s, she replied, “It’s dance music, I’ll say that…which is very similar,” then added, “I think what I do has class to it.”
44.
Nick Nolte and Julia Roberts traded insults after appearing in I Love Trouble together, with Roberts calling Nolte “completely disgusting,” adding, “He seems to go out of his way to repel people. He’s a kick.”
45.
Firing back, Nolte said of Roberts, “It’s not nice to call someone ‘disgusting.’ But she’s not a nice person. Everyone knows that.”
46.
After Kanye announced Kid Cudi would not be on his album Donda, Cudi took to Instagram to call Kanye a “fucking dinosaur.” He wrote, “Too bad I don’t wanna be on ur album u fucking dinosaur hahaha. everyone knows ive been the best thing about ur albums since i met u. Ima pray for you brother.”
47.
Finally, in one of my favorite celeb quotes, Nick Cave reportedly once threw shade at the Red Hot Chili Peppers by saying, “I’m forever near a stereo saying, ‘What…is this garbage?’ And the answer is always the Red Hot Chili Peppers.”
What’s your favorite celeb insult or shade? Let us know in the comments!
