I saw Chevy Chase at a hotel once as a small 9-year-old, and I loved the National Lampoon’s Vacation movies. When I asked for his autograph, he verbally went off on me — when my dad came over, he went off on him. He said something fucked-up, which was my dad wasn’t ‘raising me right.’ The dude is a straight-up jerk.

Oprah didn’t tip me on a $200 lunch — instead, she signed a napkin for me and acted like she was doing me a huge favor. The kicker was when she walked in, they gave away all of my other tables so she didn’t have to wait for anything. So I made $4/hour for two hours for the privilege of serving Oprah, and she went on and on about signing a napkin that I never asked for.

I’m a photographer, and one of my biggest events starting out was the opportunity to photograph the red carpet at Jingle Ball in 2014. I was 19 at the time, had severe health issues, and had also traveled seven hours from home to photograph the show. Among the chaos of a bunch of photographers packed in the area between the barricade and the stage, I had lost my phone and didn’t notice until we were back in the red carpet room. I immediately started to freak out, and I went into the hallway because I started having a panic attack. I didn’t realize that was the hallway the performers used to exit the room, and as I leaned against the wall crying, Demi Lovato walked out and proceeded to give me an extremely dirty look. They seemed disgusted and rolled their eyes as they walked by me, as if I was some devoted fan crying over them [instead of experiencing something traumatic].

EASILY John Mayer — I met him at an awards show over 10 years ago, and he would not stop quoting a sexist joke from South Park. Everybody around him just laughed awkwardly — every word out of his mouth was a mean and sarcastic joke I was supposed to find funny, but ultimately didn’t. I distinctly remember he made another joke that was really off-putting, and I was like, ‘Dude…’ and he responded with, ‘Oh, come on — don’t be a butthead.’ He called me a butthead because I didn’t laugh at his cruel joke.

I met a lot of celebrities while working for an airline, one of them being Hugh Grant. One time, he sat in First Class 1A on a 747 (which is right in the nose of the plane), so there was nothing but a wall in front of the seat. It’s standard procedure for the cabin manager to go around to every first-class passenger and personally introduce themselves. When my manager got to Hugh, the conversation went something like this: Manager: ‘Hello, Mr. Grant, my name is…’ Hugh: ‘Oh, FUCK OFF.’ My manager proceeded to swiftly move on.

One day in the Hamptons, I ran into Alec Baldwin and his wife and their two dogs. I was 6, so I wanted to pet their dogs. Mind you, they left their dogs outside of the store, so I didn’t know they were theirs. They quickly yanked their dogs away from me and yelled at me. I was fucking 6.

I’ve worked as a maintenance worker at a concert venue for a few summers and have bumped into several celebrities, but Carrie Underwood is the one who sticks out because of how demanding she always was. She refused to use a toilet if someone else had sat on the seat before her — cleaning them was never good enough, so we had to buy new toilet seats every time she came. Considering how much we already had to fix, the last thing we wanted to do was pointlessly replace perfectly good toilet seats. In contrast, Reba McEntire would always eat lunch with the staff and was always super chill.

Busta Rhymes came into a jersey shop I managed in Atlanta and got pissed off that I didn’t have a hat in his size. He called me a ‘dumb fuck,’ which hurt, because I was such a huge fan of his music (going all the way back to the Leaders of the New School days).

I’ve worked with Nicki Minaj before and while on a set with her, I was told not to look at her face. She also had people move out of the room before she would come in the room. It was a whole ordeal.

I met Miles Teller at a bar — he told my friend to buy him a drink, and he still refused to take a picture with him. He ended up smacking my phone out of my hand — I’ll never watch another movie with him in it again.

My sister was a cook at a nice resort in Canada — one time, Maria Bello’s assistant called in, saying she was coming with a bunch of guests and they wanted a certain type of bread served with their meal. So, the restaurant went out of their way to make her party this certain type of bread [off the menu], only to have them not show up. It was a huge waste of food.

My dad ran into Gene Simmons at a bar in Baltimore in the late ’70s after one of Kiss’s shows. My dad wasn’t a huge Kiss fan, but he appreciated their music and told Gene something along the lines of, ‘Awesome concert, thanks for the show.’ Gene looked at my dad and then promptly replied, ‘I hope the next time you’re sucking ass to impress someone, you pucker up more’ and then walked off. My dad was pissed and told his friends it was time to go, and the bartender stopped them on their way out. Before he left, Gene and his entourage told the bartender my dad was paying for their drinks — it cost my dad almost $100 to pay for their alcohol.

I used to be a bartender at a hotel, and Vivica A. Fox came in with a guy late one night after an event. He ordered a drink for himself and a house red for her, so I turned to her and asked if she preferred cab or merlot. She gave me the DIRTIEST look, like how dare I address her directly, and flounced off to a table without answering. The guy said, ‘Just give her red, whatever…’ and didn’t leave a tip (they ordered four rounds, and no tip each time). They also complained that someone else came in and sat at a table near them and tried to get me to make them move. The other guests didn’t even try to approach her or anything — she was just mad that they dared to sit at a neighboring table.

Years ago, us kids waited for Jim Belushi and John Candy after they shot Only the Lonely in Chicago. I asked Belushi for an autograph, and he literally called us a bunch of pieces of shit, stupid kids, and to get the F out of there. Then came Candy with a big old smile and cigar hanging out of his mouth, and he spent the next 10 minutes signing autographs and thanking all his fans.

Idina Menzel was set to perform at the place I worked at in college, which was filled with devoted fans of hers. She came on three hours late, and had very specific food items/demands for her green room — she was also extremely rude to everyone who worked at the facility. This was a huge facility, and a venue that had hosted many more prominent acts than her.

Once I met Mark Ronson at a music festival in the UK — my ex-boyfriend was a huge fan, so he asked for a picture. He was really cool and happy to be chatting with us, but there was someone standing next to him who repeatedly rolled her eyes at the two of us: Lily Allen. She continuously whined, ‘Mark, Mark, Mark’ while my ex was chatting with him — at one point she actually stomped her foot and gave us the finger when Mark’s back was turned around. We had acknowledged her, but she just rolled her eyes at us.

I met Ed Westwick from Gossip Girl at Coachella. I never watched the show, but I recognized him — he grabbed my slice of pizza, took a bite out of it, and then spit it out and gave it back to me.

I worked with Gwyneth Paltrow’s children for eight weeks at a camp, and we got paid $5 an hour. Parents usually tip $100 or more at the end, but she didn’t tip at all.