1.After appearing on The Mickey Mouse Club together as kids, Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears had a bit of a frenemy thing going on in the 2000s. First, in 2003, Aguilera said Britney “seems to me like a lost little girl, someone who desperately needs guidance.”
2.In response, Spears called her “fake,” saying, “A lost girl? I think it’s probably the other way around. I can’t believe she said that about me. When someone has been rude to you so many times, it’s like, ‘You know what, Christina, I’m really not about the fake anymore.'”
3.Then, in 2004, Aguilera said of Britney, “She’s not trailer trash, but she sure acts that way,” and said her engagement ring “looks like she got it on QVC.”
4.Another celebrity feud in which a lot of shade was thrown? Miley and Nicki. After Nicki Minaj’s video for “Anaconda” wasn’t nominated for “Video of the Year” at the VMAs in 2015, she took to Twitter to complain. Miley Cyrus, who was hosting the event, later told the New York Times that she found Nicki Minaj “not too kind,” leading, of course, to the infamous VMAs exchange between Minaj and Cyrus after Minaj won Best Hip-Hop Video.
5.Minaj later called Miley a “Perdue chicken” on an episode of Queen Radio after Miley sang “I love you Nicki, but I listen to Cardi” in her song “Cattitude.”
6.Courtney Love and Madonna also had a super awkward awards show moment. At the 1995 VMAs, Courtney Love crashed Madonna’s interview, and Madonna called her attention-seeking. The two have been on bad terms since, with Love saying recently of Madonna, “I don’t like her, and she doesn’t like me.”
7.Love has also made several scathing comments toward other celebrities. She said of Lana del Rey, “I haven’t liked Lana since she covered a John Denver song, and I think she should really take seven years off. Up until ‘Take Me Home Country Roads,’ I thought she was great.”
Stuart C. Wilson / Getty Images, Dia Dipasupil / Getty Images
8.Love also called Taylor Swift “not important,” saying, “She might be a safe space for girls, and she’s probably the Madonna of now, but she’s not interesting as an artist.”
9.Love was more complimentary towards Beyoncé, but not by much. “I like the idea of Beyoncé doing a country album because it’s about Black women going into spaces where previously only white women have been allowed, not that I like it much,” she said. “As a concept, I love it. I just don’t like her music.”
10.Speaking of Beyoncé — Etta James wasn’t too happy with Bey covering the song “At Last” (which James did not initially write or perform but became known for singing) at former President Obama’s 2012 inauguration. She said, “I can’t stand Beyoncé. She has no business up there, singing up there on a big ol’ president day, gonna be singing my song that I’ve been singing forever.” She also said of Beyoncé, “She’s going to get her ass whupped.”
11.In an interview with Vulture, Angelica Huston randomly threw some shade at the movie Poms and its stars when she explained why she took a role in John Wick 3, saying, “I’m looking for movies that impress me in some way, that aren’t apologetically humble or humiliating like, ‘Band of cheerleaders gets back together for one last hurrah,’ you know. An old-lady cheerleader movie. I don’t like that kind of thing. If I’m going to be an old lady—and I’m sort of touching old lady these days—at least I want to be a special old lady.”
12.When asked her thoughts on the quote, Poms star Jacki Weaver said, “I just laughed. And then I said, ‘Well, she can go fuck herself,'” adding that she was “disappointed” and found Huston’s comments “mean and petty.” She finished, “I would say she must be going through menopause, but she must have had that ages ago.”
13.Sometimes, celebrities are even more straightforward about their dislike for another star. For example, Hannibal Buress was pretty brutal to Justin Bieber in his roast, though his most scathing remark was actually cut from the broadcast. After telling Justin he didn’t like him, he added, “Actually, you should thank me for participating in this extremely transparent attempt to be more likable in the public eye. And I hope it doesn’t work.”
14.Mickey Rourke was similarly maybe a little too honest about his feelings about Tom Cruise. In an interview with Piers Morgan, Morgan asked Rourke about Cruise’s success in Top Gun: Maverick. Rourke — who expressed his appreciation for the acting of more classic Hollywood stars like Marlon Brando — then called Tom Cruise “irrelevant.”
15.Speaking about Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s defamation trial, Howard Stern did NOT hold back on his feelings about the former. He said he believed that Depp wanted the trial to be televised because “That’s what narcissists do. They think they can talk their way out of everything.” He continued, “On the narcissism scale, I think Johnny Depp is a huge narcissist — and what I mean by that is, he figured ‘I’ll put this on TV. And because I’m so persuasive and I’m so smart, and I’m such a wonderful guy.'” He then said Depp was “overacting” at his trial and was “coming off really badly. He also questioned Depp’s “accent” and eloquence, saying, “His difficulty in speaking the English language is fantastic.”
Kevin Mazur / Getty Images for SiriusXM, Rich Fury / Getty Images
16.Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj famously didn’t get along on the set of American Idol, but I still think the most iconic shade thrown was this comment Mariah made towards Nicki.
17.Honestly, the best part of shows with celebrity judges is watching them shade each other. Like in this episode of The Voice, when Alicia Keys basically said she has better range than fellow judges Kelly Clarkson and Adam Levine.
18.Of course, superstars shading each other is nothing new. For example, in the documentary Whitney, an old home video showed Whitney Houston’s true thoughts on fellow star Paula Abdul.
19.And Elton John has a long history of dissing Madonna, starting in 2002 when he called her song for Die Another Day “the worst Bond tune ever.”
Theo Wargo / Getty Images for MTV/ViacomCBS, Dia Dipasupil / Getty Images
20.Then, in 2004, he accused her of lip-syncing after she won for Best Live Act at the Q Awards.
21.Then just ahead of the 2012 Golden Globes ceremony, John — who was up against Madonna for “Best Original Song” — told Carson Daly that Madonna “doesn’t have a fucking chance” of taking home the award. Spoiler alert — she did.
22.John’s now-husband David Furnish then tweeted, “Madonna. Best song???? F–k off!!!” and called her speech “embarrassing in it’s [sic] narcissism…her critisism [sic] of Lady Gaga shows how desperate she really is.” Madonna had recently referred to Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” as “reductive.”
John also took issue with her remarks on Gaga, writing in his book, “I couldn’t see why she was so ungracious and nasty about [comparisons between “Born This Way” and Madonna’s song “Express Yourself”], rather than taking it as a compliment…particularly when she claims to be a champion for women.”
Natasha Campos / Getty Images for CAA
23.Also in 2012, John called Madonna’s tour “a disaster.” He continued, “If Madonna had any common sense, she would have made a record like Ray of Light, stayed away from the dance stuff and just been a great pop singer and made great pop records, which she does brilliantly. But no, she had to prove that she was like…And she looks like a fucking fairground stripper.”
According to John, however, the “feud” is now “over and done with.”
New York Daily News Archive / NY Daily News via Getty Images
24.Speaking of Madonna — she also feuded pretty publicly with Cher. Cher once called her rude, “not unbelievably talented,” and “not beautiful.”
25.In a feud I never could’ve seen coming, James Corden and Patrick Stewart randomly got into it at the Glamour Awards in 2010, with Stewart insulting (and body-shaming) Corden out of nowhere.
26.Kathy Griffin and Barbara Walters were also unlikely enemies, but there’s definitely been some shade thrown between the two — like when Walters suggested Griffin went on American Idol as a “desperate need for publicity.” Walters ultimately banned Griffin from The View after Griffin joked about Howard Stern wanting to have sex with Walters — as well as Walters’ preferred lube brand.
27.This is a bit more polite than some on this list, but I had to include a Prince example here because he was the king of subtle shade. When asked what he thought about America’s Got Talent and some of the young talent coming up in the industry, he had this to say.
28. And finally, I had to include one of the most scathing celebrity tweets…when Dylan Sprouse decided to call out Jared Leto out of nowhere.
Yo @JaredLeto now that you’ve slid into the dm’s of every female model aged 18-25, what would you say your success rate is?
— Dylan Sprouse (@dylansprouse) May 16, 2018
What’s a wildly shady comment a celeb has made about another celeb that you still think about? Let us know in the comments.
