Trending badgeTrendingPosted 2 hours agoSubscribe to BuzzFeed Daily NewsletterCaret Down6 Times Celebrities Casually Shared Stories So Problematic That It Felt Like They Were Daring Us To Cancel ThemNobody ever had to know... Yet these celebrities decided to tell us anyway.by Stephanie SoteriouBuzzFeed StaffFacebookPinterestLink This article mentions racism, anti-gay slurs, and allegations of child molestation and reproductive coercion. It's fair to say that there are three main ways for a celebrity to face the wrath of the public in recent years. The first is to be caught doing something problematic on camera, then there's a messy moment from their past resurfacing, and finally, there's being accused of bad behavior by somebody else. However, some stars have taken a bit of a different - and totally baffling - approach. They have voluntarily shared their own controversial, problematic, or downright offensive stories for no real reason. We're talking, completely unprompted.
In fact, some of the stories are so outrageous that it almost feels as though the celebs were trying to cancel themselves. So, here's a recap of some of the most shocking examples: 1. Lily Allen Returning A Puppy After It "Ruined" Her Life Dia Dipasupil / Getty Images Let me acknowledge right off the bat that there are way worse things in life than returning a puppy, and this isn't really even comparable to the other examples on this list. However, I will still always wonder what compelled Lily Allen to share a story that was guaranteed to ruffle feathers from animal lovers everywhere, considering that nobody ever had to know about it. During a 2024 episode of her podcast Miss Me?, Lily admitted to adopting a puppy during COVID-19 lockdown, only to return it after it ate her and her children's passports. Referring to her ex David Harbour, Lily said: "We actually did adopt a dog together already, but then it ate my passport, and so I took her back to the home.""She ate all three of our passports, and they had our visas in," Lily went on. "I cannot tell you how much money it cost me to get everything replaced, because it was in COVID, and so it was an absolute logistical nightmare.""Because the father of my children lives in England, I couldn't get them back to see their dad for, like, four months, five months, because this fucking dog had eaten the passports," she continued. "I just couldn't look at it. I was like: 'You ruined my life.'"Lily then insisted that the passport saga was actually the final straw after a long line of bad behavior from the puppy, sharing: "Passports weren't the only things she ate. She was a very badly behaved dog, and I really tried very hard with her, but it didn't work out. The passports were the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak."Lily's confession triggered immediate, widespread backlash, with the star later revealing that she had received "abhorrent messages and even death threats" from furious animal lovers. She also refuted claims that she hadn't attempted to train the puppy before giving up on it, saying that she only returned her after working with a behavioral specialist and trainer to no avail - and that the decision to give her back was ultimately about putting the pup's happiness and wellbeing first. 2. Matt Damon Revealing That He Had Only Recently "Retired" Using The F-Slur In 2021 Dia Dipasupil / Getty Images In August 2021, people were left shocked when Matt Damon casually revealed that he'd recently "retired" using the "f-slur for a homosexual" in an interview with the Times of London.
Matt, who was 50 years old at the time, explained that his daughter had educated him on why the word is "dangerous.""The word that my daughter calls the 'f-slur for a homosexual' was commonly used when I was a kid, with a different application," he told the publication. "I made a joke, months ago, and got a treatise from my daughter. She left the table. I said: 'Come on, that's a joke! I say it in the movie Stuck on You!' She went to her room and wrote a very long, beautiful treatise on how that word is dangerous. I said: 'I retire the f-slur!' I understood."Unsurprisingly, many were left outraged by this admission from Matt as they questioned why he had proudly told the world that he had been using the offensive term up until a few months ago.
One day after the interview was published, Matt arguably backpedaled on his original quotes in a statement that read: "During a recent interview, I recalled a discussion I had with my daughter where I attempted to contextualize for her the progress that has been made - though by no means completed - since I was growing up in Boston and, as a child, heard the word 'f**' used on the street before I knew what it even referred to.""I explained that that word was used constantly and casually and was even a line of dialogue in a movie of mine as recently as 2003; she in turn expressed incredulity that there could ever have been a time where that word was used unthinkingly,