5 Actors With The Most Terrifying Stalker Stories

This article contains discussions of addiction, mental health and violence.

Unfortunately, being famous comes with a price ... and that price often means that one's privacy will be completely invaded. Everyone has seen tons of paparazzi photos of their favorite actors and musicians, and it's easy to imagine that it can be really, really hard to live your everyday life while people around the world are willing to pay a premium price for a photo of you buying groceries or walking your dog. While the paparazzi can be dangerous all on their own — a car chase in Paris spurred by paparazzi very famously resulted in the death of Princess Diana of Wales in 1997 — there's another really dangerous aspect to fame, and that's the fact that celebrities can attract stalkers.

It's important to note that some of the details of these stalkings — and the experiences these five famous women have had thanks to their stalkers — are really disturbing, so proceed with caution. Still, it feels important to talk about the very real consequences that actors and musicians face for just doing their jobs; so here are five with really, really upsetting stalking stories.

Drew Barrymore — a member of the influential Barrymore acting family, whose legacy is enormous in the industry — has been famous since she was just a little kid, and unfortunately, she's experienced more than her fair share of the worst parts of fame. During her younger years in the spotlight, Barrymore suffered from addictions to drugs and alcohol and garnered plenty of negative attention (the time she flashed David Letterman on his eponymous talk show comes to mind), but she's since retired from acting and is completely honest about all of her struggles on "The Drew Barrymore Show." In fact, Barrymore's stalking incident came long after her most troubled era.

During a panel at the 92nd Street Y in New York City alongside musician and actor Reneé Rapp (via Entertainment Weekly), a man yelled at Barrymore from the audience. When she greeted him, he replied, "You know who I am. I need to see you at some point while you're in New York." Security leapt into action, but not before Rapp physically shielded Barrymore from the man; as Barrymore pointed out, the former "Sex Lives of College Girls" star was nothing short of heroic. "Well, I have a new definition of your sexiness, it's that level of protectiveness. That went full Bodyguard," Barrymore said while hugging Rapp. "You are my Kevin Costner." ("I'll be that," Rapp quipped.) The man was later identified as Chad Michael Busto, and he went on to stalk "Harry Potter" veteran Emma Watson at a New York Fashion Week event a month after his altercation with Barrymore.

Rachel Bilson rose to international fame and acclaim thanks to her breakthrough role as Summer Roberts in the primetime teen soap opera "The O.C.," and in February of 2023, she was forced to obtain a restraining order against a stalker who pursued her ahead of the SCAD TVFest in Atlanta. Tabloid RadarOnline got ahold of some of the court documents that detailed Bilson's troubles with her stalker, whose first name is apparently Clyde (his last name was not disclosed). Bilson's lawyer said that the man had "shown up on multiple occasions to her home where she and her daughter reside. He has also researched and found the listed parties' phone numbers and called multiple times attempting to reach (Bilson), where he refers to her as his 'future wife.'"

As if this couldn't get more disturbing, Bilson herself revealed in these same court documents that the stalker incessantly contacted her through social media and letters and even tried to gain access to her home. "He refers to me as 'baby' and calls me his 'future wife' and indicates that he believes I am pregnant with his child," Bilson said. "I have never met him and have absolutely no intention of doing so." This is an incredibly disturbing case, and luckily, Bilson was able to prioritize the safety of herself and her daughter — whom she shares with her ex-partner Hayden Christensen — and get a restraining order against a man who sought to violate her sense of safety and privacy.

Former Disney child star and current "Only Murders in the Building" star Selena Gomez has been in the spotlight for most of her life at this point, and she's also dealt with some of the more difficult aspects of said spotlight as a result. Gomez has been extraordinarily open about her struggles with her physical and mental health — she suffers from lupus, got a kidney transplant, and struggles with depression and anxiety — and she's also had to handle a stalker.

According to an article in Time Magazine from April 2014, Gomez's stalker — whose name is Che Cruz — was officially charged with "felony stalking and violating a court order to avoid the [then] 21-year-old" actress after two arrests over his pursuit of Gomez. Cruz both entered Gomez's home and jumped her fence to try to gain access, and in June of that same year, Billboard reported that Cruz pled no contest to the charges and was ordered to spend six months in a psychiatric facility; he was also banned from being in Gomez's presence for a decade.

Unfortunately for Jodie Foster, her legacy as an actor and director is somewhat tied up in the fact that someone once tried to kill the President of the United States just to impress her. Foster, who has been acting since she was three years old (thanks to a Copperfield commercial) and has branched into directing in recent years, was the object of would-be assassin John Hinckley Jr., who stalked Foster for years before trying to shoot President Ronald Reagan in her "honor" in 1981. (It was later revealed that Hinckley Jr.'s obsession began after he saw Foster appear in the film "Taxi Driver.") Foster doesn't typically discuss the assassination attempt aside from a 1982 essay in Esquire titled "Why Me?" — but in 2024, she sat down with fellow actress Jodie Comer for Interview Magazine (via People Magazine) and said that while she was attending Yale, she noticed something while she was onstage performing a play.

After saying she was surrounded by Secret Service agents at the time, Foster told Comer, "There was a guy in the front row, and I had noticed that it was the second night that he'd been there, and I decided to, the whole play, yell, 'F*** you, m*********er!' I just decided that I was going to use this guy. And then the next day, it was revealed that this particular guy had a gun, and he had brought it to the performance, and then he was on the run."

"It was a traumatic moment, and I've never admitted that maybe that has something to do with how I never wanted to do a play again," Foster continued. "It was all part of that. I talked myself into loving theater and going to theater, but somehow feeling like I couldn't make that commitment to ever do it again."

Even though Taylor Swift doesn't have a ton of acting roles to her name, she's still appeared in some films and TV shows — and as one of the most famous pop stars on the planet, she has also dealt with some pretty terrifying stalking incidents during her career. Swift has actually had multiple stalkers throughout the years, and thanks to an intense security detail and a 2024 assist from the C.I.A., she's avoided some seriously scary outcomes.

Throughout the years, Swift has been pursued by people like Roger Alvarado — who broke into Swift's home in Manhattan in 2018 and slept in her bed (via Vogue Australia) — and David Crowe, who was held without bail in January 2024 after repeatedly showing up outside of the singer-songwriter's Tribeca residence, according to NBC News. (Swift briefly discussed Alvarado in her 2020 Netflix documentary "Miss Americana," saying, "I had a crazy dude break into my apartment and sleep in my bed a couple of months ago. Didn't like it.") During Swift's Eras Tour, which began in 2023, a man was apprehended at a 2024 show in Gelsenkirchen, Germany after it was discovered that he planned to attack Swift and her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce (via E!), and her entire three-show run of shows in Vienna, Austria was canceled after it was revealed that a massive terror attack was planned during the show that reportedly could have taken tens of thousands of lives (according to the New York Times). Swift constantly suffers from public scrunity, but this stuff is really scary ... and not okay.

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