Celebrities: Caught on camera

KARACHI:

With every appearance watched and noted, celebrities have to live their lives appearing at their best — both physically and morally — or they risk a backlash as adulation turns to demonisation. However, more often are the times when standards slip and some surprising behaviour comes through.

One such case risking the wrath of his fans is Omar Sharif. The 79-year-old veteran actor was caught on video apparently slapping a persistant fan at an awards show in Qatar, revealed British newspaper the Daily Mail. Sharif, present at the Doha Tribeca Film Festival, rebuked a woman for queue-jumping. “My dear!” Sharif exclaimed in Arabic, as translated by the Washington Post, “I told you I’d get to you afterwards! I just said that and you’re standing here. Put something in your brain!” While his alleged blow was not seen from the camera’s position behind the woman’s head, celebrity gossip website TMZ quoted an unnamed journalist present as tweeting “Omar Sharif just hit a woman. Very stupidly, in front of a camera.”

Afterwards, however, Sharif became calmer and posed with the embarrassed looking — but still smiling — fan. The incident has led to much reflection on Sharif’s past bursts of violence — in 2003, he was convicted of violence towards a police officer in France, and in 2007 pleaded no contest to charges of battery against a parking attendant in the US.

Also catching attention for his behaviour — albeit ending up on the receiving end of aggression — was American singer Usher. He was confronted by an angry woman after apparently parking in a disabled bay, according to TMZ. Like the incident with Sharif, Usher’s confrontation was captured on video by an onlooker.

The R&B singer was accosted by a woman at a shopping centre in Atlanta near a Halloween parade after he took the liberty of parking his SUV in a handicapped spot. The video reavealed that the woman, apparently angered by the (able-bodied) singer’s illegal parking, approached his car and reportedly sprayed beer from a can at Usher while he was still sitting in the driver’s seat with the window down. Usher retaliated and splashed the woman with his water bottle, which prompted her to kick his driver’s side door until he exited the car, TMZ said. The woman angrily shouted, “You don’t belong here!” and repeatedly lunged at him, before being pulled away by her husband.

However, while Sharif and Usher would undoubtedly prefer their fans not seeing them in less-than-ideal situations, Hollywood actor Demi Moore went the exact same way.  Moore has been accused of lashing out at a photographer, who followed her on a trip to a nail salon in Los Angeles, reported aceshowbiz.com.

On October 28, while exiting Jessica Nail Clinic in West Hollywood’s Sunset Plaza, Moore lashed out at a photographer when he approached her for a picture. She is said to have hurled obscenities at him before reportedly lunging at his camera, stunning on-lookers recalled.

An eyewitness disclosed to aceshowbiz.com that the paparazzo “physically jumped in front of [Demi], basically entrapping her, pushing his body and camera into her so she couldn’t walk or move.” The photographer also added, “Demi was crazy; she was totally losing it. I was just standing on the sidewalk, trying to get a few shots of her and she was going completely mad. She tried to jump on me and swipe my camera.” The actor, it’s said, is in stress following reports that her marriage to Ashton Kutcher is falling apart.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 31^st,  2011.