Bill Murray, the oddball comedian behind many an intriguing headline, added another to the collection over the weekend after he reportedly grabbed the smartphones of several fans and hurled them off a rooftop.
No, this wasn’t a random act of unkindness by unpredictable Bill; rather he was fed up with onlookers snapping pictures of him on their handsets while he tried to enjoy some relaxing downtime with friends at a rooftop restaurant in Carmel, CA, TMZ reported.
Of course, the prevalence of smartphones and the ease with which they allow us to quickly snap a shot means celebrities these days have to deal with a lot more than just autograph requests.
Murray was clearly having none of it on Friday night, choosing to deal with the fans’ intrusion by apparently grabbing the phones and launching them over the side of the building.
The actor, who was in town for the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tourney, left the scene before cops arrived. According to TMZ, Murray later agreed to pay for any damage to the phones, a gesture the owners reportedly happily accepted.
The manager of the restaurant where the alleged incident took place said Murray had apparently become fed up with fans getting too close with their smartphones. It’s not as if they were being particularly discreet either, with camera flashes reportedly going off “about 10 feet away” from the Hollywood star.
Of course, it’s not the first time – and certainly won’t be the last – that a smartphone-owning fan has provoked a response from a famous actor.
A couple of years ago Kevin Spacey was interrupted by a smartphone’s ringtone as he performed on stage in a one-man show. Straight-faced and staying in character, he turned to the phone’s owner and snapped, “If you don’t answer that, I will,” a response that won him an enthusiastic round of applause from the rest of the audience.
More recently, Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch pleaded with fans to stop filming him during performances in a stage show in London, calling the experience “mortifying.”
