Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson has hit out at President Trump calling him a “megalomaniac”. While promoting her new movie Ghost in the Shell, she told Time Out about the President: “He’s an unpredictable person who is clearly a megalomaniac”, adding for good measure his voters suffered from “self-loathing.”
The notion of a Hollywood star calling someone else out for being obsessed with power is revealing. And Trump himself hardly shrinks from publicly conveying a powerful aura. Does he even object to being called a megalomaniac?
Even if the President finds Johansson’s insult unwelcome, however, it’s unoriginal. Truth is, that celebrities ought to refrain from calling Trump a megalomaniac since too many have done so already.
Here are nine other stars who have called him out using the ‘M’ word:
LENA DUNHAM:
Last June Heat Street‘s old friend was speaking at a breakfast organized by The Wrap and even by her excitable standards got riled up calling Trump a “megalomaniacal, misogynist, racist, Islamophobic, ableist, transphobic hellhound.”
LEWIS BLACK:
While promoting a gig in Louisville, KY, just after the first debate last fall, the comedian was somewhat condescending when he said that because he lived in New York and had kept his eye on Trump for many years, “I feel like I know a lot more about him than these people around the country who feel an affinity for someone who is a megalomaniac asshole.”
SOPHIA BUSH:
The Chicago Fire and One Tree Hill actress spoke out at a women’s summit in DC: “When we have a lunatic and a demagogue and a megalomaniac running for office who’s saying things that are inflammatory and dangerous to our national security, I’m doubly excited at her [Clinton’s] experience, because she would never do that.” We’ll never know, Sophia.
THOM YORKE:
Without referring to Trump by name, the Radiohead singer told the crowd at a sell-out gig at LA’s Shrine Auditorium last August: “I have a great idea. [Why not] put a paranoid megalomaniac in charge?” Radiohead fans whooped and cheered in response, presumably more than they did on election night…
GRAYDON CARTER:
Back when the longtime Vanity Fair editor was co-editor of Spy Magazine, in the December 1989 issue to be exact, the defunct satirical publication called Trump a “shuttle-owning, dilettante-megalomaniac”. Seventeen years later, Carter hasn’t changed his tune, writing about Trump in his Editor’s Note that, “Megalomaniacs tend to believe that whatever they say or think is fact, regardless of how at odds those notions are with reality.”
AL FRANKEN:
The former Saturday Night Live comedian and now junior Democrat Senator for Minnesota needs some new material. He has called Trump a megalomaniac on several occasions, most notably during his DNC address when he quipped: “I got my doctorate in megalomaniac studies from Trump University.”
JUDD APATOW:
Always seeking out ways to be a kindred spirit with his Girls collaborator Lena Dunham, the comedy director replied to a Sarah Silverman Tweet asking if Trump was “possibly the saddest President” by charitably observing: “Not sad. A megalomaniac. A bottomless pit.”
NOAM CHOMSKY:
Devotees of the veteran left-wing thinker always highlight his skills as a linguist. But Chomsky certainly wasn’t having one of his finest encounters with the English language when he told Al-Jazeera that Trump was an “ignorant, thin-skinned megalomaniac” last December.
TOM WOLFE:
The literary lion in the White Suit put a different spin on Trump being power hungry to the rest of the celebrity jungle. He informed The American Spectator he thought Trump was a “lovable megalomaniac.”
That’s probably a description Trump wouldn’t mind so much…