365 days of the year, celebrities are talking. They’re talking about their upcoming movies (because they’re paid to), their relationships (because we demand it), and their beef with other celebrities (because sometimes gossip is good). But this year, it seemed like celebrities were running particularly loose to promote strike-delayed projects in a still pandemically scarred and restless entertainment industry. Dakota Johnson did two press tours for Madame Web and Loser Baby! Katt Williams aired it all out in an interview! Justin Timberlake got arrested in Sag Harbor! With all the celebrities working overtime, we actually lost track of Kate Middleton for a little bit. Looking back at the memorable quotes from rich and famous and mic’d up, these are a few that defined a month and eventually became nestled deep within our psyches to rest. That is, until they are one day summoned back up by an intrepid documentarian of pop culture or an ambitious Netflix Christmas-movie title-sequence designer.
January
“He did four comedy specials. They’re so bad, Shannon, they’re not available on Netflix or Tubi.†—Katt Williams
On January 3, 2024, Katt Williams broke the World Wide Web during an appearance on Club Shay Shay. His interview with Shannon Sharpe became the most-watched interview in YouTube history for very good reason. The conversation is so sprawling that it’s almost impossible to pick any one quote to reflect on, but his review of Cedric the Entertainer’s four comedy specials is so vicious that it felt like the obvious standout. Rivaled only by this read of Steve Harvey: “They just tell the stories: ‘Thanks to my wife, I’m where I am.’ You said that about the first wife! You forget that? You told us it was her. Then you went and married somebody else that ‘think like a man.’ What are you talking about?â€
Runners up:
“Who gives a shit that it was two Italians back to back… I’m like, ‘It’s two! It’s two Italians!’ It’s just two.†—Adam Driver, on having played two Italians back to back. It’s just two.
“There is this man, he owns a bus-touring company, his name is Buddy, and he is such an asshole and he was so disrespectful to my friends Priscilla and Bella, who I work with, and to my mother. If you’re watching this, I can’t stand you and I hope your business burns. You are so disrespectful and so misogynistic. I hate you.†—Reneé Rapp, addressing a personal beef with a bus-company owner in a viral clip from her Mean Girls press tour.
February
“But isn’t any sentence out of context, out of context?†—Dakota Johnson
@huffpostuk Madame Web star Dakota Johnson reacts to viral trailer line ðŸ•·ï¸ #MadameWeb #DakotaJohnson #dakotajohnsonedit #dakotajohnsonfan #spiderman
♬ original sound - HuffPost UK
When Dakota Johnson says things, the world listens. When one of Johnson’s lines from the Madam Web trailer went viral, one intrepid interviewer decided to go ahead and ask her about it. This was a brilliant move because it got her to say even more things. Johnson grilled the interviewer on why the line was viral, showcasing her main superpower: You can’t embarrass Dakota Johnson. She stood her ground on the bad, overly expository line (which was later cut from the movie!), continuing the sense that this would not be a year in which the celebrities suffer fools.
Runner up:
“Somebody had to do it!†—Larry David, after physically attacking Elmo on live television in front of his own father.
March
“Thank you personally for all the wonderful messages of support and for your understanding, whilst I’ve been recovering from surgery.†—Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales
When Kate Middleton went on an extended leave from her job of walking around in pretty coats and then started releasing photos of her oddly Photoshopped children, even Stephen Colbert joined in on the conspiracies and speculation. But the worldwide gossip sesh came to a screeching halt one March morning when the princess sat herself down on a bench, stared down the barrel of a camera, and thanked the public for their support and understanding as she revealed she had been diagnosed with cancer, unleashing a level of passive aggression only accessible to principal members of the British royal family.
Runners up:
“Who loves Anna Wintour? I think she’s the C-word… [vomit noise in response to Ellen DeGeneres’s name]†—Sharon Osbourne, sharing some thoughts in the Big Brother UK house
“I wasn’t super-familiar with either of their work.†—Victoria Pedretti (You, season 2) on working with Michael Imperioli (The Sopranos) and Jeremy Strong (Succession)
April
“Give him my regards did you take Ozempic?†—Barbara Streisand
Now this isn’t a quote said out loud, but one can assume Streisand dictates her text into her phone. In response to Melissa McCarthy posting a photo of herself and her husband on Instagram, Streisand asked the question on everyone’s mind, without even using a comma to separate the independent clause. Babs would later apologize and explain she simply forgot Instagram comments were public.Â
Runner up:
“I think he’s well named. Joaquin … wackeen … wacky. It’s a sort of wacky performance.†—Brian Cox on Joaquin Phoenix’s work in Napoleon.
May
“Writing is really hard. I get it.†—Kevin Costner
Kevin Costner is a movie star who spent most of this year reminding us that as an American cultural institution, he is not obliged to prop up the cult of Taylor Sheridan. He left America’s biggest television show, Yellowstone, when, according to him, Sheridan couldn’t deliver scripts on time and he needed to go film his multi-part cowboy epic, Horizon: An American Saga. May is when his Horizon: Part One press tour truly kicked into high gear: Costner gave an expletive-filled interview to Deadline, where he offered Sheridan the kind of sympathy that Charli XCX would call a knife: “Writing is really hard. I get it.†With this, the summer of Kevin Costner Saying Stuff truly began.
Runners up:
“I call it La La hand.†—Ryan Gosling regretting his hand placement on the poster for La La Land.
“The Scottie not only took out part of my thumb, he ate it.†—Paul Schrader reminding us that he had his thumb bitten off by one of Martin Scorsese’s dogs.
June
“This is going to ruin the tour†—Justin Timberlake
Brat Summer may have been in full swing, but nothing hit us in June quite as hard as the reveal that Justin Timberlake is no longer famous enough to impress cops. When he was pulled over for driving under the influence in the Hamptons, Timberlake confronted law-enforcement officers with the news that the arrest would ruin the tour. Humiliatingly, an officer responded, “What tour?†forcing Timberlake to clarify: “The world tour.†The exchange instantly got memed, adding further insult to this legal and emotional injury.
Runner up:
“She was quite moved. She thought the performance was extraordinary, as it was.†—Demi Moore on her dog Pilaf’s opinion of Tom Holland in Romeo & Juliet.
July
“kamala IS brat†—Charli XCX
Speaking of things getting ruined, Charli XCX crowning Vice-President Kamala Harris as “brat†was a turning point. In one three-word tweet, we were tricked into both being optimistic about the future of America and thinking that the people working on Democratic presidential campaigns know what they’re doing. As the Harris campaign embraced the lingua franca of terminally online pop-music fans, the only upside was getting to watch news anchors attempt to explain to normie audiences what it meant.
Runner up:
“oop I’ve been blocked 👀🫢😂†- Simone Biles, after referencing a former teammate’s criticism of the 2024 Paris Olympic team in her post about their gold medal win.
August
“[D]iminished by its artsiness†—An AI-generated Pauline Kael
If the presidential election effectively ended the carefree hedonism of Brat Summer, then Lionsgate’s attempt to market the Francis Ford Coppola passion project Megalopolis kicked off what we should henceforth refer to as “a very shitty fall.†Employing a consultant relying on AI (and, apparently, not a single human being who cared enough to double-check the AI’s work before showing it to the entire world), the studio released a trailer featuring several quotes attributed to well-known film critics like Pauline Kael, Andrew Sarris, and Roger Ebert that were revealed to have been wholly made up. See, this is the problem with artificial intelligence: if there’s no real intelligence behind it, it’s actually quite stupid!
Runners up:
“I just bit into it because it was on the street and we were discussing whether this was a tomato or not, it’s definitely not …†— If you see Alicia Silverstone walking past your house, know that she will bite into and then spit out your plants.
“Grab your friends, wear your florals†—Blake Lively promoting her movie about domestic violence.
September
“What else am I gonna do on a Tuesday and a Wednesday?†—Richard Kind
Fall began in earnest with Richard Kind Richard Kind-ing. As one of those actors everyone knows — but whose level of fame allows him to live a relatively normal life — he serves as a reminder that acting is actually just a job some people have the way others drive taxis or practice law. When asked by Vulture’s Devon Ivie what his standard was for accepting an acting role, he answered that it basically came down to whether he had plans that day.
Runners up:
“I thought it was vitamins†—Dakota Johnson, on the energy drink Celsius.
“Stay strong†—A balloon Kate Hudson sent to Dave Grohl’s wife after news of his affair broke.
October
“This is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen†—Cynthia Erivo
In a, um, wicked turn of events, star of Wicked Cynthia Erivo got very, very angry at fans who edited the official Wicked poster to match the official Broadway poster, in which her character’s eyes are hidden by a hat. This was the kind of normal reaction that, in hindsight, foreshadowed how innocent we were to both how bad a press tour could get and how seriously these theater kids could take themselves.
Runner up:
“You really don’t want to be inside a very small hermetically sealed space with a Will Smith fart,†—Barry Sonnenfeld, warning us of the farting capacity of one of the world’s most famous men.
November
“I didn’t know that was happening.†—Cynthia Erivo
Though Ariana Grande gives a fantastic performance in Wicked, it is Cynthia Erivo who has one of the most memorable quotes of the year. In the weeks after an election result we can generously deem surprising, Erivo and Grande hit us with a press tour for their film that would outshine every other press tour in terms of sheer emotionality. They cried so much! But obviously the coup de grâce was when we all learned that people had been holding space for the lyrics of “Defying Gravity,†according to a few posts seen by Out’s Tracy E. Gilchrist. Erivo responds that she “didn’t know that was happening,†giving extra gravitas to this startling revelation. Later, Gilchrist told Variety she was a little confounded by her sudden fame but would be open to “a little podcast.â€
Runners up:
“Where do I get this hat!!!?†—Nicole Scherzinger asking Russell Brand of all people how she could procure a Trump-themed hat about prayer in an Instagram comment.
“I deeply apologize for the hurt caused by my recent engagement with some social media posts.†—Nicole Scherzinger apologizing for asking Russell Brand of all people how she could procure a Trump-themed hat about prayer in an Instagram comment and also for liking a post by RFK Jr.
December
“I’m going Jackson State eight wins in a row, 11 all-conference players, this should be a comfortable, easy win for them.†—Timothée Chalamet
As part of one of the best press tours of 2024, Timothée Chalamet suddenly came out as a bro, making an appearance on College Game Day that greatly impressed fellow panelist Pat MacAfee (not a particularly difficult thing to do, but still). And with that, your dad and brothers find out who Timothée Chalamet is, bringing us all a little bit closer, just in time for Christmas.
Runners up:
“​​Nobody is a Sagittarius.†—Kieran Culkin, to Coleman Domingo
“I’m a Sagittarius!†—Coleman Domingo, to Kieran Culkin