Quite a while back, I started a page on Facebook that was simply called RANT. It was my place to wax lyrical about things that were getting on my nerves. The page still exists as I never removed it, but I don’t do anything with it anymore. The last time I posted on it was…nope, can’t even remember that.

I did start a semi-regular theme on the page though, entitled Celebrities Who Need a Slap. I borrowed the idea from a magazine I used to read back in my late teens called Ministry. It was actually the official magazine for world famous nightclub, Ministry of Sound. The segment was only in one edition, but it really amused me and it has stayed with me ever since.

They had a ferocity rating of one to five; I went with a rating of one to ten with mine. They listed fifty celebrities in the one segment alone, while I dedicated a whole post to each celebrity that needed a slap in my opinion.

Now I’m going to give the theme a rebirth right here on Paul.E.Bailey’s World because it’s fun! You know you’re reading this now and thinking “hmmmm, which celebrities would I like to slap”. We all love to hate celebrities because most of them are dreadful and untalented. We could all easily name ten celebrities in under a minute who are famous for absolutely no discernible reason. That is partly our fault. I say “our” fault, meaning the general non-celebrity public because it’s us who actually increase the fame of these talentless dicks by giving them our time. You’d think we’d have learned that by now, but while folk complain about these people and their ill-gotten fame, many still actually tune in and give them the very attention that made and maintains their celebrity status. They’ll never go away while we do it!

Anyhow, I’m going to end the introduction here and get on with the main show. Some of these are recycled from my RANT Facebook page, but no less deserving. Here are five celebrities who need a slap…

Kevin Bacon – It’s with a slightly heavy heart that I say this brilliant actor deserves to be slapped. He’s starred in some great movies; most notably Sleepers, Mystic River, Apollo 13 and Frost/Nixon to name a few. It’s not like he’s a B-List celebrity. Kevin Bacon is, for me, a major Hollywood star and one of those actors who I’d be interested in watching a movie just because he’s in it. That’s how highly I rate him.

But about five years ago, he started doing the EE adverts over here in the sunny UK. At first, I was coloured impressed. They were cheesy, but entertaining simply because Kevin Bacon was doing them. Had they been a flash in the pan, I think it would have been alright. Instead, he’s continued to do these commercials and they have gotten gradually worse as time has progressed. It’s recently culminated in him donning Britney Spears’ red PVC bodysuit and dancing before Britney herself appears asking if he’s been raiding her wardrobe. His response; “oops; I did it again”. No. No. No. No. NO! FUCKING NO!!! Why are you degrading yourself in this manner, Kevin? How much can EE possibly be paying you? Daft question. Given the price of my bills I can imagine he’s getting serious cheddar from it. For the pleasure, he’s subjecting us to serious cheddar too!

He needs to end whatever deal he has in place with EE before he loses his credibility in entirety. He is too good an actor to be made a show of in this way. I don’t care if EE’s shit adverts entertain kids and idiots. Kevin Bacon is above kids, idiots and EE’s overpriced products and he needs to realise that before his career crashes and burns!

Slap Ferocity Rating: 5/10

Farrah Abraham – I don’t think there’s a celebrity I hate more than this horrible witch! My girlfriend watches Teen Mom and has been doing from the start. It’s not up my street for reasons that should probably be clear, but I find my attention drawn to it sometimes because there are occasional interesting things going on. I say interesting things; usually it’s arguments or something like that. The one thing I can guarantee while she’s watching it though is that Farrah will grab my attention at some point.

You know how they say “you can’t argue with stupid”? Farrah Abraham is the epitome of that statement. She is the most argumentative, bossy, disrespectful, narcissistic, spoilt, judgemental and materialistic little bitch I have ever had the misfortune to encounter on TV or in real life. I’ll forgo the fact that she had a kid when she was a kid herself. I’ll forgo the fact that she’s only become the biggest celebrity of all the girls on Teen Mom because she was filmed getting drilled by somebody. What I can’t forgo is the chip on her shoulder that is lengthier, wider and deeper than Valles Marineris. What I can’t forgo is the fact that she seems to believe she was somehow preordained for her success. What I can’t forgo is the fact that she believes herself impervious to mistakes and that everything bad in her life is or has been the fault of somebody else. She is the absolute worst example of a human being as is possible to conceive of. Her style of arguing is shouting over other people so that they can’t get their reasonable points across; likely because she thinks that if they don’t get their point across then she wins the argument by default. Nobody tells Farrah that she’s wrong! If she says the sky is purple then you’d better agree unless you want a six hour argument that she’ll win because you’ll eventually tire of not being allowed to talk.

What’s worse is that people seem to empower her. Her mother, rather than put the troll in her place, cries like a baby when they argue. Tears are like water from the fountain of youth for a narcissist like Farrah. Her dad is a narrowback who clearly doesn’t want the backlash that comes with getting involved. The producers of Teen Mom pay her more than the other girls. The only person who ever seems to stand up to her is her on-off boyfriend, Simon. If anything, he purposely winds her up. I’ll buy the bloke a pint if I ever meet him. As for Farrah, I hope she gets eaten by a mythical creature. Or somehow gets trapped in the Street Fighter game and Ryu Hadokens her seventy-six times. Then E.Honda eats her. As long as she gets eaten, I don’t care!

Slap Ferocity Rating: 10/10

Russell Brand – When Russell Brand first appeared on the scene I immediately disliked him. He co-hosted Big Brother’s Little Brother and had an obsession with talking about his cock and balls. For some women that was great because they seemed to fancy him. However, from a neutral perspective, all it did was appeal to the lowest common denominator of the populace. It wasn’t big and it wasn’t clever. It was just creepy, pervy and weird.

Time progressed. Russell Brand grew up somewhere along the line. While he still acted the fool on occasion, he was at least showing a more intelligent and less cock and balls orientated side to his comedy. He was actually quite funny when he wanted to be. He’s absolutely hilarious in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him to the Greek. He’s entertained me in other things I’ve seen him in too, but I can’t remember what they are off the top of my head. Then there was the Katie Perry incident where he released pictures of what a minger she actually is to the public while they were married. I don’t care what anybody says; that was HILARIOUS! I’d always said she was overrated for her looks (let’s not even start on her utter garbage pop music) and I was proven so right! So he’d actually gone from annoying sex pest to funny and endearing; something not many celebrities do with me.

Then he decided to do something else. He thought he’d go completely the other way from his immature sex pest history and become some kind of political guru. Oh dear! I’ll give him his due; he seemed to know what he was talking about, but it became quickly clear that he was out of his depth and attempting to use his celebrity status to win people around. I’m not going to say Russell isn’t intelligent because he is. It’s a kind of deep and spiritual intelligence rather than politically focussed though. I remember people saying he’d owned UKIP leader Nigel Farage in some political debate or the other, but ownership was somewhat of a bold claim. I would say he held his own at best.

He also appears to have found his religious side too recently. His response to Stephen Fry’s by now quite infamous “How Dare You” rant about god at Gay Byrne was all very flamboyant and showy as is Russell Brand’s style, but it was also so full of holes that Titanic would look at it and laugh. He’s good at talking, but I think he has a habit of not quite using his intelligence before he does so and goes off on these not very well considered tirades.

Russell Brand definitely deserves a slap, but it’s more a round the head kind of slap that your mum might give you when you’ve been told off at school.

Slap Ferocity Rating: 2/10

Simon Cowell – Do I really need to give an explanation as to why this smug git needs a damned good wallop around chops? If you aren’t aware of why Simon Cowell is such an abhorrent man by now then you never will be!

Remember in the build up to all the people I’m listing when I talked about talentless celebrities? This twat embodies just that. Helped into the music business by rich parents, he went on to found or cofound about four different record companies (likely with the money bestowed upon him) in less than a decade before finally achieving some proper success. Does it shock you that he never really had to work hard at all to achieve all he got? Does it shock you that such a pretentious egomaniac was raised by a socialite mother?

I think any working class person is justified in immediately despising those who get the world handed to them on a silver platter and Simon Cowell is exactly that. What’s worse is that he sits there being all judgemental (and often insulting) towards suckers who are looking to achieve their dreams, while he was raised with a silver spoon in his gob and has absolutely no talent of his own. Who is he to cast judgement on anybody? Shouldn’t that be the job of somebody who actually has talent? And yet these fucking idiots turn up in their droves to try and garner his approval. They place themselves at his feet; this smug prick who probably can’t sing a note; and allow themselves to be appraised by him. What’s worse is that he absolutely loves these sycophants whoring themselves out to him. He must feel like the king of the damned world.

Guess what, Simon? You’re the king of absolutely nothing, you supercilious wanker! You were born into money and got lucky in everything you did. You’re a charlatan of the highest order. Your smugness is the hallmark of a person who deserved nothing of what they got and they know it. People like you never care that you aren’t in your position on any sort of merit. Your ego won’t ever allow you to admit that’s the case though. What people should be doing is taking your judgement with the pinch of salt it’s worth. I know that I would personally never take any criticism from you seriously because you know diddly fucking squat about life and its struggles. To a freethinking person like me who isn’t remotely brainwashed by pop culture and mainstream media, your opinion has all the value of a fart! The only difference between you and a fart is that I could stand to be in a room with the latter for longer. Only idiots value anything to do with you and you know it. You target the easily manipulated and will continue to do so while there’s money to be made off them.

I want The Undertaker to Tombstone Piledrive Simon Cowell onto a bed of hot coals. If I had Simon Cowell’s money, I might broker a deal with The Phenom to do just that. I’m sure he’d consider it given how detestable a man Cowell is.

Slap Ferocity Rating: 10/10

Leigh Francis – Francis joins Kevin Bacon and Farah Abraham in being one of the people to migrate from RANT. The ginger Yorkshireman really needs a good whack in the mush in the hope that it’ll bring him to his senses. The reason? Well, since you asked…

Keith Lemon. He is the entire reason. Keith Lemon is an alter ego. Let me go into more detail about Francis.

He became famous for a show called Bo Selecta where he donned various rubber masks to assume the identities of several celebrities of the time. It was weird, but it was hilarious. Even though the series ended about a decade ago, people to the day still take off his Michael Jackson and Mel B parodies. My favourite was always David Blaine though. It was just so funny watching Francis take the piss out of the eccentric magician.

Then Keith Lemon came along in the third and final series of Bo Selecta. He was an agent or something like that to one of the characters and there was really nothing special about him.

In 2008, the gameshow Celebrity Juice started with Keith Lemon as the host. It’s been going ever since much to my dismay. Unlike Bo Selecta, I’ve never been able to get into Celebrity Juice. I just don’t like it. I don’t like Keith Lemon. While I do succumb to the sporadic laugh on the rare occasion that I watch it, I find the show to be utter dross on the whole. I would have thought by now that Leigh Francis would have got bored with it and moved onto something else. It turns out not.

I’m guessing he’s simply making too much money from the garbage to call it a day. So in the meantime, I have to sit here and put up with the fact that this funny and unique guy isn’t entertaining me because the sheeple prefer something as dire as Celebrity Juice over Bo Selecta. On the one hand, I can’t blame Francis for choosing the path of least resistance and most profit. Who doesn’t want to earn the most money they can? On the other, I want to kick him in his ginger head for keeping this stupid gameshow running and not treating me to something that showcases his comedy prowess and originality better. The Keith Lemon gimmick is so overtired now and it wasn’t funny to begin with.

I don’t want to slap Leigh Francis. I want to slap Keith Lemon. But as they are one and the same, I’m afraid the bouncers are going to have to hold him for me while I deliver some sweet justice. Whammo!

Slap Ferocity Rating: 6/10

There you have it. Five celebrities who need a slap. I could carry on from here, but then that would ruin the surprise for the next time I decide to do this. Should I make it a semi-regular theme? I think I’ll let you, my esteemed readers make that decision for me. Comment below if you liked this post, if I should keep it going or not and which celebrities you’d like to slap yourself. Until next time, kids!