50 Shocking Gen X Celebrity Facts You Never Knew
by Mike SpohrBuzzFeedBuzzFeed StaffI'm an Editorial Director at BuzzFeed who covers the internet’s funniest photos and jokes, weird human history, movie facts, and more.
1.
Hugh Jackman peed himself on stage while playing Gaston in Beauty and the Beast. He told Howard Stern, "I was getting a lot of headaches, and I went to a naturopath, and the guy said, 'You're dehydrated... You got to drink, like, two liters of water before 5 o'clock.' So, that first day, I drank two gallons... And the first time I sing... as I picked Belle up, a little bit of piss came out, and I'm wearing red tights. And then I thought, Uh oh. And I remember Belle over my shoulder whispering, 'What's going on?' 'Cause I'd stopped singing. And then at the end of the song, I had a choice. Sing that F sharp and piss my pants, or don't sing it and humiliate myself. So I sang it, and I just, it was just going. It was just going."
Kevin Winter / Getty Images
2.
Maya Rudolph was in a side project of Weezer bassist Matt Sharp called The Rentals, which scored the 1995 hit "Friends of P." Rudolph — before she had a single acting credit — was hired to fill out the band's sound on tour, playing keyboards and singing backup. "It was such a fun job out of college," Maya told the New Yorker. "I got to live on the road for six months. We opened for Blur and for Alanis Morissette, and we got to spend Thanksgiving with her and play hacky sack with her band and go bowling."
Universal / ©Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection
She added, "I got the gig because my girlfriends from high school, Rachel and Petra Haden, were already in a band called That Dog, and they couldn’t go on tour. So Rachel said, 'Call my friend Maya.' I was in a band in college, but it was a hobby." When the tour ended, Maya joined The Groundlings improv group in Los Angeles, hoping to pursue sketch comedy and Saturday Night Live. A good career move, I say!
Warner Bros. / Via youtube.com
3.
In 1986, Mark Wahlberg was accused of hurling rocks and racial epithets at Black school children, and two years later, a 16-year-old Wahlberg brutally attacked a Vietnamese man named Thanh Lam, hitting him with a stick until he was unconscious, all while shouting racial epithets. He also punched another Vietnamese man in the face. He served 45 days of a two-year sentence, but maintained that the crimes were not racially motivated.
Tim Roney / Via Getty Images
In 2014, Wahlberg sought a pardon for his crimes, writing, "I am deeply sorry for the actions that I took on the night of 8 April, 1988, as well as for any lasting damage that I may have caused the victims. Since that time, I have dedicated myself to becoming a better person and citizen so that I can be a role model to my children and others." One reason he sought the pardon? So he could get a liquor license for his family's Boston-based restaurant, Wahlburgers. After a public outcry, Wahlberg dropped the petition.
Greg Doherty / Via Getty Images for Netflix © 2023
4.
Guns N' Roses' singer Axl Rose can be heard having sex with Adriana Smith — the girlfriend of the band's drummer Steven Adler — on 1987's Appetite for Destruction. Adler had just told Smith he didn't consider her his girlfriend, so she went to the studio to hang with the band's other members in hopes of making him jealous. That's when Axl Rose approached her with his idea to record them having sex for the track "Rocket Queen." Smith told VH1, "Axl said, 'Adriana, I want to talk to you about something that’s very serious and very special and important to me, and nobody else will do this.'" Smith said she replied, "For the band, sure, no problem, for the band! And a bottle of Jack Daniels.”
Paul Natkin / Getty Images
Once microphones were laid on the floor of the vocal booth, the lights were dimmed, and Rose and Smith commenced having sex...the sounds of which were recorded and inserted into the track's audio.
The song became notorious in the wake of the album's success, and Smith later regretted taking part in it. “I ended up drinking and using drugs over this for a really long time, because I had this extreme shame and guilt and stuff.”
5.
Chloë Sevigny performed real oral sex on costar Vincent Gallo in 2003's Brown Bunny. That the Academy Award-nominated Sevigny agreed to do the scene was surprising, but she stood by it over a decade later. "I'd probably still do it today. I believe in Vincent (Gallo, the director/star) as an artist, and I stand by the film," she told Variety, adding, "It was a subversive act. It was a risk." The risk didn't pay off. The film's debut screening ended in massive boos.
Wellspring
6.
After skyrocketing to fame as the six-year-old co-star of the blockbuster E.T., Drew Barrymore was introduced to the Hollywood party scene at a shockingly young age, including going to Studio 54 with her mother when she was still in elementary school. As she documented in her autobiography, Little Girl Lost, she was drinking alcohol by age 9 and ad