Celebrity stalkers have been around for as long as celebrities — but today’s stars have to be more careful than ever as they’re “followed” on social media! Privacy has been left behind, with all kinds of showbiz figures well aware that John Lennon was shot down by a rabid Beatles fan. Sadly, the tragic assassination of Dec. 8, 1980, was just the start of a new wave of terror for those in the public eye…
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REBECCA SCHAEFFER was still just a rising star when she caught the eye of crazed stalker Robert Bardo. The 21-year-old actress found her fatal admirer after her big break alongside Pam Dawber in the sitcom “My Sister Sam.” Sadly, the show’s short run between 1986 and 1988 didn’t make Rebecca rich enough to afford bodyguards. Outraged by a sexy scene in 1989’s “Scenes From the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills,” Bardo tracked Rebecca down to her West Hollywood apartment and blasted her with a shotgun — and was later given a life sentence after a trial that was overseen by future O.J. Simpson prosecutor Marcia Clark.
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JODIE FOSTER saw her stalker make international headlines after John Hinckley set out to assassinate President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981 — in what he later described as “the greatest love offering in the history of the world.” The sicko had also revealed his own fantasies about Jodie’s death. Hinckley was placed in a mental hospital, and freed on July 27, 2016.
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KELLY McGILLIS co-starred with Jodie Foster in “The Accused,” but gradually turned her back on Hollywood while coming out of the closet as a lesbian. The “Top Gun” star learned that stalkers were everywhere after she came home to a stranger in her North Carolina home in 2016. “I asked her who she is and why she was in my house,” said Kelly, “and she said, ‘You know why. You’ve been stalking me on Twitter!’”
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CHER had to manage yet another comeback in 1990 after an obsessed fan sent her a severed ear in the mail! The pop diva’s film career was thriving when Cher received the gruesome display of love. She’d won an Oscar for “Moonstruck,” and “Mermaids” was released at the end of 1990 — but didn’t take another major role until her disastrous turn in 1996’s “Faithful.” Authorities later said the freaky fan had promised to send Cher one of his own body parts, and cut off his own ear “with a butcher knife, because the cut is so clean.”
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GWYNETH PALTROW endured a two-year reign of terror until her crazed stalker was finally out into a psychiatric ward at the end of 2000 — with Ohio psycho Dante Soiu having sent her daily multiple gifts of candy, pornography, flowers, sex toys and pizza. He’d also sent a note saying: “If you stand against me, God will punish you!” Shockingly, Gwyneth had to take Dante to court again in 2016, only for him to be found innocent after he admitted to sending her over 66 more packages in recent years!
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KATHIE LEE GIFFORD once dated a future abortion-clinic bomber — but even that couldn’t prepare her for the sadistic stalker who dreamed of sacrificing her son to Satan before spiriting Kathie Lee away to Pluto! Richard Douglas Jones had already been sentenced to life behind bars when he decided to torment Kathie with his written fantasies. Jones also insisted that Frank Gifford’s passing was actually “a very scheduled voodoo death!”
DAVID LETTERMAN made his stalker famous — often joking with his audience about Margaret Mary Ray’s obsession with breaking into his Connecticut home and insisting to local authorities that she was “Mrs. David Letterman.”In 1993, Letterman’s Top 10 List for “Things I Have to Do Before I Leave NBC” included: “Send change-of-address forms to that woman who breaks into my house.” The sympathetic host still treated her kindly, and once said: “The thing is, she’s insane, and you don’t want to do anything to make it worse than it is.” Ray finally committed suicide in 1998 by kneeling in front of a train in Colorado.
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SANDRA BULLOCK saw her own stalker saga come to an end after obsessed fan Joshua James Corbett killed himself in 2018 — less than a year after walking free on a plea deal after promising to stay away from the “Gravity” star! Sandra had found Corbett in her Hollywood home on the night of June 8, 2014, with the police report saying she was investigating “loud noises,” and discovered a man “right there in the hallway wearing dark clothing.”
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HEATHER LOCKLEAR has gone from being one of television’s most beloved stars to a Hollywood tragedy — with insiders blaming a sicko stalker who terrorized the star at the height of her fame! Heather was ready to become a leading lady after ending her supporting runs on “Dynasty” and “T.J. Hooker” when a psycho brutally murdered one of her dogs and left the canine corpse near her house — and was never caught. In a chilling twist, Heather had even posed with one of her dogs for one of the pin-up pics that made her one of the ’80s top sex symbols.
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JENNIFER ANISTON had a stalker who first pursued a lookalike of the “Friends” star in his Pennsylvania hometown before traveling cross-country to “marry” the actress. The woman revealed that the sicko had “began telling me how pretty he thought I was,” but then “told me that Jennifer Aniston was his girlfriend, and that he was going to see her in California. Instead, the guy saw a courthouse as Jennifer successfully sought out a restraining order.
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TAYLOR SWIFT has reportedly spent a small fortune to protect her homes from various stalkers — with The ENQUIRER catching cops busting one crazed fan in May 2016 after he’d tried to break into her Manhattan apartment. The man was taken to a psych ward for observation, just three months after cops had apprehended another man outside Taylor’s home in Los Angeles.
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UMA THURMAN was terrorized in 2007 by a stalker who would lurk outside her Manhattan home, while often leaving behind suicide notes addressed to the “Kill Bill” star. “He feels that he and Uma Thurman are fated to be together,” said a report filed by a detective with the NYPD. “Since he came to New York, he’s been sleeping in a car on her block, among other places — and has been trying to see her in person, and continues to love her.”
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BROOKE SHIELDS was cursed with a nervy stalker who told The ENQUIRER that the actress should have been jailed for committing perjury in court! John Rinaldi, who spent 60 days in the slammer for terrorizing the star, insisted that the former Calvin Klein model “lied under oath and committed perjury when she filed four fake charges against me,” He’d been found guilty by Manhattan Judge Kevin McGrath after Brooke testified in court about a decade-long pattern of harassment.
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TATUM O’NEAL called California cops in 2002 after she was convinced that a crazed stalker had targeted her for murder. Officers arrived to her Venice Beach home to find that the former child star had installed 40 new locks throughout the premises, and had spread glass shards under windows to sabotage intruders. Cops battered down the door after Tatum refused to let them in, but couldn’t find any evidence of a crime. The troubled star would later go into rehab for heroin and cocaine addiction.
