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Celebrities and politicians typically become famous through wealth, family connections, talent, or sheer luck — not friendliness or good manners. Although many famous people are gracious and kind, many personal assistants and staffers have to put up with their bosses’ unreasonable demands, harassment, and entitled behavior.
You might expect potty-mouthed, controversy-courting figures like Howard Stern and Sharon Osbourne to face accusations of mistreating their staff. But there are also politicians like Amy Klobuchar and Nancy Mace whose offices are so volatile that staffers have spoken to news outlets anonymously for fear of retribution — even as those politicians project a relatable image to voters.
Below, find out which famous person sent an assistant into a burning house, which celebrity has more than 300 allegations of rude behavior against them, and who was banned from an NYC restaurant.
Mariah Carey has been sued by her former staffers
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Mariah Carey is notorious for her diva-like behavior. The “Obsessed” singer publicly shaded other celebrities and once claimed to need 20 humidifiers around her bed to keep her voice in top shape. Carey has embraced her reputation, even telling The Guardian in 2020, “You think in the grand scheme of things in my life that really matters to me, being called a diva? I am, b***hes, that’s right!” But not everyone is so lighthearted about it: multiple former employees have sued Carey, alleging everything from harassment to wrongful termination.
In 2019, Carey’s onetime personal assistant, Lianna Shakhnazaryan, filed a lawsuit against Carey and Carey’s manager, Stella Bulochnikov. According to the 32-page suit, Bulochnikov was accused of physical, verbal, and sexual abuse, and Carey was accused of battery against Shakhnazaryan. Shakhnazaryan lived with the artist as part of her personal-assistant duties, and the suit claims that during that time, she “was subjected to aggressive, abusive and harmful physical conduct by Carey … with the intent to harm and/or offend [Shakhnazaryan].” Carey also allegedly knew about Bulochnikov’s abuse but allowed it to continue and then fired Shakhnazaryan when she complained about it, according to the suit.
Bulochnikov herself sued Carey in 2018 for unpaid wages and breach of contract; her lawsuit also “accused Carey of having a substance abuse problem and being frequently naked,” according to Rolling Stone. In 2020, a former nanny for Carey’s children, Maria Burgues, also sued the singer for “severe emotional distress” and unpaid wages, per Variety.
Howard Stern publicly berated employees
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Howard Stern has tried to rebrand himself since his shock jock days with his SiriusXM show and a stint on “America’s Got Talent,” but he has a long history of being rude and dismissive toward his staff, often on-air. In 2022, he went on a long rant about his producer, Gary Dell’Abate. Speaking to co-host Robin Quivers, Stern called Dell’Abate the C-word and vented about how “when these microphones go off, he ain’t working eight hours a day. I know it. He can deny it, but he’s full of s***. He’s charging around doing personal s*** during my work day.” Stern later added, “I just want him working. I don’t want him funny. He’s not funny. Gary hasn’t said anything funny, ever.”
Stern berated his staff at large during a 2013 staff meeting that one of his employees leaked online. Along with calling out specific employees for not wearing Howard Stern–branded apparel and suggesting staff make fake Twitter accounts to promote the show, Stern insulted his team’s appearance: “We finally get the artist up here and they walk into the f***ing radio station and we look like, some people around here, look like zombies from ‘Walking Dead,'” he said.
In April 2026, Leslie Kuhn, a former assistant for Stern and his wife, Beth, sued the couple for maintaining a “hostile work environment and enablement of that hostile work environment” and “massively disorganized and questionable business operations and accounting practices,” per USA Today.
Nancy Mace would ‘make staffers cry’
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South Carolina representative Nancy Mace made headlines in October 2025 when she cursed out airport and TSA employees at the Charleston International Airport. According to NBC News, there was a mix-up with the vehicle taking Mace to her flight. When officers found Mace attempting to use a TSA employee’s entrance, “she immediately began loudly cursing and making derogatory comments to us and about the department,” the police said in a statement. “She repeatedly stated we were ‘f***ing incompetent’ and ‘this is no way to treat a f***ing U.S. representative.'”
Behind closed doors, Mace allegedly treated her own staff in a similar fashion. A 2026 investigation published by New York Magazine featured interviews with several of her past employees, who made allegations that the politician forced them to do shady things like bring her alcohol in the middle of the night, breaking House of Representatives rules; clean her homes and Airbnb rentals; and create fake social-media accounts to write posts about her attractiveness. “We were scared of her,” one of the former staffers said, per New York. “She would make staffers cry. She would threaten to fire them, take their money away, not give them raises, not give them days off, religious days.” In three months, she “fired or lost nine staffers from her Washington D.C. office,” according to the Washington Post.
Though Cameron Morabito, Mace’s director of operations, told New York that “these allegations are so ridiculous they don’t even merit a response,” Mace herself seemed to acknowledge that she doesn’t work well with a team. “I’ll never have a chief of staff again,” she told New York. “I’ll never have a campaign manager. I run a pretty flat organization because I don’t believe in gatekeepers.”
A Twitter thread of stories of Ellen DeGeneres being rude garnered over 300 replies
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Between her comedic daytime TV show, her role as the lovable Dory in “Finding Nemo,” and her turn hosting the 2014 Academy Awards (when the infamous selfie was taken), Ellen DeGeneres was well-liked by the public for decades. But in 2020, reports about how she treated the staff on the set of her talk show tanked her reputation.
Buzzfeed News spoke to 11 former employees of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” who claimed they faced racist comments, were fired for taking bereavement leave, and were instructed not to speak to DeGeneres if they saw her on set. “We all have a kind of ‘this isn’t normal’ feeling about how people get treated there,” one former employee said. “If she wants to have her own show and have her name on the show title, she needs to be more involved to see what’s going on,” another staffer told Buzzfeed News.
The stories didn’t stop there: When comedian Kevin Porter started a Twitter thread asking for anecdotes about DeGeneres’ rudeness, he received over 300 replies. “I used to work with her former EP and he had stories for DAYS. It wasn’t even a question: if you get offered a job there, RUN,” screenwriter Tom Casiello replied. A former bodyguard of hers, Tom Majercak, also recalled that DeGeneres never so much as greeted him. “Ellen is the one person that I’ve been assigned to — and I’ve been assigned to quite a few celebrities — that has never taken the time to say hi to me,” he told Fox News, per Business Insider.
DeGeneres apologized for her show’s working conditions in a July 2020 statement, writing, “I want everyone at home to love our show and I want everyone who makes it to love working on it. Again, I’m so sorry to anyone who didn’t have that experience,” per Entertainment Weekly, and she has maintained a relatively low profile since.
Andrew Cuomo continually harassed and screamed at his staff
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For a while, it seemed like former New York governor Andrew Cuomo had it made: He won nearly 60% of the vote in 2018, and his approval ratings peaked at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, with one poll showing that 87% of New Yorkers approved of Cuomo’s performance. In 2021, however, he resigned from his position after allegations of a toxic workplace and his serial harassment of female employees came to light.
In February 2021, former Cuomo aide Lindsey Boylan detailed how the governor sexually harassed her. Boylan claimed Cuomo asked her to play strip poker with him, tracked her whereabouts via his senior staff, and eventually kissed her on the lips in 2018. She resigned shortly after. “The idea that someone might think I held my high-ranking position because of the Governor’s ‘crush’ on me was more demeaning than the kiss itself,” Boylan wrote in a Medium post, adding that after she shared her story, several women reached out with similar allegations against Cuomo.
The Washington Post conducted an investigation into Cuomo’s workplace in March 2021, where most of the staffers interviewed confirmed that Cuomo would scream at and berate his employees. Former legislator Paul Feiner recalled Cuomo telling him, “I’m going to destroy your career and break every bone in your body” if Feiner voted against a housing project Cuomo wanted built. “It was a terrible place to work, easily the worst you’d ever imagine,” another former official said. “I still have nightmares about it.” Cuomo stated in a press conference that month, “I never, ever meant to offend anyone or hurt anyone or cause anyone pain,” per the Post. He resigned in August 2021 and ran a failed campaign for New York City mayor in 2025.
Naomi Campbell has been convicted of several assaults
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Supermodel Naomi Campbell became a household name in the 1990s, though allegations of staff mistreatment and multiple assault convictions have marked her career.
In 1998, per the BBC, Campbell was accused of punching her assistant Georgina Galanis and hitting her on the head with a phone, leaving Galanis “shaking and in tears.” Campbell pleaded guilty in 2000, with the judge stating that “she has learned her lesson and demonstrated her remorse.” But in 2007, Campbell once again pleaded guilty to assault after it was alleged she hit her employee Ana Scolavino, requiring Scolavino to receive four staples to her head, per the New York Times. Campbell pled guilty.
Campbell has faced several subsequent accusations of assault against her staffers, and in 2010, CBS News reported she had been accused of hitting her driver. “The man told police Campbell hit him so hard his head struck the steering wheel, causing bruises to his cheek,” the reporter stated. “When he pulled over to call for help, she fled the scene.” He declined to press charges.
In 2020, Campbell was once again accused of hitting a driver, per Essence. She claimed that the driver apologized and dropped his charges, adding, “I have worked very hard on correcting my previous wrongdoings and I will not be held hostage to my past.”
Amy Klobuchar called her staff ‘the worst’
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Amy Klobuchar is a senator from Minnesota who is perhaps best known for her 2020 presidential campaign. She is currently running for governor of Minnesota, and she may be hoping that allegations of staff mistreatment that surfaced around the time of her presidential campaign don’t come back to haunt her.
A series of reports in 2019 detailed Klobuchar’s anger issues and her tendency to yell at her staff. According to the New York Times, it was typical for the senator to throw items like binders and phones at her staffers, and certain word choices or grammatical errors would cause her disproportionate ire. She would send emails berating her team’s event prep, writing messages like “In 20 years in politics I have never seen worse prep” and “This is the worst press staff I ever had,” per the Times.
“The way Sen. Klobuchar behaves in private with her staff is very different than when she’s in the public eye, and that kind of cruelty shouldn’t be acceptable for anyone,” a former staffer told BuzzFeed News. Klobuchar has appeared to acknowledge and apologize for her past behavior. “I’m incredibly proud of the work our staff has done and I would not be here without amazing staff,” she said in a March 2019 statement, per Politico. “I know I can be tough, I know I can push people too hard, and I also know I can do better — and I will.”
Sharon Osbourne sent an assistant into a burning house
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From the profanity-laced antics depicted on her family’s 2002 reality show “The Osbournes” to her frequent criticism of Meghan Markle, Sharon Osbourne has endured a number of controversies throughout her career. But in perhaps the most shocking incident, she casually recalled to the BBC show “Would I Lie to You?” that she once forced an assistant into a burning house — not to save a life, but to retrieve artwork.
In the 2019 interview, Osbourne recounted how a burning candle led to a house fire. “And then, I think, ‘Right, where is that … of an assistant?,'” she told the hosts. “So I go into the guesthouse, and he’s going, ‘Everything all right?’ And I’m like, ‘No! The house is on fire! Get out. Help! Go in, and get the paintings out.'” She added that after everyone had made it outside and paramedics arrived with oxygen masks, “I took the [assistant’s] mask and I put it on my dog.”
Though she claimed at the top of the interview that “I once sacked a member of my staff because he showed absolutely no sense of humor during a house fire,” Osbourne later clarified that while the house-fire story was true, the assistant was actually fired 15 years later. “He went in, he got the paintings out. And then, just to be precocious, I said at the end of this little thing I was doing, ‘Oh, and then I fired him,'” she said, per People. “It was a joke because I was on a comedy show … I fired him about 15 years later,” she said.
Katie Porter was caught yelling at an aide on-camera
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Katie Porter was a U.S. representative from California from 2019 to 2025, and she has recently thrown her name in the running for California governor. But her budding political career was overshadowed in 2025 after a viral video showed her yelling at a staffer.
The video, which was recorded in 2021 but not released until 2025 by Politico, shows an interview between Porter and former Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. While explaining the importance of converting to all-electric transportation, Porter interrupted herself mid-sentence to address a staffer who was in the background of the video. “Get out of my f***king shot!” Porter yelled. The staffer interjected to correct a statement Porter had made earlier, and Porter replied, “Okay. You also were in my shot before that. Stay out of my shot.” Porter later responded to the public outcry, saying, “What I did to that staffer was wrong. I’ve acknowledged it to her in that moment, and I’m acknowledging it now … I think people who know me know I can be tough, but I need to do a better job expressing appreciation for the amazing work that my team does,” per the New York Times.
Around the same time, a video of a 2025 CBS interview emerged in which Porter mocked a reporter’s question about Republican voters and threatened to walk out. Later, when asked by “Inside California Politics” if she had the right temperament to be governor, Porter said, “I am taking responsibility for this situation, and I’m also not going to back down from fighting back for California, from being tough,” per the New York Times.
James Corden was banned from an NYC restaurant
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“Carpool Karaoke” and “The Late Late Show” host James Corden maintains a cheery, jovial onscreen presence. Behind the scenes, however, his staffers and other people he has come into contact with claim he is rude — and he has even been banned from a famous eatery in New York City.
In 2022, per the BBC, Corden ate at Balthazar and had an attitude with wait staff on two separate occasions. Balthazar owner Keith McNally detailed the accusations in an Instagram post, stating that Corden was “the most abusive customer to my Balthazar servers since the restaurant opened 25 years ago.” After allegedly finding a hair in his food, Corden “was extremely nasty” to the manager on site and said, “‘Get us another round of drinks this second. And also take care of all of our drinks so far,'” according to McNally. In the second instance, Corden was accidentally served the wrong side with an omelette, and McNally said, “That’s when James Corden began yelling like crazy to the server: ‘You can’t do your job! You can’t do your job!'” McNally banned Corden from the restaurant, but later reversed the ban when Corden apologized, McNally said in a follow-up Instagram post.
When it comes to his own staff, Corden has allegedly campaigned to lower their wages. In a since-deleted tweet, former “Jimmy Kimmel” writer Jack Allison said, “I’d like to state once again for the record that I went to a WGA meeting for only late night writers, and James Corden showed up without any of his staffers to advocate for a lower pay grade for late night writers.” Per LadBible, TV writer Nick Wigel backed this up. Corden replied in a tweet that the allegation was “completely untrue.”