See our slideshow of Bad Behavior in Good Hotels.
Celebrities have been trashing hotel suites or overdosing on heroin in marble-floored bathrooms since the invention of the mini-bar. In fact, the rock star throwing the TV out the window, or the pop tart throwing up by the roof-top pool bar has become so common as to be clichĂ©. What was so special about Christian Bale’s behavior was how, well, odd it was. Throwing a fit at your Mommy? Batman?
“Luxury hotels offer anonymity, privacy, and escape,” says Steven Ferry, who, as Chairman of the International Institute of Modern Butlers, has trained staff in some of the most exclusive properties in the world. “But the combination of wealth, anonymity, and being tended to hand-and-foot by the best butlers in the world sometimes leads to bad behavior. The secret of a good hotel is to keep stories like this secret.”
Ferry has seen his share of bizarre incidents involving guests over the years but, like all top-class butlers, is discreet enough not to reveal the who, where, what, and how. Fortunately, the list of bizarre, tawdry, or just plain weird behavior in hotels that we do know about is long and colorful.
See our slideshow of Bad Behavior in Good Hotels.
Up there with Batman was Gladiator star Russell Crowe’s performance with a deadly weapon in New York’s Mercer Hotel in 2005. The deadly weapon? A telephone. Australian Crowe, in New York to shoot the boxing movie Cinderella Man, had been unable to get a connection on the room phone to his wife in Australia. Crowe charged down to the lobby at 2 a.m. to complain to the desk clerk. Finding the attention to his problem less than he expected, he promptly threw the phone at the concierge on duty, hitting him in the face. Then he threw a ceramic plate. Then, like Maximus before the emperor, he took up a deep theatrical bow. Job well done, Rusty.
What line-up of notorious hotel behavior would be complete without an offering from volatile supermodel Naomi Campbell? In 2005, Campbell allegedly beat up Italian actress Yvonne Scio at the beautiful Hotel Eden in Rome. The cause of La Campbell’s rage? Campbell had arrived at the hotel to pick Scio up to go to a party together, but was disturbed to find that Scio was wearing the same dress as hers.
That said, not all the worst behavior is by bratty celebrities. Few hotel security incidents are as tawdry as the case of former Democrat Vice-Presidential candidate John Edwards at the Beverly Hilton hotel in August 2008. Edwards, the wholesome, happily-married family man of the campaign trail, was caught by tabloid reporters engaged in a secret meeting at the hotel with a blonde divorcee they claimed was his mistress, and the love child he had supposedly fathered with her. Shocked to find a camera crew in his face, Edwards ran and hid in a men’s room on the hotel’s lower floor, with reporters chasing after him. Eventually hotel security guards had to rescue the ashen-faced ex-Senator and ushered him out the hotel—and out of political life.
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