I Will Follow: Celeb Stalkers
Ours is a celebrity-obsessed culture, and in light of Uma Thurman’s recent court ordeal, we’re reminded of a select few who are, like, really obsessed.
Ben Barna
May 07, 2008
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The scariest celebrity stalker we've ever seen wasn’t real. The white-haired creep with the squished face and fixed eyes who haunted Whitney Houston’s pop star character Rachel Marron in 1992's The Bodyguard was a centerpiece in our childhood spook gallery. To this day, we scarcely recall what he looks like—a vague image of fear—and the actor’s identity remains a mystery to us. Google inquiries are fruitless, and since we don’t know the character’s name, IMDb’s cast list is moot. This "obsessed fan"—as they prefer to be called—performed warped acts of love, archetypal terror tactics of the obsessed. He pleasured himself in Rachel’s bed when she wasn’t home and sent phantasmagoric notes that are quintessential psycho—letters cut from different magazines and glued together to form incongruous sentences. It epitomized infatuation gone awry.
The mass media only started to report about stalkers in the last two decades, not because the phenomenon is new, but because stars used to be reluctant to speak out, for fear of negative publicity. Uma Thurman just hogged headlines in one of the more highly-publicized stalker cases in recent memory, with deranged fan Jack Jordan showing the courtroom just how real his delusions are. “I was overcome by a tenderness and affection for you that I’ve never felt in my life. I feel that we are destined to meet,” he told the actress—who avoided eye contact—in court. E-mails written by Jordan to Thurman’s father include sweet nothings like, “Often lately these thoughts include you, and you are teaching me. At times they include Uma, and when I see her or hear her voice I feel very much in love, like she and I refound each other.” Poor Mr. Jordan, a sad victim of Cupid’s arrow.
On Tuesday, a jury found Jordan guilty of stalking and aggravated harassment, and his yearnin’ for Thurman will likely get him a year in jail. Note to guards: if Jordan pastes a life-size Uma Thurman poster on his cell wall, it’s not part of his Shawshankian escape route—he just really, really likes her. To celebrate Mr. Jordan’s conviction, we’ve compiled a gallery of some of Hollywood’s most notorious stalkers—and by notorious we mean the ones whose pictures we could find online. Enjoy!
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