Yesterday we reported on Seth Rogen’s interview with Howard Stern, in which he responded to an interview Katherine Heigl did on Stern earlier this year. It was all about their eight year-old feud through the press in which Heigl called Knocked Up a “little sexist” after it came out and took offense to the way her character was portrayed. On Stern, Heigl explained the background behind her comments to Vanity Fair, and said that she’d like to apologize to anyone she’d offended. Rogen said that Heigl had not called him or Apatow to personally apologize, and that he was hurt by her comments about the film because he enjoyed working with her and had no idea she was upset. He also said that her comments should not have affected her career and that he would work with her again.
Heigl addressed Rogen’s response during the Television Critics Association event for Doubt, her upcoming legal drama on CBS co-starring Laverne Cox as a lawyer. (The show is groundbreaking in that Cox is the first transgender actress to play a recurring transgender character on a major network series. You can read more about that on Variety.) Heigl’s last stint on TV, on NBC’s State of Affairs, ended after just one season amid rumors that she was acting the diva as usual, so it’s interesting to me that she keeps getting jobs. Here’s what she said about Rogen:
“I think he’s handled it so beautifully. I feel nothing but love and respect. It was so long ago, and I just wish him so much goodness. I felt that from him, too.”
That’s probably the entire extent of what she said and it was likely in an interview, because The Hollywood Reporter’s coverage stated that “the topic did not come up” during the press conference.
This was exactly the right way to handle it. She expressed gratitude and didn’t defend herself. However like a lot of things she says this sounded slightly disingenuous. Yes the original interview and movie were long ago, but Rogen was responding to comments she made this April.
I forgot that Heigl is pregnant. She is expecting her third child, which will be a boy, with husband Josh Kelly. People reported on some cute things she said about her pregnancy cravings. Heigl admitted she has a sweet tooth and loves donuts. Laverne Cox, who is trying to cut out sugar to stay in shape, told ET that she indulges vicariously by having Heigl (she calls her “Kate Heigl”) describe eating sweets. Cox said she asks her “‘Can you please tell me about the taste, the texture, is it moist? Can you just give me everything?‘” This would not work for me at all! It would just make me want the damn treat already.
photos credit: WENN, Fame and Getty
I think she learned her lesson, and I feel she’s making an extra effort to be humble, likable and to not rustle any feathers. She’s on the path to redeeming herself.
Ehh, I very respectfully disagree. Anywho can craft (or let’s be real, have their PR team craft) a decently gracious statement. Actions speak louder then words though. It seems like this is her “playing nice” in an effort to repair her reputation. Notice how she doesn’t say anything about what she might have done wrong initially or how she’s grown and changed since then? Sounds like empty words imo.
I also think she learned NOTHING. She just throws this feud out there for attention at this point and still deflects all responsibility. She’s no doubt still a cranky diva and anyone who works with her in their crappy Lifetime series has been warned, so they deserve the headache.
I also disagree. She brought this up in the first place without being asked in April, he responded when directly asked in a interview, and her response is the airy ‘oh it was so long ago’? She’s the one who started the discussion yet again.
I agree with Bluebelle.
And I think she kept it short and sweet – why continue to explain the sequence of events or what she may have said or not said?
Hope her new gig has a long future.
Whatever her rep as a diva, her character Izzie on Grey’s was captivating and I enjoy her in all of her movie roles.
I read a review on Seth Roger’s new animated movie…wow…sounds groundbreaking and genius, if not for everyone 😎
I agree. How could she *not* have learned a lesson from all of that. She will never recover fully or be fully redeemed from that though.
I agree and miss watching her. I think whatever she says, or doesnt, will be judged by people typing on their phones/computers unfairly. I still like her.
I think at this point she was told (maybe she got new pr people) to just let it slide without elaborating. Her career didn’t tank because she badmouthed Knocked Up. It was a combination of a lot of things. Mainly her and her momager’s attitudes.
Until she replaces her momager she hasn’t learned a thing.
Yay!!! Its Gus from Psych, Dule Hill in that last picture!! I will watch now. 🙂
I wondered where I knew him from!
I miss that show. ❤
He was also Charlie, on the West Wing.
Yes it is him! So handsome. I might watch this new show for him and Laverne Cox. Love them both.
He is so ridiculously talented – I would happily watch him in anything. My kids quote Psych *all* the time…its in constant rotation on Netflix in our house.
My name is Sean Spencer and this is my partner Gus T.T. Showbiz…
My name is Sean Spencer and this is my partner Ghee Buttersnaps…
My name is Sean Spencer and this is my partner Lavender Gooms…
Oh wait…this is a post about Katherine Heigl? I totally forgot for a moment there…
Omg yes those nicknames were the best!!!
Love Dule Hill!
I don’t know. I kind of would like to see her get her crap together and get an okay career going. I’ve never hated her – but she’s a complete wreck when it comes to her reputation. I’m hoping she’s grown a lot since she’s about to be a third time mom – and I believe both of their daughters are adopted, and one had a decent amount of health issues. She’s also worked on spay/neuter campaigns and other animal charities. I don’t believe at her root she’s a crap person. I think she’s just messy, and doesn’t know how to handle herself properly despite working for years.
@Erinn I too feel the same way, I actually enjoyed her movies and she is not bad at comedies which is mostly what I’ve seen her in. If she was such a diva, why is she still getting jobs? Just saying. BTW I would love to know what Lesie Mann thinks about her comments.
The fact that she’s still getting jobs also shows that she wasn’t treated unfairly by the sexist industry like so many people say. She’s no longer getting lead roles in major films, because several of her romcoms flopped. She’s still getting plenty of work on tv and smaller films. If anything, she’s been given more chances than a lot of people would.
I enjoyed her teen/90’s films but have not caught her in anything since. It’s only recently I made the connection of her being in those films back in the day!
I wish she would just go away. She got a lot of opportunities that other actresses can only dream of and she flushed them down the toilet by being unprofessional and assuming she wasn’t expendable. She doesn’t seem genuinely sorry about what she did just sorry that she had to suffer the consequences of her actions.
That’s what I think too. No doubt, behind closed doors (if she can keep her mouth shut) she still sees herself as some kind of heroine and victim at the same time….a martyr.
The not nice me is annoyed by that maniacal smile. E-gads!
I think she should’ve reached out privately like she said she was going to do, but I also think Seth just sounds really salty still…all these years later. I mean, Knocked Up is what it is…it’s not The Godfather, for christsakes.
“The show is groundbreaking in that Cox is the first transgender actress to play a recurring transgender character on a major network series. ”
What about Candis Cayne on Dirty Sexy Money?! I guess she was only in half of the episodes, so this is more groundbreaking… but I would definitely consider ABC primetime “a major network series”, and she definitely played a “recurring transgender character”.
That’s what I came to say! That show was AWESOME until the writer’s strike ruined it. She wasn’t a huge character, but she recurred. And was fabulous.
Looks like the Variety article described her as a *series regular*, not a *recurring character*….
“”Moreover, Laverne Cox will achieve a milestone for network TV in the coming season as the first transgender actress to play a transgender series regular in the legal drama “Doubt.””
So I guess Candis just had a recurring role, but Laverne will be a main cast member?
Small side note. The lovely Ms Cox was preceded on network tv by Ms Candis Cayne, who had a role on Dirty Sexy Money as Billy Baldwin’s politician character’s mistress. Until they killed her off.
As a culture, we have made progress since then. Ms Cox seems wonderfully unstoppable.
Oh man I used to love that show!!! Donald Sutherland and Christine Baranski were the parents, right? Candis Cayne was epic in her part.
I thought it was a great show.
Not T.V., but as far as movies, I always remember The Lady Chablis in the Garden of Good and Evil (John Cusack movie). I love her over the top performance. I know she isn’t transgender, but she was/is an amazing drag queen and breaking barriers way back in the 90’s.
Said the same thing above, but then I followed the Variety links to the original article about the milestone. They call her the first transgender actor to play a transgender *series regular*, not recurring character. It’s a small distinction but it’s there.
I used to be a fan of Katherine Heigl, from Roswell to Grey’s Anatomy. I thought she was going to become this big star that starred in all sorts of films but instead she started obnoxiously bad mouthing the things that made her a success. I’m not some huge knocked up fan but I found her criticism of it tacky. And then she bad mouth Greys, which I liked, and I was even more annoyed. I agree that her stories were weak that year but for her to bash the writers in public and refuse to submit her name to the Emmy’s was, I thought, beyond disrespectful.
The straw that broke the camel’s back for me was her utter refusal to sign up for a film that wasn’t some easy breezy romantic comedy. I hated mainstream romantic comedies so she just completely lost me after that. Also I couldn’t stand the hypocrisy of her calling Knocked Up sexist then going on to play in movies that were even more sexist and finding a way not to complain about those because she produced them. She revealed herself to be a hypocritical whiner who put her business in the street for no reason. I’m done with the apologies, she’s apologized enough but I will never be a fan again of such a lazy petty actor again.
There were a few articles on the internet (Jezebel comes to mind) about Apatow’s films being sexist back in the day. I feel like she feared getting even more negative criticism after leaving Grey’s so she started addressing those points. But it all got messy, she didn’t please The critics and and she probably offended her former colleagues
I really don’t see her as a problematic person and think stories about her are way exaggerated. But I’m saying it as someone who casually watches her shows/films and reads articles abut her.
I liked Knocked Up, and think that Apatow has some good works and some bad. His ‘man-boys forced to face adulthood’ is pretty niche, but I never thought Heigl was a shrew. Leslie Mann, that was another story, but I thought that Apatow just wrote her character as she is. It’s not like this was some great American classic, but I’ve always thought the movie got a bad rap.
If you read the Hollywood Reporter articles, you would see that it wasn’t her just complaining about the scripts. Her and her mother held up production and basically treated the crew like crap over stuff like costume, food service and obviously her name misspelled on the dressing room. Everything was a tantrum. It would be ok if she wasn’t paid a lot of money and production wasn’t losing money while everyone was waiting for the two the calm the heck down. She pretty much killed her career with her attitude.
When she did that Vanity Fair interview there had already been a ton of criticism of Knocked Up. Literally hundreds of think pieces about whether it was sexist/how sexist it was. She didn’t just start talking about it out of the blue, at the point she did that interview the sheen of it’s success had already faded a little and people were re-evaluating. People act like she did the interview before the film was released for some reason.
I think people also ignore the fact that Apatow shoots enough footage for 5 movies. It’s extremely likely she signed on to and thought they were making a totally different movie. There’s some weird parts in the film where her character is uptight, then with no explanation suddenly a much looser, more fun character for a scene, then is back to being uptight. I think her character was meant to be much more well-rounded but they just kept all the parts where she’s got a stick up her butt and cut 90% of the parts where she’s funny or nice.
Nearly all Apatow movies would work better as TV series.
I can’t work up a lot of bad feelings for her. She seems family oriented, and telling a bossy momager to take a seat may be easier said than done (though coaxing mother to a ‘well deserved retirement’ might have worked with minimal backlash).
I’m probably the only one happy she did those kitty litter ads, because it’s now my go-to brand (works great and is less expensive). Carry on, ‘Kate’!
I listened to the Howard stern interview she gave and she came off pretty well and owned up to some negative past behavior. . She actually sang and apology song to Seth and his writing partner on the air. Think she is trying to humble herself. It made me like her again . Whether she liked the movie or not, I loved her in knocked up and think she’s a really good actress.
Watch The Ugly Truth and you’ll.change your mind. Both she and that movie were so bad that it actually makes me angry that someone intentionally put that out into the world.
Im the white haired Lady, That Is how I “Kate Heighl” from far away skeptically with a quasi stank face
Haaa, I’m curious too, what’s with that lady’s expression at the back of KHe’s head? Looks like she is having an allergic reaction to some bull$hit.
Is that true about Cox? Candis Cayne was on Dirty Sexy Money (ABC) a few years ago. She was the transgender lover of Billy Baldwin’s politician character–love scenes and everything. I remember thinking how groundbreaking it was because trans issues weren’t discussed mainstream at all let alone in a prime time TV show.
Her makeup artist needs to anchor that look with some darker brows. Holy hell it looks scary. Not crazy bold. Just SOMETHING.
I’m sorry and I may be alone in this, but I really like Katherine Heigl. Even if she is a diva, good for her! I know her mom is all in everyones face, but honestly, if these were two dudes, we’d never hear about it. She’s a great actress and I can’t wait to see the show. Love laverne!!!!
Actually, Macauley Kaulkin’s dad was a notorious father/manager and was loathed on set by anyone who had to deal with him. And I heard about that years ago before there was such thing as social media. That’s how much of a diva he was.
Don’t forget Taylor Lautner’s dad.
Parent Managers, of whatever gender, are a cautionary tale in showbiz. Making EVERYONE miserable and treating people like crap will only be tolerated as long as you make people money, no matter the gender – and Heigl’s truly atrocious movies stopped excusing her behavior.
Regular managers are known to be nightmares too. I think it’s just that the closer someone is with their manager, the more people connect the managers behavior with their client. Most actors have managers who demand crazy stuff and throw a fit when they don’t get it. But when that person is your mom or your brother or someone you’ve been BFF’s with for twenty years, that behavior reflects badly on you, whereas if they’re just someone you hired, it’s only reflects on the manager and you might even be seen as savvy and smart for hiring someone who’s so cutthroat.
Katie Heigel (that’s what she was known as during Grey’s days. Not Kate – quit trying to make that happen. There’s only one Kate and that’s Katherine Hepburn) should fire her stylist and hair stylist. She looks like her mom here.
I’m happy she’s expecting. Maybe she will mellow out and be a better person.
For someone who is very lovely, she always has the absolute worst hair and makeup. I’ve always wondered if she pissed off her team and we see the results in her face.
Agree. Worst stylist/makeup artist choices – such a pretty woman to always look so old and harsh.
I think her family is/was Mormon (she’s not). Her look reminds me of a lot of LDS women I know. Made-up and neatly styled but in an outdated and frumpy way. That might just be the kind of look she grew up around and thus is comfortable with.
she’s still a passive aggressive a-hole but i’m watching the show because of cox <3
This is such old news. At some point we have to let it go.