The Celebrity Truth

Another day, another paparazzi getting up in the grill of another celebrity… and this time, it’s prompted Woody Harrelson to lash out at a TMZ cameraman while leaving New York’s La Guardia airport.  Surely this kind of harassment from the paparazzi has got to come to an end?

As the actor was leaving the airport with his 12-year-old daughter, the pap followed him – at some points very closely – with a video camera and fired a barrage of questions: “How’s the flight dude?”, “Feelin’ good?” and, in reference to Harrelson’s pro-stance on marijuana, ”I’m just wondering if those are hemp pants?”.

When the photog failed to get a response from Harrelson, he asked, “What’s wrong Woody?  Did you take a red eye flight?”, before Harrelson finally turns on him, and allegedly punched the cameraman and took his camera.

In the video, it’s unclear exactly what occurred, but at this point the paparazzo continued to follow Harrelson, repeating, “That’s assault. Woody, That’s assault dude. Woody that’s assault man. Woody that’s assault and you’re stealing my property.”

The paparazzi continues until Harrelson attacks again, reportedly smashing the photog’s camera. Again, the cameraman is undeterred and continues to follow and Harris the actor.

At what point do these paparazzi agencies draw the line, and at what point does this become harassment? They filmed a person in an airport, with his child, and repeatedly breached his personal space. If this behavior was displayed towards a non-celebrity, it would be judged as harassment and the offender could be charged with stalking.

You couldn’t walk up to a stranger and film them without consent, especially if you planned to then profit from that footage. You couldn’t camp outside a non-celebrity’s house with a long-lensed camera and take photos of them on their private residence without being escorted away by the authorities. So why is it acceptable to do this to a celebrity?

TMZ got the story they wanted, and readers lapped it up. There is a huge pressure on celebrity gossip websites to follow – and now, to create – celebrity content, and the methods they will use to get that content are increasingly dangerous. What happened to Woody Harrelson should be illegal. He wasn’t at a movie premiere. He wasn’t at The Ivy. He was at an airport with his daughter, and an airport is a space where everyone should be able to expect a certain level of privacy and respect.

We set up The Celebrity Truth to counteract this behavior and to show that entertainment reporting can be ethical and entertaining. It doesn’t need to be about capturing a celebrity when they’re down, or least expecting it, and it doesn’t need to be about spreading bullshit rumors and gossip. So when will this kind of low-brow stalk-reporting be outlawed?

For the record, the police are now involved in this incident, with a spokesman for the New York Port Authority telling E! News, “An individual filed a complaint alleging that the actor Woody Harrelson damaged his camera and pushed it in his face.”

“We’re looking into this and we’ll investigate to determine if any criminal charges are warranted,” Ron Marisco adds. “If there is enough evidence, we’d turn it over to Queens D.A. to pursue it.”

Harrelson has responded too; ”I wrapped a movie called `Zombieland,’ in which I was constantly under assault by zombies, then flew to New York, still very much in character,” Harrelson said. “With my daughter at the airport I was startled by a paparazzo who I quite understandably mistook for a zombie.”

Watch video of the incident here and judge for yourself. Do you think this is acceptable?

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Story: David Christopher and Sarah Megginson. Photo: New Line Cinema.

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