Top 30 Obnoxious Celebrities Getting Owned

#30: David Cameron

People from all sides of the political spectrum can’t stand David Cameron. There are a few reasons why, but one of the biggest is the fact that he resigned right after the Brexit referendum. Cameron’s side lost, so he decided to quit rather than deal with the consequences. One of the most brutal interviews he had was surprisingly on “The One Show.” Back in 2011, right as his appearance was concluding, host Matt Baker asked him a remarkably bold question. Both Cameron and co-host Alex Jones were completely shocked, leading the former Prime Minister to give a pretty lackluster response.

#29: Jamie Oliver

In the 2000s, celebrity chef Oliver began a highly publicized war on unhealthy school dinners. His heart was in the right place, but his execution earned him a lot of criticism. One of the most hilarious examples was when he got embarrassed by a bunch of children he was trying to help. He made the effort of showing them how processed chicken nuggets are made. In the end, the kids weren’t bothered; they still wanted to munch nuggets. Another time, he was shown up by Julie Critchlow, a working-class woman who schooled him on how expensive his recipes really were. She even passed burgers through a school fence to her children in protest of his changes.

#28: David Baddiel

Few “Taskmaster” contestants are as polarising as Baddiel. He was terrible at almost all the tasks he was given. This eventually culminated in Ed Gamble roasting him when they were on a team together. It’s easy to see why people were fed up with him, as he’s basically useless at the drawing challenge. In the end, Baddiel came in last place by a hefty margin. First place had 167 points, the next three in the 150s, then Baddiel didn’t even hit 130. They’ve not invited him back since, and it’s probably because so many viewers find him infuriating.

#27: Jack Whitehall

Another comedian with polarising opinions is Whitehall. He’s famous for being typecast as a stereotypically posh person, like in “Fresh Meat.” Most of these characters are intended to be irritating, but Whitehall behaves like that outside of acting. This makes his awkward interaction with Johnny Borrell pretty satisfying. Whitehall hosted “Never Mind the Buzzcocks,” where it came out that Borrell used to date his sister. He tried to steer away from the conversation, but the rest of the panel was eager to embarrass him. It’s one of the few times Whitehall pokes fun at himself, but looks genuinely a bit upset about the incident.

#26: Taylor Swift

Views of this exceedingly famous pop icon will be pretty different depending on who you ask. A lot of her fans think she’s the greatest musician alive, but countless individuals will say the opposite. Noel Gallagher of Oasis happens to be in the latter camp. In October 2025, he publicly roasted the singer-songwriter, stating he thought only her parents think she’s talented. Additionally, he said no one he knows is a fan. This statement gets confusing when you learn that his brother, Liam, is quite a big fan of Swift. So, even though the pair reunited before these statements, they’re not friendly enough to chat about favorite pop stars.

#25: Laurence Fox

Years ago, Fox was a respected actor. Now, he lands little to no roles on account of his frequent controversies. He’s got into quite a lot of legal issues; for instance, in 2025, he was charged with a sexual offence for sharing a revealing photo of a broadcaster. In 2020, he was invited onto “Question Time,” where he made some outlandish statements. The topic of Meghan and Harry came up, which escalated into a heated debate. The media called it a “racism row,” and soon after, he was dropped by his agency for his comments.

#24: Sarah Ferguson

The fact that Fergie isn’t the most hated Royal highlights how poor her ex-husband, Andrew, is at PR. Perceptions of Fergie have grown increasingly negative over the years. This is primarily due to her association with Jeffrey Epstein. In 2011, she escaped bankruptcy with assistance from Epstein. Emails between the two were released in 2025, in which she called the convicted sex offender a “steadfast, generous and supreme friend.” Other emails also revealed she celebrated his first release from prison. She been axed from “Loose Women” and “This Morning” because of it. More scathing is the fact that she no longer uses her title, the Duchess of York.

#23: Jedward

Barely anyone is hating on these Irish twins today, but in the early 2010s, they seemed unavoidable. Their exceedingly high-energy personas got on a lot of people’s nerves. At one point, they were invited onto the famously savage show, “Never Mind the Buzzcocks.” Host Jack Dee and Phil Jupitus found them so annoying that they kept screaming at them to shut up. Apparently, Dee was so ruthless towards them that they ended up crying. The editors had to carefully remove these scenes, and by the episode’s conclusion, even Dee felt like he had gone a bit too far.

#22: Jeremy Vine

If you tune into Radio 2, you’ll be more than familiar with Jeremy Vine, who hosts the lunchtime show. For years, he’s been a major advocate for cycling, which has made him pretty hated by the public. He began making videos of his cycling adventures, but unfortunately for him, people were constantly insulting him. When he has a traffic accident, he can be pretty aggressive towards drivers. People even accused him of refusing to accept responsibility for his mistakes in these accidents. Eventually, getting constantly harassed on bike rides became too much for him, so he quit the cycling videos completely.

#21: Liz Truss

Few politicians are so catastrophically unskilled that they can unite people from all across the political spectrum against them. Truss seemed to be the master at this, as she was hated by not just her political opponents, but also her own party. She got owned by being the shortest-serving Prime Minister in British history. After 49 days, she resigned because of the immense hate towards her. Hilariously, one of the most memorable things about her rule is the fact that she was outlasted by a lettuce. A couple of years later, a banner showing a picture of a lettuce, captioned “I crashed the economy,” appeared behind her on stage. She was outraged, claimed it wasn’t funny, then stormed off stage.

#20: Jimmy Carr

Fair play to Jimmy Carr, in the wake of his massive tax avoidance scandal in 2012, he went on that week’s “8 Out of 10 Cats” and opened himself up to all manner of abuse from the panellists. He sat there and took everything they threw at him, and in the years since, has even advocated against himself and his tax-dodging antics. Considering he’d also made jokes about tax avoidance before this all came out, the public humiliation was even more thorough. As soon as it came to light, he withdrew from the scheme he’d been using – which was unwise, but not illegal – and returned the £500,000 he owed to the public purse.

#19: Boris Johnson

Is he a celebrity? Well, he certainly wants to be, and he’s been attacked in public many times over the years. That’s part and parcel of being a politician, but there are plenty of memorable instances of Boris, in particular, being called out more than the others. His many appearances on “Have I Got News For You” have left him at the mercy of the country’s top comedians and satirists, while even his resignation speech wasn’t allowed to go by without mockery. A pro-EU activist set up camp outside Downing Street with a speaker playing “Bye, Bye, Boris”, a Tory-themed cover of “Bye, Bye, Baby”, which could be heard on the television broadcast.

#18: James Corden

We love to hate him, and for good reason. Many times, Corden has been called out in public: there was Ricky Gervais pointing out that Corden had nicked a joke from him; there were stories that he didn’t pay his writers properly; and there was the incident where he was extremely rude to service workers. But, we’re talking about the time he was sternly told off by none other than Sir Patrick Stewart, at Glamour Magazine’s Women of the Year awards back in 2010. Stewart called him out for looking like he didn’t even want to be there, and for not taking his job seriously. At the time, people supported Corden, but in hindsight, we know just what kind of person he is.

#17: Paul McCartney

The truth about how and why the Beatles split up is complicated, to say the least, but a lot of people would argue that McCartney has more blame than the others. The band largely broke up because they disagreed about who should manage them – Allen Klein or the Eastmans. Eighteen years later, the former Beatles were having business trouble again, and things got so intense that, in 1988, McCartney refused to attend the band’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Barbs were made at his expense, with George Harrison lamenting that McCartney didn’t show up, while Yoko Ono said that if John could have been there, he would have – unlike McCartney.

#16: Gary Neville

For years in the run-up to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, there was controversy. Not only over how Qatar was able to win the bid, but over its atrocious record on human rights. Then, all eyes were on the pundits at the BBC, and whether they’d put their money where their mouths are and refuse to attend. Ultimately, very few of them were brave enough, and that included Gary Neville, who found himself in an argument with Ian Hislop when he hosted “Have I Got News For You”. Neville tried to defend himself for commentating on the matches despite speaking out against Qatar, only to be embarrassed by Hislop and Merton for his hypocrisy.

#15: Joey Barton

From one footballer to another, in early 2024, Joey Barton made headlines for his comments about female football commentators. Only two months after being sacked by Bristol Rovers, Barton took at aim at Eni Aluko, bizarrely comparing her to Fred and Rose West for daring to commentate on the men’s game. This is the same Eni Aluko who boasts more than 100 caps for England, versus Barton’s 1. Fans were divided, but many said that, if female commentators know just as much about the game, they should be able to commentate. Given the massive popularity of the Lionesses after achieving victory in the Euros and reaching the semi-finals in the Women’s World Cup, this has been catastrophic for Barton.

#14: Richard Dawkins

Atheist-in-chief Richard Dawkins embarrassed himself on Twitter back in 2021, by making a very ill-conceived tweet about Kafka’s “Metamorphosis”. He wrote about how he couldn’t take “ Metamorphosis” seriously, saying it’s “bad science-fiction”, unlike “Animal Farm”, in his words. He was royally mocked, with people recommending children’s books to him instead, since he was struggling to comprehend Kafka and, indeed, erroneously calling “Animal Farm” a science-fiction novel, too – which, anyone will tell you, it absolutely isn’t. Maybe he just prefers reading a book about sentient pigs creating a society to a book about a sentient beetle becoming a victim of it.

#13: Rebekah Vardy

You could easily argue that Rebekah Vardy and Coleen Rooney were BOTH obnoxious, and that neither of them came out of this scandal smelling of roses. But it was Vardy who brought the court case against Rooney, and Vardy who spectacularly lost after messages emerged that appeared to show that she was, undoubtedly, doing everything Rooney had accused her of. The court transcripts were made into a drama by Channel 4 alarmingly quickly, further embarrassing Vardy and making us wonder why she ever thought going to court was a good idea. The icing on the cake was Rooney getting a book deal and multiple documentaries out of the scandal when she emerged victorious.

#12: Russell Brand

Sadly, we don’t have any footage of this incident that likely happened between Russell Brand and Katherine Ryan on the set of “Roast Battle”. Ryan and Brand were both judges on the first series, but Brand never returned for series 2, and some have speculated that this was why. Ryan made repeated remarks about Brand’s alleged “victims”, as well as his high-profile divorce from Katy Perry – comments he was so enraged about that they weren’t aired in the show. This all surfaced after many credible allegations against Brand came out in late 2023, including other remarks made by Ryan about a known predator in the industry – though, she’s never confirmed who she was talking about.

#11: Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor

Perhaps Andrew owned himself with this one, as he starred in one of the most bizarre episodes of BBC “Newsnight” ever put on television. Hoping to rehabilitate his image after it came out he was friends with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, he let Emily Maitlis question him, asking about the allegations. His defence went viral, as he claimed that the allegations had to be a lie, because he was physically unable to sweat after suffering an adrenaline overdose in the Falklands. He also infamously said that, on the night in question, he couldn’t have been up to no good, because he was at a birthday party in a Pizza Express in Woking. Considering he lost most of his honours in 2025, something tells us his excuse didn’t hold much water!

#10: Simon Cowell

David Walliams has made his career telling jokes that go close to the line, sometimes crossing it entirely. This was clear when he decided to take the music industry’s most influential figure to task on “Britain’s Got More Talent.” The judges were asked a series of questions by Stephen Mulhern, including which one of them – after Simon – is the most powerful judge. Walliams wrote a joke about Simon having slept with fellow judge Amanda Holden, which Simon thought was a step too far. But it’s always funny when Simon Cowell gets brought down a peg or two.

#9: JK Rowling

In 2020, JK Rowling made headlines after vocally and repeatedly criticising transgender rights movements. The scandal began after she corrected an article that used the phrase “people who menstruate” to be inclusive of trans men and non-binary people, which she believed was insulting to women. After receiving a torrent of backlash, she responded to fellow author Stephen King when he retweeted her thanking him for his support. King later said to a different twitter user that he believes “trans women are women”, leading Rowling to completely delete her praise of him and pretend it didn’t happen. Of course, the moment was immortalized by those who managed to take screenshots before the dirty delete happened.

#8: Preston

Don’t go on a comedy panel show if you can’t take a joke; Preston from The Ordinary Boys learnt this the hard way in an appearance on “Never Mind the Buzzcocks” in 2007. Host Simon Amstell decided to make fun of Preston’s then-wife Chantelle Houghton by reading a few choice extracts from her autobiography. Preston walked off the show in response and a member of the audience who looked a bit like him was brought on as a replacement. With viewers firmly on Amstell’s side, Preston definitely made a fool of himself – and on top of that, he and Houghton broke up just six months later.

#7: The “Top Gear” Team

Stewart Lee is easily one of the country’s most legendary comedians, but he’s said plenty of controversial things in his time – including a long rant he went on during a live tour against the team of “Top Gear.” Lee talked at length about his dislike of Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond, including taking shots at Hammond’s near-fatal car crash. But though their careers are still going strong, Lee was ahead of the curve in his criticism; he said they were bullies and called them out for often making offensive jokes. Finally, in 2015, Clarkson was fired from presenting after attacking one of the show’s producers, making Lee even more vindicated.

#6: Gillian McKeith

Vegetarian nutritionist Gillian McKeith was one of the most infamous contestants ever to go into the jungle. Her behaviour in the trials meant she was the public’s first pick in numerous votes, and she had to find increasingly extreme ways to dodge them. This culminated with her epic fainting fit after being voted to do yet another trial. She collapsed and medics were brought on to tend to her, with Ant and Dec quickly going to an ad break. Immediately, she was accused of faking her collapse just to get out of the trial, lambasted not only by the public but also by fellow contestants; in 2019, Nadine Coyle hilariously copied Gillian’s fainting fit.

#5: Katie Hopkins

The country’s most-hated public figure and journalist, Katie Hopkins has been causing scandals from the beginning. While more recently she made headlines by being permanently banned from Twitter and getting tricked into receiving a fake award by YouTube prankster Josh Pieters, her most famous moment came during an argument on “This Morning.” She was on the show to defend her decision to prevent her kids from befriending other children, based on whether their names sounded working class. Though she was already called a snob for this, she dug herself even deeper by saying she hates geographical names, prompting Phillip Schofield to point out that her daughter is called India.

#4: Bill Maher

Christopher Hitchens built much of his career on taking down public figures and debate opponents, destroying their arguments with so-called “Hitchslaps.” He certainly didn’t pull any punches when he made this appearance on “Real Time with Bill Maher.” During a political debate, Maher tries to counter Hitchens’ points about Iran by criticizing the Bush Administration as well, which gets raucous applause from Maher’s audience. Hitchens swears at and flips off the audience and says the spectators are “frivolous.” He continues by calling out commentators like Maher for making easy jokes about Bush’s IQ as opposed to substantial criticism.

#3: Piers Morgan

One of the most divisive journalists in the world, people have been mocking Piers Morgan for his entire career – and co-anchor Susanna Reid is famously no exception. When he decided to rant about seeing friends and family members moan about politics on Facebook and how sometimes he needs a break from current events, Susanna turned the tables and reminded him that this is how she feels every day. The clip went viral and was shared by various celebrities siding with Susanna, including Stephen Fry and Don Cheadle, prompting Piers to show a tragic re-edit of the scene on “GMB”.

#2: Donny Tourette

Towers of London’s Donny Tourette didn’t entirely realise that he was being made fun of by the show’s resident comedians. Simon Amstell and Bill Bailey take plenty of digs at him, and most sail straight over his head. Tourette’s bad attitude as a washed-up punk is constantly mocked by the panellists, and he even resorts to insulting the audience on more than one occasion. He tries to outwit Amstell and Bailey with little success and spends much of the show smoking and wearing sunglasses indoors. It’s almost sad that Donny still thinks he has the upper hand, complaining at the end of the show that Phill’s team should have won.

#1: Gal Gadot & Friends

Just days into widespread quarantines in the US celebrities already saw fit to try and lift everyone’s spirits. Inspired by a trumpeter playing John Lennon’s “Imagine” on his balcony in Italy, Gal Gadot led the charge in making a montage of famous faces doing their own cover; they sang the melody out of time and without any music. Just days later, Joe Lycett enlisted some of the UK’s best-known comedians to parody the video, changing keywords in the song to “bastards.” There were appearances from Katherine Ryan, Rob Beckett, Harry Hill, Nish Kumar and Noel Fielding to name a few. Everyone saw through the original’s hollow gesture.

Were there any examples of celebrities who get on your nerves getting owned that we didn’t mention? Let us know in the comments below!