Scariest Celebrity Stalkers Over the Years

Publish date: 2024-07-26

Warning: This post contains references to murder, assault, and sexual violence.

Along with the incessant paparazzi, celebrities have to get used to a lot of unwanted behaviors and occurrences from the people around them. There’s little privacy, rowdy fans, and — worst of all — serious stalkers who endanger their safety. Sadly, more celebrities than you might think have dealt with scary stalking incidents over the years.

It’s normal for fans to go to your concerts and buy your merch. But it’s wildly terrifying and dangerous when the same fans find out your home address (and even break into it). Many stars have detailed traumatic events that have taken place at the hands of fans-turned-stalkers. Celebrities like Sandra Bullock and Winona Ryder have talked openly about the events that happened with their stalkers, with Bullock saying she was diagnosed with PTSD after what she went through.

Some stars have even lost their lives to obsessive stalkers, with the most recent being The Voice star Christina Grimmie in 2016. With Britney Spears recently being granted a restraining order against ex Jason Alexander after he broke into her wedding, we’re looking back at some of the most disturbing and frightening celebrity encounters with stalkers below.

A version of this article was originally published on June 2022.

Kristin Cavallari
Kristin Cavallari recently opened up about having a stalker who followed her to her gym, signed up to take the same classes and even slashed her tires. “This guy is asking a lot of questions about you,” Cavallari’s trainer told her at the time, per Page Six. “He wanted to know if he could pay you to go to a party.”
One day, after avoiding him inside the gym, the man followed her as she drove off. “He goes, ‘You have a flat tire,’ and I go, ‘What?’” Cavallari remembered. “Then my flat tire thing went on, so he knew I had a flat tire before my car knew I had a flat tire.”
After that, the reality star contacted a private investigator, tracked the stalker (identified as David Berkowitz), and got a restraining order. “He was married with kids, begged not to file a restraining order,” she said on her Let’s Be Honest podcast. “I was, like, ‘No, f–- you. You were stalking me at my gym and you gave me a flat tire to what? Save the day?’”
Miranda Cosgrove
Miranda Cosgrove’s stalker lit himself on fire and shot himself in the front yard of her home in 2016, and also shot a woman who looked like her nearby. She still lives at that house, and opened up about the experience to Bustle, saying, “That’s another reason why I go back and forth to my parents’ house so much. I just don’t feel super safe in that house. For two years after it happened, I wouldn’t really stay there. Then I got into a relationship and because that person was there with me, I was less scared. But I don’t really like being there on my own that much.”
Taylor Swift
In 2015, Taylor Swift had to deal with a man named Frank Edward Hoover who was stalking her to a deranged level. Hoover sent terrifying letters to her father, claiming he was going to kill their entire family and saying he was the “real son of God.” He also claimed the Swift family was “the evil family of devils” and was soon arrested in 2016, per Newsweek. He was sentenced to a decade of probation starting in 2018.
Then in 2024, an alleged stalker was arrested outside her NY home for attempting to break in, over and over again, per Page Six.
Erin Andrews
Back in 2008, journalist Erin Andrews was stalked and videotaped inside of her hotel room by former insurance company executive Michael David Barrett, The Atlanta Journal reported. After TMZ refused to pay for Barrett’s videotapes, which included Andrews totally nude, Barrett shared the footage online.
Looking back at the time, Andrews said the moment still haunts her. “My dad says he thought I had been in a car accident because I was just screaming,” Andrews told Hoda Kotb in her Making Space podcast. “And I feel so bad. My parents were incredible. I was, God, in my thirties when that happened, and I resorted to acting like a 15-year-old because, in terms of not wanting to deal, my parents really, they were on the forefront.”
Barrett, who pleaded guilty in trail, served 2½ years in prison for interstate stalking and was released in 2012, Today reports. Andrews was also awarded a payout of $55 million in a lawsuit against Barrett and the companies that managed the Nashville Marriott hotel where the videos were filmed.
Drew Barrymore
Drew Barrymore had a scary moment recently when a stalker ambushed her while she talked at 92 Street Y. A video of the moment, which has now gone viral on social media, showed her stalker startling her by calling out her name and approaching her onstage.
“Oh my God, yes? Hi!” Barrymore responded to Busto’s scream, per Variety. “I’m Chad Michael Busto, you know who I am,” he said as he approached the stage. “I need to see you at some point while I’m here in New York.” As he spoke, security from the venue intervened while Barrymore’s fellow speaker, singer Renée Rapp, escorted her offstage.
Debra Messing
Will & Grace alum Debra Messing opened up about having to call the police about a stalker of hers in New York. “This man showed up at my doorman building and he said that I invited him and that he was spending the day with me and [my son] Roman,” Messing remembered in the Fearless podcast. “He referenced my son and that scared me in a completely different way because there was no one-on-one interaction with this person,” she continued.
Rachel Bilson
In Feb 2023, Rachel Bilson was granted a restraining order against a terrifying, alleged stalker who tried to break into her Los Angeles home on multiple occasions. The 40-year-old man repeatedly called her his “wife,” and she told more harrowing details per Metro. “There have been many incidents, messages on social media, letters but most alarmingly, there have been multiple attempts to visit, come into my home,” she said. “He refers to me as “baby” and calls me his “future wife” and indicates that he believes I am pregnant with his child. I have never met him and have absolutely no intention of doing so.”
Britney Spears
Britney Spears and Sam Asghari just had the epitome of a fairytale wedding last year. However, Spears’ ex-husband Jason Alexander nearly ruined the entire wedding by violently crashing it. Alexander live-streamed himself on Instagram approaching her home and trying to gain access to the wedding. He was detained and held by police, and the newlyweds were granted a restraining order days later.
Selena Gomez
In 2014, Selena Gomez had to deal with a terrifying stalking situation at the hands of a man named Che Cruz. He went as far as to break into the guest house of her Calabasas, Calif. mansion multiple times. He was ordered to stay away from Gomez for a decade and to undergo psychological treatment. Gomez later put up the house for sale, per Teen Vogue.
Jodie Foster
One of the most well-known cases of celebrity stalking is when John Hinkley Jr. grew obsessed with Jodie Foster after seeing her perform in the film Taxi Driver. When she was a student at Yale, he enrolled to get closer to her, slipping messages under her door. In a confusing attempt to “prove his love” for her, he attempted to assassinate President Reagan in 1981 by shooting him. He ended up shooting Reagan in the chest (he made a full recovery) and was sentenced to be in a mental institution for the rest of his life, per the Grunge.
Keira Knightley
Mark Revill, now Mark McCattipus, was sentenced to eight weeks’ suspended jail and a restraining order for terrorizing Keira Knightley, her husband James Righton, and their daughter Edie. He delivered letters, postcards, and a USB containing a cat-themed song he wrote for her. The convicted flasher and stalker also started meowing through her mailbox, at which point Righton chased him off. The family felt terrorized and looked for a new place to flee from the stalker, per the Sun.
Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lopez‘s stalker not only broke into her home but was able to stay in her guest home for nearly a week undetected. The man named John Dubis claimed to be her ex-husband and the father of her children, per HuffPost. He was sent away for psychiatric evaluation.
Gwyneth Paltrow
Gwyneth Paltrow‘s stalker terrorized her for well over a decade, leaving her full of fear. Dante Michael Soiu sent her over 65 packages within six years, including letters and packages of pornography. He was later found not guilty of an attempted stalking charge and a felony stalking charge, per People.
Sandra Bullock
Sandra Bullock had a terrifying home invasion back in 2014. Her stalker Joshua Corbett broke into her home with a loaded handgun. In an episode of Red Table Talk, she talked about how she hid in the closet, waiting for the police to come. Luckily, Corbett was taken into custody by police and she was unharmed. However, in the same interview, she said the experience left her with PTSD.
John Lennon
On Dec. 8, 1980, John Lennon was fatally shot outside of his apartment by a crazed fan named Mark Chapman. Chapman was at the scene, reading the book The Catcher In The Rye, which he later claimed inspired him to kill. He is currently serving a life sentence, per Crime Museum.
Rihanna
Rihanna previously got a restraining order from a man who not only threw a chair through her window but also stalked her and claimed he was her “future husband,” per BBC.
Ashley Tisdale
Ashley Tisdale’s stalker sent her over 18,000 tweets to her, including a slew of death threats. Luckily, he was convicted, per HuffPost.
Theresa Saldana
In the early 1980s, Theresa Saldana was stalked by a man named Arthur Richard Jackson, who used a private investigator to obtain Saldana’s mother’s number. Then, he was able to get Saldana’s address. He attacked her by stabbing her 10 times with a hunting knife and she had to stay at a hospital for months to take care of her injuries. She ended up making a full recovery and Jackson was sentenced to 14 years in prison, per the NYTimes. However, he sent Saldana many threatening letters in prison, so he was sent to a psychiatric hospital, where he stayed until his death in 2004.
Agnetha Faltskog
ABBA singer Agnetha Faltskog’s stalker was not only a fan but a former lover. Forklift driver Gert van der Graaf originally moved closer to her to strike up a relationship, and it worked. The two dated from 1997 to 1999, but split up due to his obsessive behavior. It’s reported that he’d call her obsessively, send her letters constantly, call her thousands of times, and cover his walls with photos of her, per Amomama.
He stalked her for three years but was eventually deported to his home country of the Netherlands.
Christina Grimmie
Christina Grimmie was an early YouTube star who transitioned to stardom after her run on The Voice. She grew to stardom at a young age and her life was tragically taken from her at only 22 years old. During a show in Orlando in 2016, a man named Kevin James Loibl went up and shot Grimmie at point-blank range, per Grunge.
He reportedly had an “unhealthy infatuation with her” and grew obsessed with her. He shot himself after shooting Grimmie, per the Orlando Sentinel.
Jennifer Love Hewitt
Jennifer Love Hewitt was stalked by a woman named Diana Napolis, who believed Hewitt was in a Satanic cult where Steven Spielberg was the leader. Napolis would arrive at different events, calling Hewitt a “murderer” and threatening to kill her. She was given a 10-year restraining order, per The Telegraph.
Rebecca Schaeffer
Rebecca Schaeffer was an up-and-coming actress in the late 1980s, starring in My Sister Sam and appearing in the film Radio Days. However, her life was tragically cut short by a crazed fan named Robert Bardo, who had been stalking her for three years. He tracked down her home address and shot her in the chest. She was only 21. Bardo was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and after Schaeffer’s death, America’s first anti-stalking laws were passed in 1990.
You can watch Danielle Kirsty’s thorough video on the entire case here.
Justin Bieber
Mark Staake and his nephew Tanner Ruane were arrested in 2012 for planning a brutal assassination attempt against Justin Bieber. Per the Atlantic, they were planning on castrating the “Baby” singer with garden shears under the commands of another inmate named Dana Martin. Martin claimed that because Bieber grew edgy, that angered him so much he wanted to kill him.
Martin is serving a life sentence for another crime of raping and killing a 15-year-old girl. Staake and Ruane were charged with first-degree conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation to commit murder.
George Harrison
On Dec. 30, 1999, George Harrison and his wife Olivia Harrison were victims of a haunting home invasion. Michael Abram broke in, claiming that God ordered him to kill George and stabbed him over 40 times. Olivia fought off the intruder long enough for the police to come and both made a full recovery. Abram was sent to a psychiatric hospital for only 19 months, per BBC News.
Björk
Oscar-nominated songstress Björk had to deal with one of the scariest stalkers to date, a man by the name of Ricardo López. He grew infatuated with Björk, losing all sense of reality. When Björk started dating musician Goldie, López felt betrayed and planned on murdering her by sending her a letter bomb using sulfuric acid. He uploaded video diaries about his obsession, later killing himself with a gunshot wound after listening to a Björk song. per The Guardian.
Authorities were able to intercept the letter bomb.
Selena
Selena’s life was cut short at the hands of a crazed fan named Yolanda Saldivar. Selena was on the rise to superstardom, with Saldivar becoming one of her biggest fans and creating a fan club. Saldivar become the president of the fan club and ended up being very close to Selena. However, Saldivar grew even more obsessed with Selena throughout, and at one point embezzled money from the family, prompting Selena to fire her. Selena agreed to meet up with Saldivar to get financial records, and it was then that Saldivar murdered her, killing her at only age 23. Saldivar was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.
Winona Ryder
Winona Ryder’s stalker got close to her by appearing as an extra in many of her projects. She ended up reporting him to the director on one set, only to find out that he had moved on to another celebrity.
She told The Cut: ”One was really nice. He kept showing up as an extra on movies, and you don’t know. You have to be careful. So I told the director, because he was kinda creepy. And I got this letter in my trailer the next day that was like, ‘I was just trying to get work as an extra! Just so you know, I’m not even obsessed with you anymore, I’m obsessed with Alyssa Milano now!’ So he kind of left me for Alyssa Milano.”
Tana Mongeau
While Youtuber Tana Mongeau’s credibility has been called into question numerous times over the years, both fans and critics alike have feared for her safety from her decades-long stalker. She’s chronicled her stalker experience through multiple YouTube videos, alleging he’s tormented her by breaking into her house multiple times, sending threatening messages, and more, per the Sun. In her latest update, she referred to him as “William.”
Joss Stone
Soul singer Joss Stone nearly had a terrifying home invasion. Junior Bradshaw and Kevin Liverpool planned on killing and robbing Stone in her home with a samurai sword, a knife, and hammers in 2011. Their plans were thwarted by local police, per BBC. Bradshaw was found guilty and sentenced to 18 years in prison and Liverpool will be serving life in prison.