Stalking in Hollywood

Episode #63 Chappel Roan, Stalking for Love

[Shaun] 

Because January is stalking awareness month, we’ve shared horrific and terrifying real-life cases of stalking, but we're doing something a little different for this final episode of January. 

We’d like to talk about the idea of normalizing stalking behavior and one of the main places that stalking behavior is portrayed as okay, and even endearing. 

[John] 

Of course, we’re talking about Hollywood. Stalking in Movies, TV shows and plays is as old as entertainment. We’ve all seen it, a man pursuing a woman with or without her knowledge, often over her protests. 

More often than not, we’re meant to laugh at it, forgive it, or treat it lightly because many times the man's “persistence” pays off and he finally wears her down, and they live happily ever after.

So we’re going to talk about the different types of stalking for love we see so often along with some of the typical patterns of behavior, and contrast that with the reality of stalking including the effects it can have on the person being stalked

[Shaun] 

We’ll also finish up talking about real-life cases of stalking that happened to Chappell Roan, Britney Spears, and Kim Kardashian, which have all of the scary aspects of stalking with none of the happy endings Hollywood would have you expect. 

[Shaun] 

Hi and welcome to Sins and Survivors, a Las Vegas true crime podcast, where we focus on cases that deal with domestic violence, as well as missing persons and unsolved cases. I’m your host, Shaun, and with me as always, is the one and only John.

[John] 

I am the only John in the room.

[Shaun] 

Stalking and domestic violence truly go hand in hand unfortunately which is why we chose to highlight the pervasive problem of stalking all this month. We’ve been sharing a lot of educational material from SPARC this month. When we were getting all of that ready to post, were there new things you learned about stalking?

[John] 

I learned a lot about stalking, beginning with the fact that SPARC has a lot of educational materials available. It’s so much more than just infographics (even though those are cool and informative). It includes videos, guides for victims, templates for logging stalking, guides for safety planning, instructions on how to recognize stalking behavior, and much more. 

I’d recommend anyone wanting to learn more visit the SPARC website at stalkingawareness.org, or you can follow them on social media using the handle “@followuslegally” on Facebook and Instagram. 

Later in the episode, we’ll talk about several cases of stalking of celebrities as you mentioned and their serious consequences, but before that, do you want to start us off on the trope of “stalking for love”?

[Shaun] 

There’s a lot to this topic but essentially we’re talking about that old trope that has been called “stalking for love”. It’s been reported on extensively over the years and has even been the subject of a great video essay by Pop Culture Detective in 2018.

Rom-coms are the most common place you'll see examples of this trope, and here is where it’s easy to take the red pill. Once you start looking for this trope, it's hard not to see it everywhere it is.. And it is everywhere (you've been warned)

A typical situation involves a handsome male protagonist who meets a woman.. Or maybe he just sees her, and decides he’s in love with her. Sometimes he approaches her and asks her out, and she’ll say no because he's an “outsider” or maybe she has a boyfriend. Many times he decides they’re “fated” to be together, and this is meant to excuse what is, in every sense, a crime.

The problem is that the man in these movies doesn't accept “no” for an answer, presumably because if he did, that's the end of the movie, roll credits. Instead, he follows her around, spies on her, looks at her social media, and takes photos with a telephoto lens like Jonathan in Stranger Things.

He is PERSISTENT. 

In “You've Got Mail” in 1999, Tom Hanks pursues Meg Ryan over her protestations repeatedly. In one scene, he brings her flowers, talks his way into her apartment, and even refuses to leave when she asks him to.

Another example is Ryan Gosling’s character in The Notebook. Who is aware that his love interest Allie has a boyfriend, and that she has explicitly turned him down, but his behavior escalates to the point where he literally threatens to kill himself if she doesn't go out with him. 

If you remember that scene, with Ryan hanging by one hand from the crossbar of the Ferris wheel, we the audience weren’t really scared he’d drop, but in real life, if one of us lived through that, it’s scary and it should be interpreted as a huge red flag. 

The audience is meant to root for Noah, but his manipulative behavior sets a troubling example, teaching that persistence—even to the point of coercion—is acceptable and even heroic.

Similarly, In the 1984 comedy Revenge of the Nerds, one of the main characters, Lewis, becomes obsessed with Betty, a cheerleader in a sorority. 

He breaks into her house, shares revenge porn of her in pies for the whole school to see, and even sexually assaults her, yet in the end we’re expected to believe that it's a happy ending that they end up together. 

The recurring problem here is that these behaviors by men in TV shows and movies goes unpunished, and in some cases it’s just glossed over, and is often rewarded. 

The movie or TV stalker more often than not finally wears down the victim and they end up together.

[John] 

This trope is a staple in holiday movies too. In Love Actually (or as the Guardian put it.. “It's stalking, actually”) Andrew Lincoln’s character is obsessed with his best friend's wife, played by Keira Knightly. 

After being hired as the videographer for their wedding, instead of filming the ceremony and reception, he takes creepy close-up videos of the bride for his own uses. Worse, he shows up at her house to profess his love for her, and he’s rewarded when she runs after him and gives him a kiss! 

Not only does it romanticize stalking, but it also frames infidelity as a minor, forgivable transgression. Andrew Lincoln’s character betrays his best friend’s trust, yet the narrative rewards him with a kiss from the woman he’s been obsessing over.

You and I saw a video on youtube recently that asked the question.. What if her husband (Andrew Lincoln’s character’s friend) had answered the door instead? 

None of this holds up, and beyond the fact that this is all extremely problematic, what it’s doing is normalizing this behavior and making it seem okay.

The other aspect that often goes ignored is that Kiera Knightly was 17 years old when that movie was filmed which is problematic on its own.

There are so many examples of this type of obsessive “persistent” behavior in Hollywood movies, it's pretty unbelievable, and as you said once you recognize it for what it is, it’s hard NOT to see it. You can see it in movies like “Say Anything”, “Pretty in Pink”, “Big Fish”, “High Fidelity”, and even unlikely places like “The Empire Strikes Back”

The stalking for love trope has a lot of different variations. It’s not just that we have a lovable male protagonist who won't take no for an answer and finally wears down his victim (and I use the word victim intentionally there).

One of the most common ways stalking is excused in media is the behavior being played for laughs. In the long running and successful comedy “The Big Bang Theory”, Howard uses hidden cameras and other intrusive technology to pursue women, and his friends call it out, but it's mostly a punchline and there are no lasting implications. 

The trope is a common staple in comedies, and it appears in shows like Friends, How I Met Your Mother, and movies like Hitch and Wedding Crashers.

To provide some contrast with real life, we covered a case last year where an Air BnB host put cameras in their house, and after being caught he was arrested, which is what you’d expect as a consequence.

[Shaun] 

It's not only comedies though. If you look at Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and movies like Deadpool, you'll see another variation on stalking, the “stalking for protection” trope. 

Buffy is stalked by both Angel and Spike at various times, and calls it out explicitly, but of course there is no meaningful consequence. In this case, it’s happening because they’re “trying to protect her” and this is used to justify the behavior. 

The same thing happens in Twilight, with Edward sneaking into Bella’s room to watch her sleep. His actions are framed as romantic, but of course the reality is that sneaking into someone’s room to watch them sleep is a severe violation of privacy, and it would make sense to call the police if that actually happened.

He also follows her around, claiming that he “feels protective of her”, and in one scene does protect her from being attacked.  The problem is that the audience is manipulated into overlooking the unacceptable fact that Edward is following her because he did in fact protect her in that case.

The truth here is that it's much more likely that the stalking behavior and harm are going to come from someone the victim knows, whether a former intimate partner, a co-worker, someone they have light contact with, such as at a restaurant, rather than some random stranger, but we’re still asked to overlook the behavior because it serves a greater purpose.

Another plot device often used is what we’ll call the “insider information” loophole. In this one, the audience is privy to some information that one of the characters is not, which creates a false justification for the stalker’s behavior, and makes the audience complicit in excusing actions that the victim doesn’t consent to or even know about. 

This device allows audiences to empathize with the stalker while erasing the victim’s perspective, reinforcing the idea that obsessive behavior is justified if it comes from love.

In 50 First Dates, we know, as the audience, that Adam Sandler’s character is stalking Drew Barrymore’s character, but it's portrayed as okay because of her condition where her memory resets every day. Similar to Andie McDowell in Groundhog Day – if the woman doesn’t know she’s being stalked, what’s the harm?

In Say Anything (a great example for so many reasons), when Diane breaks up with Lloyd, we the audience know that she did it because of pressure from her father, so when Lloyd shows up with his grand gesture with the boombox, standing outside her home blasting the Peter Gabriel song they first had sex to (which is wildly inappropriate) this inside knowledge blunts our feelings on his actions. 

We know that Diane didn’t really want to end it with him, so of course she must be okay with his persistence on some level. But, Lloyd doesn’t know that. She broke up with him and he’s doing creepy things. No one wants to be bothered by an ex like that. 

The same is true of The Notebook (maybe the best example of this because the story is told in reverse through flashbacks). We know the ending, and we know that Noah and Allie end up together, and in the end, Allie has dementia, so flashing back to the unhinged stalking behavior that Noah exhibits can more easily be written off. This one is fate, right? They ended up together! The ends justify the means!

PAUSE

[John]  

One approach you commonly see in Hollywood is “lampshading”. A Writer does this by explicitly calling out behavior within the script. A GREAT example of this is in the Netflix series “You” because we often hear the murderous protagonist’s inner dialogue acknowledging what he’s doing is stalking and seeming to admit that it’s wrong, but just doing it anyway.

Its usually a comical nod and a wink that doesnt change the behavior, and doesnt do anything to excuse it

The stalking in rom coms and comedies, is often normalized, but what about thrillers and horror movies like The Invisible Man and Sleeping with the Enemy? In movies like this, stalking is portrayed much more accurately complete with the effects of the stalking on the victim. 

In real life those can include fear, sleeplessness, PTSD, being forced to move, lack of ability to keep a job, among other things. 

Not to say that this sub genre doesnt have it’s issues. In the Netflix series You, the protagonist Joe is an accomplished stalker, manipulator, and murderer. We get frequent glimpses into his inner dialogue Dexter style in which he justifies his behavior because of fate, destiny, or love.

Even worse, like Dexter, Joe is extremely charming which helps the audience sympathize with this man no one should sympathize with.

In a  2016 study from the University of Michigan called “I did it because I never stopped loving you”, research suggested that women who watched movies like “There’s Something About Mary” which focus on that stalking pursuit behavior are more likely to be tolerant of this type of behavior than those who watch movies where the behavior is portrayed more frighteningly like “Sleeping with the enemy”.

A decade ago, in 2015 in Australia, an Indian security guard escaped going to jail after being arrested for stalking when his lawyer argued that his behavior was a by product of his love for Bollywood movies, where this is ALSO a huge problem.

Another infuriating aspect of the portrayal of stalking in Hollywood is what happens when the genders are reversed. When women pursue and stalk men in movies and TV, they’re almost always portrayed as unbalanced, and rarely is the trope used to make them more sympathetic.

A recent example of this is Baby Reindeer (which is great by the way) in which a man offers a woman who walks into his bar some kindness only to have her stalk him for years, following him, interfering in his relationships, and sending him thousands of text messages. 

Often times when the woman is the stalker, the inciting incident is a brief flirtation, or even a one night stand. Again, there are just too many examples to name, but a few are Swim Fan (stalking after a one night stand), Fatal Attraction (one night stand), and one of my favorites, “my super ex girlfriend”. If you havent seen that one, I kind of recommend it. In that one, Luke Wilson is dating Uma Thurman who turns out to be an actual superpowered hero who, when they break up gets increasingly erratic, using her superpowers to stalk and torment him. Think of this whole subgenre as the “psycho ex girlfriend” stories.

It’s truly rare to have a story where the woman plays the stalker role where she is treated sympathetically. Notable exceptions being things like Sleepless in Seattle, Legally Blonde, and My Best Friends Wedding, and youll note that when this DOES happen, the woman in question is often a megastar, someone who we already want to root for, like Meg Ryan, Reese Witherspoon, or Julia Roberts.

These portrayals in Hollywood create a problematic foundation for how society perceives stalking. But when we look at real-life cases, the consequences are far more devastating and far less romantic. Let’s talk about how this played out in the lives of people like Chappell Roan and Britney Spears.

[Shaun] 

These examples from movies and TV normalize the idea of a would-be, current, or former love interest relentlessly pursuing someone, and crossing that person’s boundaries into disturbing and potentially criminal behavior. When it comes to celebrities, our society has normalized fans pursuing information as well as contact and attention from people in the public eye. 

This summer, Chappell Roan, mega-star singer-songwriter, made headlines when she called out unwanted, creepy, and criminal behavior from her fans, which led her to hire security in order to feel safe in light of the harassment she had experienced. 

Chappel described what she had experienced as being “creepy”, “weird” and “predatory.” She provided multiple examples where fans crossed her boundaries, and what she described really goes beyond anything that I would consider typical fan behavior. 

She said she was berated in the airport by a man because she refused to give him an autograph. Fans have also kissed her without her consent and have followed her to her hotel room. 

Even more concerning, people have gone beyond harassing Chappel and have also made her family members targets of their obsession and disturbing behavior. Her father’s phone number was leaked online, fans discovered where her sister works and had even shown up at her parents’ house.

Chappell said, “If you saw a random woman on the street, would you yell at her from your car window? Would you harass her in public? Would you go up to a random lady and say, ‘Can I get a photo with you?’ and she’s like, ‘No, what the f*ck?’ and then you get mad at this random lady? Would you be offended if she says no?”

Roan was firm with her boundaries with fans and pleaded with them to stop saying, “Please stop touching me. Please stop being weird to my family and friends. I am scared and tired.”

[John] 

Chappell is right. The behavior of some of her fans is harassment and illegal, just like you wouldn’t yell at a random person on the street or demand a hug from a stranger. We shouldn’t normalize this behavior just because someone is in the public eye. 

Roan clearly stated that these boundaries have nothing to do with the gratitude and love she feels for her community, and she explained that she’s so grateful to everyone who’s supported her on her journey to stardom. 

Still, people called her ungrateful or stated this creepy and criminal behavior should be expected because she signed up for it and it’s a natural consequence of being famous. 

That, of course, is bullshit. 

[Shaun] 

Absolutely. Chappell was right on. She explained, “I don’t care that this crazy type of behavior comes along with the job, the career field I’ve chosen. That does not make it OK. That doesn’t make it normal. That doesn’t mean that I want it. That doesn’t mean that I like it.”

She also pointed out that society’s attitude toward this harassment of celebrities is part of a larger issue of our attitudes towards women generally. Chappell wrote that this behavior gets normalized because of the way well-known women have been treated in the past.

But she stated how every woman has felt how she feels about this unwanted attention. She wrote on Instagram “Women do not owe you a reason why they don’t want to be touched or talked to.” and “I’ve been in too many nonconsensual physical and social interactions and I just need to lay it out and remind you, women don’t owe you shit.” 

These issues are issues we seem to examine only when a celebrity ends up in a very dangerous situation. Selena Gomez and Sandra Bullock had terrifying encounters when stalkers broke into their homes. One I remember was when actress Rebecca Schaeffer was murdered in 1989. Her killer stalked her for 3 years before finding her home address and murdering her. She was only 21 years old. 

[John] 

Rebecca’s murder led to California passing the very first anti-stalking laws in the US in 1990, but despite the fact that these laws have existed for 35 years, stalking continues to be a pervasive problem, with more than 13 million people being stalked every year. 

Unlike celebrities, most of us can’t afford around-the-clock security to protect us not to mention that even when celebrities have security, they are still victimized and harassed. 

In 2022, Britney Spears was stalked and harassed by her ex-husband Jason Alexander. Many fans of Britney may recall her very brief marriage to Alexander. They got married in Vegas in 2004. Britney would later write in her memoir that the wedding was just innocent drunken fun. The marriage was annulled just a few days later.

Many years later, in 2016, Britney met Sam Asghari and the two fell in love & got engaged. Their wedding date was set for June 9, 2022 and was set to take place in Britney’s home in Los Angeles. 

On the wedding day, Alexander managed to sneak on to Britney’s property. He was live-streaming his break-in, and was even able to get inside the wedding tent that was set up in her yard. He announced during the recording that he was her first husband and he was looking to crash the wedding. 

He was able to get inside her house, but Britney was locked inside her bedroom getting ready, and thankfully, he was stopped by armed security when he tried to break into her room with a box cutter in his pocket. 

Security detained him until the police arrived. He was arrested and charged with felony stalking. 

Understandably, Britney was frightened and shaken by the incident. Her agent, Cade Hudson, described her as “distraught, crying, shaking, and panicked.” She left her home briefly in order to calm down, before returning for the ceremony and celebration. 

Alexander had trespassed on Britney’s property twice in the two weeks leading up to the wedding. 

He ended up taking a plea deal to a misdemeanor and was sentenced to time served — which was 64 days. 

His defense attorney said, “Mr. Alexander’s intent was to talk to Britney, to check on her wellbeing, to make sure that this was what she really wanted, not to place her in fear.” 

What happened reminds me of the final scene in the graduate where Dustin Hoffman’s character bursts in on Katherine Ross’s character’s wedding, and with a grand gesture, fights off the wedding party and “saves” her from her wedding. The final scene of that movie is very problematic, and it does seem like Alexander was hoping for something similar when he crashed Brittney’s wedding day.

[Shaun] 

The final story of celebrity harassment and stalking that we wanted to touch on is Kanye “Ye” West and Kim Kardashian.

I want to mention that Kanye legally changed his name to Ye. I’m not just calling him that as if we are bffs. 

In 2021 and 2022, when Ye and Kim were going through their divorce, the details of what they were going through were very public. Ye himself posted on social media numerous times about the situation.

When one of their daughters turned 4 in January of 2022, Ye made a public video claiming that he wasn’t allowed to know where her birthday party was and alleging that Kim was keeping him from seeing his children. He was later seen at the party – allegedly Travis Scott gave him the address. It’s unclear if Ye was creating rumors or drama, but it’s clear to me that he was at best harassing her and possibly even stalking her. 

It’s nearly impossible to know where the truth is with that. When you are talking about a family like the Kardashians where their special events are heavily promoted for public consumption, it’s not clear if the Kardashians would want the negative press and attention by having Ye publicly removed from the party, proving the things he said about Kim to be true. 

And I am sure that Kim wouldn’t want to see her daughter’s birthday ruined by creating further conflict and drama. 

[John] 

Absolutely. Did Kim tell him to stay away? And if she did, did she have good reason to do that? Did she cave and let him attend to avoid even more negative press and drama? With reality TV creators, it’s very hard to know.

This wasn’t the only time Kanye harassed Kim. He actually bought the house across the street from her that same January. On Valentine's Day 2022, he sent a truckload of roses to her.

He made her the subject of many social media posts, which he later deleted – claiming that he was just trying to save his marriage and fight for their relationship. 

In reality, he was harassing and stalking her and her new boyfriend, Pete Davidson. 

He encouraged fans to yell in Davidson’s face. In his song “The Game” he rapped that God had saved him from a car crash, “just so I could beat Pete Davidson’s ass.” His music video for “Eazy” showed him kidnapping and burying a Claymation Pete. 

Sadly, many of his fans did not find any issues with his behavior. 

Kim pleaded with him to stop because his behavior was hurtful and causing more harm, and possibly putting Pete in real danger. He posted screenshots of those conversations, even though Kim asked him not to. 

While he later deleted many of those posts and videos, that doesn't change that their relationship ended, and he continued to harass and stalk his ex-wife and her new partner.

Regardless of how you feel about Kim Kardashian, she didn’t deserve this treatment. No one does.

[Shaun] 

You and I talked about what Trevor Noah had to say about Kim and Ye. He observed that Kim is a woman who wants to live her life without being harassed. 

Trevor said, “You may not feel sorry for Kim because she’s rich and famous, because of the way she dresses, because she appropriates Black culture, because she tells women they’re lazy, broke the internet and then didn’t put it back together, whatever, you hate her. But what she’s going through is terrifying to watch, and it shines a spotlight on what so many women go through when they choose to leave.”

You have someone as wealthy and influential as Kim Kardashian enduring this criminal and frightening behavior and trying to cope with it or get it to stop, but she fails. On top of that, you see the world enable his harassment – ignore it and minimize it - and even tell her she should be grateful for his grand gestures and love bombing. 

These messages get received by other victims and survivors of stalking and abuse, and reinforce the themes and scenarios we see playing out in the media.

When women with money and influence can’t find peace and safety, when the systems and laws we have in place can’t protect them, what hope does that leave for the rest of us? 

One of our goals of Sins & Survivors is to take a look at how some of these larger issues we have in our society and culture lead to domestic violence and affect the attitudes and views people have about victims and survivors and these crimes of interpersonal violence. 

[John] 

We need to keep working together to find solutions and talk about these issues in depth whenever they arise. 

There isn’t an easy solution to any of this, but this month we’ve been sharing resources that can help if you’ve been experiencing stalking. 

Professionals, advocates, and people experiencing stalking or anyone concerned about a loved one being stalked can visit the SPARC website to learn more.

You can visit sinspod.co/stalkingawareness to find those resources

You can also call your local domestic violence hotline or any of the resources we have on our website and in our show notes.

And a quick reminder that you can text START to 88788 to text with the National Hotline as well. 

If you’re enjoying the podcast, please share it with a friend, and leave us a review on whatever platform you’re listening on. That really helps us grow the show and get these stories out more widely. 

You can also support us by visiting sinspod.co/subscribe and joining our patreon or subscribing with apple podcasts, we really appreciate the support. 

Until next week we remind you that what happens here happens everywhere.