The word ’stalker’ is very loosely used in the world today. Usually, it involves something mild like checking up on an ex or crush’s activities using the Internet — Facebook stalking. Rarely do we see cases in which a person takes a considerable chunk of their time and dedicate it toward forcing themselves into another person’s life.
This kind of serious stalking can be scary, life-threatening, and is typically indicative of a serious mental illness that has spiraled out of control and manifested itself as a relentless obsession with another person.
Celebrity stalking is particularly strange because the perpetrators are fixated on a person they’ve never met, and often become convinced that the star communicates with them using secret messages on their television or radio performances. Many of these stalkers are violent and have the same goal: taking a person’s life. There can be a few reasons for this; some want to become ‘united’ with the famous person in a demented way. Others wish to make sure they are the most important person in that celebrity’s life.
Most bizarrely, many murderous stalkers are hell-bent on a crazed delusion such as hatred for a person they believe is cooperating with the devil, or using mind powers to force them into committing evil deeds. Here are 15 of the nuttiest celebrity murder attempts by lunatic stalkers.
Bjork
Bjork had an incredibly frightening stalker who kept a video diary of his descent into lunacy. In his homemade chronicles, Ricardo Lopez goes from a slightly overweight obsessive fan to a murderous fat guy with red lightning bolts painted all over his scary bald head. “I want to be the most important person who change [sic] her life more than anyone else,” he says in a raspy voice, “Her angel of death.”
After almost a year’s worth of videos, the crazed man eventually shot himself in the mouth with a gun, on camera, while sitting in front of a handwritten cardboard sign that said “the best of me.” But not before sending Bjork a package with a self-made bomb booby-trapped inside of a large book with the center cut out. “What are my last words?” He asks himself in front of the camera, “Fuck the world, and fuck Bjork and her n—– loving self.” Lopez listens to one of the singer’s albums as he sits naked on a chair and says, “This is the last song” before taking his final breaths in the extremely NSFW video.
Although his package was set to spray acid in her face upon opening, the video was found before the package ever got to its final destination and authorities saved the pop princess from mutilation — and possibly death.
John Lennon
John Lennon, the former Beatles member, has the most notorious stalker story in all of pop music history. A man named Mark David Chapman was a former armed guard who made multiple plans to commit suicide over the course of his lifetime. After a failed suicide attempt by carbon monoxide asphyxiation in his garage, Chapman eventually became employed as a counselor at the mental health facility that he had been committed to. A few years later, Chapman began hearing voices and developing obsessions for things like The Catcher in the Rye and John Lennon. He even signed some of his letters as “The Catcher in the Rye.”
In 1980, Chapman traveled from Hawaii to New York with plans to murder John Lennon. Instead, he returned to his home and wife in Hawaii and told his wife about the plans, which he had apparently ’snapped out of.’ This was clearly untrue, as Chapman again visited New York — and this time, he had a loaded gun. Chapman waited for Lennon outside of his apartment building on the morning of December 8th, 1980, with a copy of Catcher in the Rye in which he had written “This is my statement. –Holden Caulfield.”
Chapman waited all day, even having friendly interactions with both the housekeeper and Lennon himself. Around 11 PM, Lennon returned with wife Yoko Ono from a recording session and casually approached the entrance to their building. Chapman fired five shots at the couple, four of which hit Lennon. He died almost instantly. Chapman, however, stood around reading his book until the police took him without a fight. He remains in prison today.
50 Cent
A drug kingpin from Jamaica, Queens, plotted to kill multi-platinum rapper 50 Cent after hearing the artist’s songs detailing some of his very illegal drug exploits. Kenneth ‘Supreme’ McGriff found 50 Cent’s songs to be a little too revealing for his criminal tastes and apparently began conspiring to have the rapper murdered. It’s only natural that anyone with a multi-million dollar drug scandal under their belt would feel overexposed after having a detailed history of their gang publicly broadcast on radios and mp3 players all over the world.
Although Curtis Jackson, the artist’s real name, was shot nine times in 2000, he refused to cooperate with police or assist in their investigation of the incident. Police believe the shooting to be related to Jackson’s problems with McGriff, whose drug dealing history is detailed in a song called Ghetto Koran — something which earned Jackson a ban from most US rap studios. There is speculation that the murder of DJ Jam Master Jay was due to his defiance of the blacklist and choice to continue working with 50 Cent, but the case has never been solved.
Tila Tequila
Surprisingly, someone actually became obsessed with the trashy little midget hooker known as Tila Tequila. Not surprisingly, they hated her guts so much so that they began making death threats which would eventually progress into a break-in at her home. The lunatic burgled Tequila’s home in 2009, smashing windows and locking the star’s dog in the trunk of her car in a bizarre move.
Erin Andrews
ESPN Reporter Erin Andrews has been the victim of numerous stalkers, one or more of which have threatened to take her life. The Dancing With The Stars competitor is widely known on sports blogs and websites, regarded as a super-sexy sports interviewer. On some sites, her actions are harshly scrutinized in strange and creepy detail. Some websites even review the manner in which she interviews players, from her ’suggestive’ physical touches to her ’skimpy’ outfits.
In 2008, Andrews was stalked by a man who followed her for weeks, eventually recording nude videos of the gorgeous reporter with his cell phone while spying through a peephole into her hotel room. He uploaded the videos to the Internet and was later sentenced to 30 months in prison — a verdict Andrews was angered by, saying it wasn’t nearly long enough.
More recently, Andrews received threatening emails from a crazed fan claiming someone “should shoot her in the face” and that once he took action, “no one would see him coming.” But Andrews didn’t let this crazy obsession stop her from appearing on Dancing with the Stars.
Mick Jagger
Rock star Mick Jagger was almost murdered after the Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang decided to put a hit on his life following a 1969 concert in which they served as his security. Everything was running smoothly until the volatile gang turned on an 18-year-old boy, kicking and stabbing him to death. Appalled, Jagger stated that he would never again work with the Hell’s Angels and had hired them to prevent, not promote, violence in the first place. The gang was not surprisingly very offended by the star’s disdain and decided that Jagger must die.
A group of the Hell’s Angels took a boat out in an attempt to storm Jagger from his backyard or garden, and murder him without having to go through all of his pesky security guards first. Unfortunately, the Angels were the ones stormed when heavy rain and unpredictable waves threw them all from the vessel. Although everyone survived, the chip against Mick Jagger sunk with the ship, and no further attempts on his life were made.
Madonna
A homeless man repeatedly sent letters and notes to pop icon Madonna’s home in 1995. In his letters, he professed his love for Madonna and ask that she marry him. She didn’t reply — and presumably not because he had no permanent address.
Crazed and insistent on finding the sexy vocalist, Robert Dewey Hoskins scaled the wall around her mansion but was stopped by a bodyguard. Hoskins stated that he would either marry Madonna or “slash her throat from ear to ear.” Needless to say, his second attempt at breaking in was met with gunfire. Shot and wounded, Hoskins was then sentenced to ten years in prison.
Jodie Foster
A mentally ill John Hinckley Jr. became obsessed with movie star Jodie Foster after watching Taxi driver, a 1976 crime drama in which Foster plays an underage prostitute trapped in a world of drugs and violence. In the film, she’s rescued by a vigilante just as violent as her abusive pimp.
Hinckley admired the film, decided that Foster was his one true love, and began following her around. He went so far as to enroll in Yale, the college Foster was attending at the time, so he could watch her every move and slip hundreds of poems and love letters under her door. His advances went unnoticed, so Hinckley knew he had to do something drastic to get Foster’s attention. He thought the ultimate way of “impressing” his unrequited love was to loosely imitate a scene from Taxi Driver by shooting at an important political figure — the president.
The certified nutjob’s last love letter stated he would soon murder then-president Ronald Reagan, which is exactly what he attempted to do. Six gunshots later, Reagan was wounded but still alive and Hinckley was on his way to the mental institution.
Barack Obama
A 19-year-old white supremacist from Tennessee planned to go on a racist killing spree with an accomplice in 2008, acknowledging that his rampage would lead up to the murder of then-presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Paul Schlesselman plotted to slaughter dozens of African Americans before reaching current president Obama. Schlesselman chose numbers relevant to the white supremacist cult, 88 and 14, to use as guidelines for his murders. 74 African Americans were to be murdered plain old murder style, and the remaining 14 of 88 were set to be beheaded.
However, the two stooges were apprehended after dumbly scrawling racial slurs and swastikas on the side of Schesselman’s vehicle in chalk — like two silly children. Schlesselman was sentenced to ten years in prison.
Shawn Johnson
Shawn Johnson, an Olympic gold medal winner and celebrity from reality television program Dancing With the Stars, was also the subject of a violent stalker’s misguided ‘admiration’.
The 17-year-old Johnson was saved from 34-year-old Robert O’Ryan after he tried to jump over a security fence at the show’s studios. He was stopped and searched, which is when police found a loaded gun, rolls of duct tape, and numerous love letters to Johnson inside O’Ryan’s vehicle. O’Ryan told police he had moved all of his belongings from Florida to California in order to be with Johnson — a statement that helped Johnson obtain a restraining order against the creepy older man.
Ryan Seacrest
Ryan Seacrest’s murderous stalker was particularly scary because of his military background. 25-year-old Chidi Uzomah Jr. was a member of the US Special Forces, a division of military for elite, highly trained soldiers.
In 2009, Uzomah was arrested for attacking one of Seacrest’s bodyguards. He was soon after found wandering the halls of the E! offices in search of Seacrest. Upon being apprehended, a knife was found on his person. Uzomah faced four years in prison for stalking and breaching the conditions of his restraining order and pleaded not guilty.
Hilary Duff
An 18-year-old man named Maksim Myaskovskiy moved from his hometown in Russia to the United States for one purpose — to stalk his ‘true’ love, Hilary Duff. The Russian immigrant moved in with a member of the paparazzi while pursuing the pop princess, divulging to his roommate some violent and disturbing plans.
Myaskovskiy threatened to harm himself, Duff, and then-boyfriend Joel Madden to get her attention. His plan didn’t work, and he was arrested on charges of stalking and making violent threats after a private investigator was told directly by the Russian immigrant of his plans to murder Duff at a weekend event in 2006.
Myakovskiy had talked about purchasing firearms to force his way in between the famous couple and claimed that Madden was ‘the enemy’ and standing in the way of a romance he knew was meant to be. His paparazzo roommate tried to warn police of his friend’s violent psychosis, but his intentions were apparently warped when his messages were first ignored and later viewed as being in cahoots with the stalker himself.
Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson had a stalker in the early ’90s who was obsessed with an eclectic number of ideas. A man named Paul Jones, falsely claiming to be the son of mob boss John Gotti sent hundreds of threatening letters to the king of pop in an attempt to — well, we’re not exactly sure what he was attempting to do.
Some letters demand money from Jackson, while others profess love. The stalker threatened to commit mass murders at his concerts if Jackson refused to comply. Others say that if he is was arrested or stopped by authorities, he was “gonna attempt to kill President George Bush.” Finally, the crazed fan threatened the life of Jackson himself. None of his plans came to fruition.
This weirdo wasn’t Jackson’s only stalker. An aging tranny named ‘Melanie’ was accused of harassing Jackson with numerous letters and telephone calls, while another woman named Helen Harris-Scott was brought to court on stalking charges as well. Scott claimed that Jackson was guilty of sending her ‘put-downs’ and insults degrading her and calling her ‘not good enough’ for his love.
Dr. Drew
A deranged Charles Pearson was arrested on felony charges of stalking in early 2010 after sending television psychiatrist Dr. Drew menacing emails. One of Pearson’s messages threatened to murder the doctor’s children and force his wife to consume them. He was also convinced that the television personality had placed a tracking device hidden inside the man’s genitals, a strange and disgusting delusion.
Dr. Drew handled all of this surprisingly well, and offered only the statement that he wants the violent stranger to “get the treatment he clearly needs.” Pearson was held on a whopping $150,000 bail.
Jewel
Apparently, God wants Jewel dead. A Wisconsin man named Michael Lawrance Kozelka trespassed on the enormous ranch Jewel shared with her husband on two separate occasions in 2009.
The first time, Kozelka was asked to leave and warned that he would be arrested if found on the property again. He paid no mind to this request — after all, he was on a “mission from God” which is what he told police after he returned the very next day and was promptly arrested. He was found with a dog and a pocket knife the second time, but “did not seem angry” or resist arrest.