10 Most Obnoxious Stars In Hollywood

8. Russell Crowe

Russell Crowe used to be the poster boy for arrogant, blokey swearing and random acts of PG violence. Rumours that he threatened to rain shouty Kiwi destruction on any media platform that published stories about him having had a fling with Courtney Love continue to dog him, as do tales of him having a bodyguard accompany him into public toilets to ensure that no one else enters while he was creatively engaged within.

Let’s not forget that in 2002, he intimidated and assaulted the producer of the BAFTA awards for cutting his speech short and preventing him from inflicting poetry on the world. The same year saw him starting – and then losing – a fight with Auckland Warriors owner Eric Watson after delivering a series of allegedly racist insults about the team.

Around this time, Crowe appeared to be maxing out on obnoxious troublemaking, drunkenly propositioning total strangers and generally making a nuisance. In 2004, he assaulted his own bodyguard when he gently insinuated that Crowe had had enough to drink. In 2005, he threw a phone at a hotel employee in New York when he was unable to get connected with his wife, injuring him.

In his middle years, he’s mellowed into a humourless oaf who gives the most awkward, childishly stroppy interviews ever seen from a fiftysomething veteran of the film industry. His recent remarks suggesting that women around his age who complained about the paucity of roles available to them should just suck it up, admit they’re not twenty-one anymore and agree to play the granny have met with a derisive, harmonising chorus of raspberry noises accompanied by lewd hand gestures.