21 Of The Dumbest Things Celebrities Have Ever Said

Part of being a celebrity means having to run your mouth a lot, so it should come as no surprise that celebs say a stupid thing (or 10) now and again.

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Still, that doesn't mean we can't sit back and laugh at these rich and famous people looking like big, ol' dumb-dumbs! So here are 21 of the stupidest things celebs have said:

Warning: This post includes brief mentions of sexual assault and racist language.

1. In 1981, Brooke Shields — then arguably the most famous teenager in the world — took part in an anti-smoking campaign. Very admirable, Brooke! However, when testifying before the House about the campaign, she said, “Smoking kills. If you’re killed, you’ve lost a very important part of your life.”

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Oof! But since she was just a kid and probably nervous speaking before elected officials, I'll give her a pass on this one, LOL!

2. In 2002, after Mike Tyson was soundly defeated by Lennox Lewis via an eighth-round knockout, a reporter asked Tyson what was next for him. Tyson replied, "I don't know. I guess I’m gonna fade into Bolivian.”

3. In an infamous moment on the MTV reality television series Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica, Jessica Simpson was eating tuna fish when she asked, “Is this chicken, what I have, or is this fish? I know it’s tuna, but it says ‘Chicken of the Sea.’”

4. In 2013, a 19-year-old Justin Bieber toured the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, which is where the famous diarist and Holocaust victim hid with her family from 1942–1944. On the way out he signed the guest book, writing: Truly inspiring to be able to come here. Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a belieber.

5. Another time Bieber proved he might not be quite the international statesman was when he was asked his opinion of his country's political parties. He replied, "I'm not sure about the parties. But whatever they have in Korea, that's bad."

6. After Charlie Sheen went off the rails in 2011 (for example, he was rushed to the hospital after a night of drugs with porn stars), he sat down for an interview with Good Morning America. When he was asked if he was bipolar, he denied it, instead asserting "I'm bi-winning."

7. CeeLo Green — after pleading no contest in 2014 to giving ecstasy to a woman (who has no memory between going to dinner with him and waking up naked in his bed) — tweeted “People who have really been raped REMEMBER!!!”

8. In a video Kylie Jenner released about her resolutions for 2016, she said, "I feel like every year has a new energy, and I feel like this year is really about realizing stuff. And everyone around me, we’re all just realizing things."

9. Jenner also tried to take credit for people wearing...wigs, telling Marie Claire in 2016, “I started wigs, and now everyone is wearing wigs. Kim just used my wig guy last night.”

10. During COVID lockdown, Justin Timberlake was asked if the quarantine had put any stress on his marriage (as it had other couples). Justin responded, “We're mostly commiserating over the fact that just 24-hour parenting is just not human."

11. Jaden Smith has tweeted a lot of bizarre things, but perhaps the dumbest thing he ever posted read: "If Everybody In The World Dropped Out Of School We Would Have A Much More Intelligent Society."

12. After David Beckham and his wife Victoria welcomed their son Brooklyn in 1999, Beckham said, “I definitely want Brooklyn to be christened, but I don’t know into what religion yet.”

13. Victoria Beckham, meanwhile, made a comment to Vogue in 2008 that makes me understand why she and David get along so well. She said, "I can’t concentrate in flats.”

14. Speaking of non-book readers, Kanye West said in 2009, “I am not a fan of books. I would never want a book’s autograph. I am a proud non-reader of books.” (The really funny thing is that both Kanye and Victoria Beckham were promoting their own books when they came out against, er, books.)

15. In 2013, Tara Reid went on Discovery’s Shark after Dark to help promote Sharknado, and told the host, "Today, I was like, all right, I don't wanna, like, sound stupid when I do this show today, like...so I learned a little education on sharks. So I look up sharks on the Internet and I see whale sharks, so I'm like, 'That must mean that a whale and a shark have sex.' And then it made me think: How do a whale and a shark have sex?"

16. In 2009, Gwyneth Paltrow was interviewed in Elle UK, and told them, “I am who I am. I can’t pretend to be somebody who makes $25,000 a year.”

17. Another time, Paltrow told British broadcaster Jonathan Ross, “I’d rather smoke crack than eat cheese from a can.”

18. Speaking of out-of-touch rich people, Paris Hilton — on her reality show The Simple Life — once asked, “What’s Walmart? Do they sell, like, wall stuff?”

19. On her 2007 reality show Hey Paula, Paula Abdul uncorked an instant classic in the category of "inflated Hollywood ego," saying “I’m tired of people not treating me like the gift that I am.”

20. In a 2005 clash on The Today Show with Matt Lauer (who could head up a list of dumb things celebrities DID), Tom Cruise said, "I know that psychiatry is a pseudo science." When Lauer pushed back on that, Cruise replied, "Matt. Matt, Matt, you don't even — you're glib. You don't even know what Ritalin is."

21. And lastly, in 1986, Prince Philip made a spectacularly racist and stupid comment while visiting British students in China, saying, “If you stay here much longer, you’ll all be slitty-eyed.”