1. A Security Guard Tried To Shoot A Journalist Over Harry Potter Spoilers
It's easy to forget just how crazy people were going over Harry Potter spoilers back in the day. The whole world was desperate for just another shred of information about the books that hadn't yet been published. Spoilers were valuable not just for the purposes of bragging, but legitimately financially valuable. In 2005, an English security guard by the name of Aaron Lambert pilfered six pages from Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, a massive six weeks before it was due to be published. Clearly Lambert had his sights set on earning a bit (or more likely a substantial amount) of cash, as he was arrested the next day after trying to sell them to a journalist from The Sun. Things probably would have turned out very differently if it wasn't for the fact that negotiations turned violent, and Lambert reportedly fired a shot from his imitation Walther PPK. Lambert later admitted to threatening the journalist and attempting to blackmail Bloomsbury. What caused the altercation we'll never know, but it's likely Lambert wanted a monetary figure much larger than The Sun journalist was offering. Later, Rowling claimed that The Sun had tried to blackmail her into a photo opportunity in exchange for not leaking the manuscript.
