Everyone has bad days, but for celebrities, their bad days sometimes happen while on set.
Several stars have made headlines for storming off the sets of TV shows and movies over the years, including Kelly Rowland. The actress and singer reportedly left the Today set right before she was set to guest host an episode of Today With Hoda and Jenna after having an issue with her dressing room.
At the time, it was also speculated that Rowland exited the set after Savannah Guthrie asked her several questions about her former Destiny’s Child bandmate Beyoncé during a Today interview earlier that morning.
Emma Watson, meanwhile, reportedly walked off the set of 2013’s This Is the End for refusing to film a scene involving Danny McBride playing a cannibal walking Channing Tatum on a leash.
“I mean, I don’t look back on that and think, ‘How dare she do that?’ You know?” the film’s star and cowriter Seth Rogen told GQ in May 2021. “I think sometimes when you read something, when it comes to life it doesn’t seem to be what you thought it was.”
Rogen went on to clarify that, despite the creative differences, Watson returned to the set to say goodbye to the cast and crew and helped promote the apocalypse comedy ahead of its release. “No hard feelings,” he added.
Keep scrolling to see other stars who have walked off sets over the years:
Kelly Rowland
Following her Today dressing room debacle, Rowland’s rep, Yvette Noel-Schure, spoke out in favor of the star’s character. “After 28 years of knowing her, Kelly Rowland remains one of the kindest, most amiable humans I have ever met and have had the blessing to represent,” Noel-Schure told Entertainment Tonight in February 2024.
The rep did not elaborate on the reason behind Rowland’s Today departure, which resulted in Rita Ora filling in for her role as a Today With Hoda and Jenna guest host on two minutes’ notice.
“I have great love and admiration for Kelly Rowland,” Hoda Kotb said in reaction to the incident. “I adore her, and I want her to come back on our show, and I want her to host again.”
Guthrie, for her part, joked that Rowland’s exit was the wake-up call the show needed to upgrade its dressing rooms.
“We are in a historic studio, 1A. It’s the same studio that has been used for decades. It’s incredible and it’s iconic, but it’s old,” she told Entertainment Tonight later that month.
Jenelle Evans
A source exclusively told Us Weekly in April 2019 that Evans “stormed off [set] for a few minutes and then returned” while filming the Teen Mom 2 season 9 reunion, adding, “Jenelle hung in despite some bumpiness.”
The episode, which aired in September 2013, saw the MTV reality star walk off stage twice while arguing with her ex, Nathan Griffin, and her mother, Barbara Evans.
Teresa Giudice
The Bravo star has removed herself from the set of several Real Housewives of New Jersey reunions.
She famously ran into a bathroom after being asked questions about her legal issues during the show’s season 6 reunion in November 2014. Cameras did not follow Giudice into the bathroom, though she was heard via her microphone saying, “I don’t want to be out there for that conversation.” (Giudice went to prison in January 2015 after pleading guilty to fraud charges and was released that December.)
Giudice’s family feud with brother Joe Gorga and sister-in-law Melissa Gorga came to a head during the show’s season 13 episode. Following an argument, Giudice told the couple, “Don’t come following me!” before leaving the set in tears.
Outside of the show, Teresa famously exited a 2016 live interview with Access Hollywood after refusing to answer a question about whether her then-husband, Joe Giudice, would be facing deportation upon his prison release. (Joe was deported to Italy in 2019 after serving 41 months behind bars.)
Joaquin Phoenix
Scarlett Johansson revealed in October 2022 that her former costar walked off the set of 2013’s Her while filming their “bizarre” orgasm scene. “We tried to get through one take, and he was like, losing it,” she shared on an episode of the “Armchair Expert” podcast. “He left the studio. He needed a break.”
Johansson, for her part, called the scene “gross,” adding, “You definitely don’t want to hear what you sound like having an orgasm. You definitely don’t want to hear what you sound like having a fake orgasm — ew.”
Joker director Todd Phillips told The New York Times in October 2019 that Phoenix would often make abrupt exits during production on the DC Comics film. “In the middle of the scene, he’ll just walk away and walk out,” he told the outlet. “And the poor other actor thinks it’s them and it was never them — it was always him, and he just wasn’t feeling it.”
Emma Watson
Rogen took to X in March 2021 to clarify the story behind Watson’s departure from the This Is the End set. “The scene was not what was originally scripted, it was getting improvised, changed drastically and was not what she agreed to,” he explained. “The narrative that she was in some way uncool or unprofessional is complete bulls—t.”
He went on to write that he “should have communicated better and because I didn’t, she was put in an uncomfortable position,” adding, “She and I spoke on the night; it was over a s—tty situation and it must have been hard for her to say something and I’m very happy and impressed that she did.”
Rogen ended his message with an apology, stating, “I am very sorry and disappointed it happened, and I wish I had done more to prevent it.”
Jean-Claude Van Damme
The Belgium native stormed out on an interview on an Australian morning show in July 2016.
“Those interviews you are giving me on TV right now, they are very boring because the questions are very boring,” he said on camera. “It’s difficult for me to answer those questions so I start to sweat, I don’t feel good because they are boring and I knew this. OK, next question. You have something interesting to ask me?”
Upon standing up to leave and use the restroom, he quipped, “What the f—k is going on with Australia?”
Mike ‘The Situation’ Sorrentino
The Jersey Shore star told Us in October 2010 that he exited the set of Dancing With the Stars after receiving bad scores from the judges. “I don’t know what their deal was, I really don’t know,” he stated. “I was upset. I actually stormed off upset because I tried so hard. I really did. I changed my haircut, I don’t know.”
He noted that he was confused by the judges’ critiques after he pulled off some impressive lifts with his dance partner, Karina Smirnoff, during their routine. “Once I landed all those lifts and the judges were trashing me? I’ll be honest with you, it was in one ear and out the other,” he said. “In the back of my head, I knew those lifts were extremely hard. I tried my best, and if they didn’t see it and wanted to be negative, so be it.” (The season 9 competitors ultimately landed in ninth place.)
Nicolas Cage
Cage stormed off the set of 2023’s The Old Way after the film’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, fired live amo multiple times without warning.
“Make an announcement, you just blew my f—king eardrums out!” Cage reportedly told the crew member before angrily walking away, the movie’s key grip Stu Brumbaugh told The Wrap in October 2021. (Gutierrez-Reed also served as the armorer on the set of the movie Rust, which resulted in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and the injury of director Joel Souza after Alec Baldwin fired a prop weapon during filming.)
Mel B
During an August 2017 episode of America’s Got Talent, the Spice Girls singer threw water and walked off stage after fellow judge Simon Cowell made an insensitive joke about her relationship with ex-husband Stephen Belafonte.
“I kind of imagine this would be like Mel B’s wedding night. A lot of anticipation, not much promise or delivery,” Cowell said of a magic act gone wrong. At the time, Mel B was in the middle of her divorce from Belafonte, whom she was married to from 2007 to 2017.
Joan Rivers
Rivers faced criticism from CNN’s Fredricka Whitfield for making “very mean” comments about celebrities’ outfits on Fashion Police during a July 2014 interview. Rivers walked out of the interview after Whitfield proceeded to question her choice to wear a fur coat on the cover of her book, Diary of a Diva.
“You know what, I’m going. I’m really going because all you’ve done is negative,” she stated. “I’ve made people laugh for 50 years. I was put on Earth to make people laugh and my book is funny.”
Paris Hilton
Hilton’s response to being asked if her “moment” of fame was over during a July 2011 ABC News interview was to get up and leave.
She followed up the moment by telling reporter Dan Harris, “I’ve been in this business for 15 years now, so it’s been a very long time. And just like any other business person or someone in the industry, it’s always important to reinvent yourself and come up with new projects.”
Patrick Stewart
Stewart credited his theater background as the reason he had a tantrum on the set of Star Trek: the Next Generation.
“I grew angry with the conduct of my peers, and that’s when I called that meeting in which I lectured the cast for goofing off and responded to Denise Crosby‘s, ‘We’ve got to have some fun sometimes, Patrick,’ comment by saying, ‘We are not here, Denise, to have fun,’” he wrote in his October 2023 book, Making It So: A Memoir.
He continued: “In retrospect, everyone, me included, finds this story hilarious. But, in the moment, when the cast erupted in hysterics at my pompous declaration, I didn’t handle it well. I didn’t enjoy being laughed at. I stormed off the set and into my trailer, slamming the door.”
Sharon Stone
Italian film director Pupi Avati recalled Stone leaving set while filming the final scene of 2014’s A Golden Boy because of a TV cameraman on set. “She immediately disappeared. We looked for her everywhere, but nothing!” he told The Hollywood Reporter in September 2014. “Then my brother received a phone call from Los Angeles from her manager: she wouldn’t come back on the set until the photographers and especially that damned TV cameramen had gone away. Obviously we did so and she, like nothing happened, shot the scene.”
Carl Weathers
While filming a Rocky IV fight scene with Dolph Lundgren, the late actor reportedly left set for four days due to his costar aggressiveness.
“I like Carl,” Lundgren told Yahoo! Entertainment of Weathers in November 2020. “But I’d worked out with [Sylvester Stallone] for five months before the picture. So, I knew him pretty well. And I was a fighter, a karate champion from Europe and I think when Carl showed up, he was like, ‘I’m gonna have to fight this guy? He seems like he’s the real thing.’ I didn’t dislike anybody on that set but I think he got a little scared of me.”
Chevy Chase
Prior to his 2012 exit from NBC’s Community, Chase reportedly walked off set while filming the season 4 finale due to a feud with show creator Dan Harmon. According to Deadline, Harmon dissed Chase at the show’s season 4 wrap party, after which Chase left him a profanity-filled voicemail. In the message, Chase credited his exit to not receiving script pages before filming. Chase’s character, Pierce Hawthorne, was killed off the following season.
Diana Rigg
The late Game of Thrones star once arrived on set of the HBO series to film a scene before the crew had finished setting up. “She interrupted [a crew member] and said, ‘Roll the cameras!’ And she just started doing her lines,” costar Jessica Henwick told Entertainment Weekly in September 2020. “She did two takes, and then the guy came over and was like, ‘Great, now we’re going to do a close-up.’ And she just stood up and she went, ‘I’m done!'”
Henwick went on to joke, “Now, she can’t walk fast. She has to be helped. So basically we just sat there and watched as Diana Rigg effectively did her own version of storming off the set, but it was at 0.1 miles per hour. She cracked me up. I loved her.”
James Caan
The late actor stormed off the set of the movie Nailed, later titled Accidental Love, after director David O. Russell asked him to cough and pretend to choke to death at the same time, according to Entertainment Weekly. After shooting the scene both ways, Caan left the project in August 2020.
Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
Mastrantonio walked off the set of 1989’s the Abyss while filming a scene in which her costar Ed Harris attempts to save her character’s life. “I was slapping her across the face and I see that they’ve run out of film in the camera—there’s a light on the camera—and nobody had said anything,” he explained to Entertainment Weekly in November 2016. “And Mary Elizabeth stood up and said, ‘We are not animals!’ and walked off the set. They were going to let me just keep slapping her around!”
