"IF you dig deep enough, everyone has a reason to be miserable at Christmas," not-so-funny-man Jim Carrey once said. Yes, Virginia, Christmas can be a rough time even for celebrities. Here are some A-listers’ un-fond memories of hellacious holidays and horrible gifts as compiled by Webster Hall curator Baird Jones:
Jennifer Aniston was inexplicably belted in the face by a sidewalk Santa Claus when she was a kid. "I come by, and he slugs me across the face," she told the London Sun. "He ran off and no one even stopped to help me. It was very frightening and weird."
Goldie Hawn confides in her new memoir that a male family friend twice her age fondled her at 11 while she was sleeping on Christmas Eve. Luckily, Hawn writes, she never "had ugly flashbacks of being molested … or lost my trust in the male sex."
Kurt Russell watched his sister’s house burn down "one memorable Christmas," he tells movies.com. "It burned down when she plugged in the tree. I learned the value of a plastic Christmas tree that year."
Laura Linney’s pet dog ate an entire box of Godiva chocolates her mother of modest means had bought for a "snobby" older-woman friend. "Those chocolates cost a fortune," she told entertainment.ivillage.com. "They almost put us in the poorhouse. To add insult to injury, the dog had runs all over the house."
Denis Leary’s toy "Rifleman" gun, a Christmas present, went off and hit my sister in the eye," he told The Boston Herald. "They took the present away and never gave it back. I was heartbroken."
Debi Mazar was gifted with "a nose-hair trimmer," she told people.com. "[Producer] Steven Bochco gave it to everybody. I was like, Do I need it? Oh, my God!"
Sadly, Jim Carrey’s worst Christmas was spent at age 13 in his grandparents’ house in Toronto, right after his father had lost his job. "By midday both my grandparents were drunk," he said. "I can still see my grandpa cornering my father, swaying into him with a drink … calling him a loser who couldn’t feed his family."
To anyone thinking of getting Donald Trump or Mel Gibson gifts, don’t bother. "Everyone gives me presents," said Trump, "and I never open them. I’m like a bad-present person." And Gibson told the London Telegraph, "I don’t like to buy gifts. So no one expects much in my family."
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