During the dog days of summer and into September it seemed like we had a fresh batch of paparazzi photos of Jeremy Allen White almost daily. I started to suspect–and many CB commenters did, too–that at least some of them were orchestrated by Jeremy. Why? Because it seemed like a strategy for an in-demand, up and coming actor to keep his name fresh on people’s minds during the actors’ strike. In normal years, he would have been campaigning for the Emmy (he was nominated for The Bear). Now I think I might have been a little too cynical.
He covers GQ for their Men of the Year issue to promote his upcoming film Iron Claw, which has a SAG-AFTRA waiver. They barely gloss over his divorce, but Jeremy did talk at length about the paps staking out his house and following him while he goes for runs and scary things like that. During the summer, there were pictures of him and his estranged wife Addison at their daughter’s soccer game and I wondered how the paps knew to go to a random Little League field in the Valley to find him. The GQ article says that it’s a soccer league with other famous peoples’ kids (how gross for the paps to stake out a soccer league for kindergartners). His sobriety is only touched on when the interviewer notes that they’re drinking Arnold Palmers at lunch.
The paps follow him on his runs: In July, he was [running by his house] when a car pulled up alongside him and started taking pictures, from the top of the hill all the way back to his house.
“I was like, ‘What are we doing? Are you escorting me?’” White recalls asking the photographer, attempting to reason with him.
“ ‘I’m just trying to get a good shot,’” the paparazzo demurred, according to White. “It’s such a weird aspect of this thing that I truly never thought I would ever deal with whatsoever,” he tells me, once we’re at the restaurant. “It’s not fun, and it’s not nice, and it’s really weird.”
The soccer game incident: “They know where I live,” White says. “There was a period where they were just chilling and when I would pull out [of the driveway], they would follow, and when I got home they were there.” Most of the time, the paparazzi only stalked him completing innocuous errands, but it sometimes verged into uncomfortably personal territory, such as when they staked out his daughter’s football game, which he attended with [estranged wife Addison] Timlin.
Again, White says, he tried to reason with them: “ ‘Please don’t take pictures of our children. That’s not OK.’” One photographer replied that if he left, there were plenty of others camped out to get the shots. The paparazzi were particularly big fans of this youth football league, which other celebrities’ children also play in.
Desperate to discourage the tabloids, White started wearing the same outfit to every game: “Ratty black shirt, Adidas slides, my [Mets] cap I wear every day,” he explains…The thinking behind the uniform was that the press would get tired of printing the same images, and wouldn’t be able to run them. “They did kind of stop,” White says.
From the rest of the interview, he seems like he’s in a pretty good headspace. He’s redecorating his house, so I guess Addison is the one who moved out. There’s a truism that celebrities should just have to deal with getting papped and it’s the price of fame. But what Jeremy’s describing goes beyond what’s reasonable. It’s one thing to get photographed coming out of Craig’s or Giorgo Bialdi (I don’t know what the hip celeb place is in LA these days–is it Horses now?). But going to his kids’ soccer league and going to his house is too far. I can’t imagine how stressful that is to be a parent with strangers photographing your kids like that. And how hard it is not to be able to prevent it from happening, because these people will just cross every boundary. On another note, the photos in the GQ story are so weird–JAW is standing in the foreground looking at the camera, doing his best Rocky Balboa impression while in the background, a bunch of shirtless chiseled men are like, wrestling or playing football. He’s wearing a lot of cute little outfits, and this young man’s biceps are really letting you know, as they say. But the way it’s all staged is so awkward, like he’s ignoring all these people around him. Just let him wear revealing shorts, GQ! There doesn’t have to be some fancy conceit here.
“I do have a theory about when people become tremendously famous, getting stuck a little bit at that age. You just live there for a while.” – Jeremy Allen White.https://t.co/47bhBGnFTH#GQMOTY #GQMOTYXBOSS pic.twitter.com/fg1Wwu4yMm
— British GQ (@BritishGQ) November 7, 2023
“I’m not a method actor, but what I do try to do is stay close to a feeling that I think is appropriate. And if your character’s miserable all the time and you’re trying to stay really close to something that’s very scary and isolating and misunderstood, then is there a little… pic.twitter.com/MyBSSgCkDP
— British GQ (@BritishGQ) November 7, 2023
Photos credit: Bruce/Javiles / BACKGRID and GQ via Instagram/Twitter
It’s hard to imagine him in LA at all. He’s built an authentic Chicago persona for about 15 years now. I’ve never lived in NYC so Chicago is the only place I’ve been where actors are just living their life normally, out in public NBD. No one should be harassed like this.
Ha, Bettyrose, I came here to comment that as a native New Yorker, dealing with the culture and surveillance of paparazzi must be a big change and an immensely difficult one, at that. I will say I thought he was from Chicago as well (never been but it makes sense to me somehow) but turns out he’s from an affluent neighborhood of Brooklyn. I actually know him through several degrees of separation (NYC, and Brooklyn in particular is small like that) and though I’ve never personally met him, by all accounts he’s a nice guy.
I grew up on the Upper West Side/Harlem which was a popular neighborhood for celebrities in the 90s/aughts. As a kid, I’d see so many celebs and want an autograph – I’m aging myself – but my mom drilled into me to never bother celebrities, she told me that they live in New York City to be anonymous and they live in L.A. to be famous.
When I discovered he was from Brooklyn (even an affluent part) his ability to create a Chicago persona made sense. He’s been around that urban culture even if not blue collar himself. Chicago isn’t dripping with celebrities like NYC, but with tons of theater (including Second City), and plenty of shows filmed there, it’s not unusual to find yourself passing a celeb on the street. I personally never spoke to a celeb because I was too shy, but at the height of ER, I made a comment to the woman next to me at the theater concessions and it was Julianna Margulies. I mumbled “I’m sorry” and turned away, which was probably worse than just talking to her like a normal person, but there were any number of times I gave a wide berth to a celebrity (while still bragging about it later to friends).
I will never understand why paps are allowed to stalk celebrities. Taking photos at official work events? Yes. Takong photos of celebrities and *their children* during non-work time? Hell no, that should be illegal.
What police department would be able to enforce laws against it? If there were no market for the pictures, the stalking would stop.
Isn’t it illegal in LA to take pics of kids without parents’ approval? It works there. There will always be market for everything. It is the responsibility of government to regulate it.
There are laws…and yet the photos still get published so not much incentive for the paparazzi to stop.
I don’t think, he is in LA, @Twin Falls. Just checked, yeah he lives in NY. That’s why famous people usually move to LA. Halle berry advocated there to pass the law to protect the children. Paps can’t do that without parents’ approval in LA.
That’s better then…not that it’s allowed in NY but that it’s having an effect on photos of kids not being taken in LA.
There ARE laws against it lol. They CHOOSE not to enforce it. Which sounds about right. Cops seems allergic to doing their actual jobs.
The US has First amendment protection. Anyone can take pictures of anyone’s children if they are in a public space. That’s why you still see children of celebs photographed. It’s up to magazines and websites to agree not to show pap pictures of celebs children. Some that have are People magazine, US magazine, the just Jared website off the top of my head. And I don’t believe it has hurt their bottom line. Daily mail is the worst practitioner of intrusive pap photos. The LA Law that was passed only protects them if they have a reasonable expectation of privacy (which you don’t on a public street) and protects children from being followed and yelled at (which they were during the TMZ reign of terror in the 2000s)
I don’t know, this guy had no problems posing kissing and fondling his girlfriend, so it a pretty tricky game he’s playing here. However kids should be off limits no matter how thirsty their parents are.
It seems to me, he wants paps to get some pics and to leave him alone otherwise. But, once you help them to create a market for you, they will walk over all of your boundaries. I didn’t even know the guy, didn’t watch any of his shows and bombarded by his pap pics. No one was asking for his pics. He probably called them on some occasions, then other paps started to show up without his approval. Still, his children should be kept out of it.
The creepiest things to me are those “celebrity kids” Insta accounts that just post pics of all their little ones. It’s so weird and invasive. Why does anyone need to see Bradley Cooper’s daughter walking to school every day, especially when she looks so uncomfortable? Smh.
I had a friend who worked for the daycare chain that Brad and Angelina’s kids went to. The paps were a nightmare. Nobody called them. They just knew they had a chance of getting a shot they could sell.
As to why they can do it. The First Amendment and freedom of the press. If you want reporters to be able to cover politicians and other powerful people, they can also cover famous people. It’s very hard to write a law that just covers entertainers and their families.
It’s a bit weird to use a pap photo of him with his kid to illustrate an article where you write about the way paparazzi stalk people’s kids.