Celebrity Contact Inc

Many celebrities have differing opinions about the value of fans, the relationship with the fans that is acceptable, and the best way to approach them. Below, we bring you a sample of what some celebrities have said about their fans over the years:

Natalie Portman:
"I don't want to have visitors, to be completely blunt. I don't want to hang out with people I don't know. Some people may find that rude, because fans immediately think that they can be your friend. But that's not the relationship I want to have."

Tori Amos:
“When I was in my early 20’s I was raped. I turned that experience into my song “Me and a Gun,” and the reaction was so strong – so many letters came in from fellow survivors, and so many girls came backstage to tell their stories, that I co-founded the Rape and Incest National Helpline. It just seemed that I’d started something, so maybe I needed to take the next step and follow up on it. That response is so important, that you’re connecting with someone on that level. It’s so much more important than, “Hey, you’re famous, can you sign something?”

Kate Bush:
“I don’t feel like I deserve devotion from the fans, really. They’re great, they really get me back up when I’m feeling down, but it can be quite unnerving to think you haven’t really done anything and these people just adore you. Maybe that’s why I hate supermarket. They freak me out in general, but they can be tough when people recognize you and you’re just trying to figure out where the tampons are.”

Mariah Carey:
“The fans are very important to me; more than they are to most people in this business, I’d say. I really want to hear from them, meet them and even stay in touch with them. Of course you can get to a point where you need some alone time, but they’re so wonderful that you can’t ignore them.”

Jewel:
“I don't think kids listen to critics too much. The industry listens to critics, but it's just a bunch of people talking about what everybody's thinking. It's like being in high school again. It's just, you know, really I don't think about what people say or think too much, to be honest. I used to when my first record was out, I’d be so self-conscious that I’d think ‘how can I even walk on stage, look at these people staring at me!’ I'd become so self-conscious and then I realized, I looked at my fan mail and I was like, ‘ these kids get it, kids get what I'm about, they get what I'm honestly trying to say, they get my shortcomings, it's all fine.’ So now I just do my thing, be myself, and if someone walks up to me and says I make great music, I’m happy to hear it."

Neil Diamond:
“My fans are without any question the most loyal, wonderful, supportive fans that anybody could ever ask for. You don't go out and perform in a vacuum. There's a chemistry that has to happen and if the people in the audience are not willing to make that chemistry happen, no amount of beautiful notes or beautiful songs will create it. It's the combination of the two. I need them to do what I do. So I figure I can spend a little time afterwards giving something back."

Bruce Campbell:
“Look, no matter what you may have heard to the contrary, I'm just the poor slob next door. I may not be your neighbor, but I just want to be treated like one. I hate to break it to you, but us cheeseball actor types are no better than you. Heck, most of us can't even change the oil in our cars. What I would prefer is that we keep a basic unspoken agreement. I will respect you as fans by working as hard as I can to entertain you to the best of my abilities. For your part, you can 'value' me by simply doing what you have always done - watch the stuff I'm in. I know that sounds pretty darn simplistic, but I think it's a purer way to go. I do like to communicate with you folks. Those of you that are online can e-mail me. My e-mail address has been the WORST kept secret on the web for several years now. My answers are short and sarcastic, sure, but I'll respond to any non-ludicrous query. But I won’t do autographs. Talk to me, tell me something, let’s share the actor/fan experience up close and personal, but signing something for you so you can put it on eBay? That’s not my thing.”

Michelle Branch:
“Ninety-eight percent of the time I have really good fan encounters, but once I was in Germany and there was this creepy guy waiting outside for my autograph. He was standing there with one of his hands in his pants! As he came over, he pulled it out and went to shake my hand with the one he had down there. So we all quickly got into the car to leave, because there was no way I was touching him. Then someone in my band was like, “Oh, my God, check it out, he’s totally smelling his hand!” And he was! Some people are just not right.”

Courtney Cox-Arquette:
“I've had some creepy fans, but they're the kind of things you're not even supposed to talk about because that just gets them excited.”

Brad Delson of Linkin Park:
“We've had people show up and tell us that they're now going to be on tour with us for the next three weeks. I swear to you. I'd say, 'What do you mean you're going on tour with us?' and they'd come back with, 'Oh well, we quit our jobs and we're gonna now follow your bus around the Midwest in the freezing cold for three weeks.' Okay, man. Just don’t get too close…"

Kevin Costner:
“During the baseball scenes in For Love of the Game, extras heckled me, and I encouraged them. But after about 15 days of filming, somebody yelled something, and I snapped. I lost it. I don't remember what they said, but it was something that I didn't like. I stopped in the middle of the scene, walked off the mound right to the stands and said, "You...!" Everybody got really quiet, especially the person who got my goat. As I'm walking back, I'm thinking, "What a jerk you are, Kevin." It's like we had these great days together, and I am giving a whole baseball stadium full of fans one incident that's going to be in their minds forever. Actually, I came up with the idea of having two autograph seekers interrupt Kelly Preston and me on the sidewalk in the middle of a big emotional confrontation in that film because it happens all the time. People can be standing politely a few feet away, but they're looming nonetheless. I've been in moments where my heart was on the ground, and a man walks up with his son and wants you to sign something. You just try not to snap. You just try to be there for them because they're your fans.”

Kevin Spacey:
“It's not that I want to create some bullshit mystique by maintaining a silence about my personal life, it is just that the less you know about me, the easier it is to convince you that I am that character on screen. It allows an audience to come into a movie theatre and believe I am that person."

Sir Ian McKellen:
“Actors hope to entertain audiences by moving their emotions and shifting their perceptions. This only gets dangerous when stalkers get things wrong, confusing their fantasies with the effect that actors' performances have on them. I have had a bad case of being followed around many years ago but fortunately the misplaced enthusiasm faded once it was made clear that it was not reciprocated by me.”

Katherine Hepburn:
“I'll worry when they stop asking me for my autograph.”


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mr spacey, i think all your fans understand that you need your private life to be a blank canvas in order to portray realistic characters. but cant you let just a little bit of the real you escape from behind your iron curtain. we are all keen to ooh and aah about you as well as the characters you paint. i cant see how the real you can take away that much from who ever your playing, if at all. other greats let their fans in and their work still out shines, by far, who they are in reality. open just a peep, pleeeease?