In honor of 4/20, see all the stars who have admitted to (or been caught) smoking weed, from Canadian tween pop star Justin Bieber trying to look all hard while puffing away at a blunt to Charlize Theron's amazing makeshift apple-bong.
Justin Bieber has been exploring his bad-boy side lately, showing off new tattoos and racking up arrests. The pop heartthrob has been pictured a number of times smoking weed, the first being when he was secretly snapped in photos back on Jan. 2 of last year at a Newport Beach hotel party smiling and chatting with friends—and holding what appears to be a lit blunt between his fingers. Sources told TMZ that Bieber buddy and recording artist Lil Twist rolled the blunts at the party. The pop idol responded to the incident with a tweet: “i see all of u. i hear all of you. i never want to let any of you down. i love you. and..thank u #beliebers.”
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R&B it-boy Frank Ocean rang in the New Year in 2013 with citations for marijuana possession and speeding in Mono County, Calif. Ocean was first pulled over by the police in his black BMW on Dec. 30 for speeding and again on New Year’s Eve for the same offense—but this time police say they found a small bag of marijuana in the car. Driving with a suspended license did not help his case, and his driver’s license was temporarily confiscated. Seemingly unfazed by the incident, Ocean responded to fans on Twitter with “hi guys, i smoke pot. ok guys, bye.
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Rihanna’s extremely spiky shorts pressing into a bald man’s head are only the second most alarming thing about this photo of the pop princess at the first weekend of Coachella 2012. A closer look shows a mysterious substance that Rihanna appears to be rolling into a joint. Though Camp Riri has yet to comment, a second tweeted photo sheds some extra light on the matter: It shows Snoop Dogg and Warren G hanging out with Rihanna, who has an enormous blunt sticking out of her mouth.
Shizuo Kambayashi / AP Photo
Given her penchant for half-lidded, spaced-out interviews, it’s perhaps no shocker that Twilight star Kristen Stewart has (quite openly) taken an occasional hit of cannabis. In 2008, she was photographed smoking a bowl on her front stoop, decidedly apathetic to the paparazzi who gleefully caught every hit on camera. Only a few months later, photos emerged of a smiling K. Stew proudly waving her weed flag high in the form of a marijuana-leaf-printed bikini top. And yet again, only a few months after showing off her bikini, photos appeared of Stewart getting lifted at dinner in Italy with her vampire-playing beau Robert Pattinson.
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When Oscar-winner Frances McDormand played the role of a marijuana-loving mom in 2002’s Laurel Canyon, she embraced her new public connection to the pot-smoking community in about as big a way as possible: she appeared on the cover of High Times magazine, complete with a blunt in hand, a leaf-emblazoned T-shirt, and a goofy smile. When asked by the magazine whether she enjoys marijuana off-screen as well, she answered “without hesitation”: “I’m a recreational pot smoker.”
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His starring role as a lovable pothead in Pineapple Express, as well as his slacker character in the cult TV series Freaks & Geeks pretty much cemented James Franco’s status as an iconic pot smoker. But the actor insists we’re mistaken. Although he indulged in the drug when he was in high school, he insists he hasn’t done it ever since. “People think I’m stoned anyway,” he mused at the 2009 New Yorker Festival. Explaining why he doesn’t get high anymore, he said, “It just stopped being fun. Last time I smoked pot, I was not a fun person to be around.”
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As the star of Disney Channel’s Hannah Montana and the voice behind “Party in the U.S.A.,” teen sensation Miley Cyrus was known for making hits. But it wasn’t long before she started taking them instead. A year ago, a video leaked to TMZ of the then-18-year-old pop star smoking what she claimed was salvia, a natural herb with psychedelic qualities that’s legal in California. But Cyrus seems to have moved on, according to a newly leaked tape from her recent 19th birthday party, hosted by Kelly Osbourne. In the video obtained exclusively by The Daily, Cyrus was about to blow out the candles on her cake, which featured Bob Marley, when she said: “You know you’re a stoner when friends make you a Bob Marley cake. You know you smoke way too much f------ weed.” Osbourne then joked, “I thought salvia was your problem, Miley?” One spy who was at the party, which included Cyrus’s parents, Rumer Willis, Cyrus’s boyfriend Liam Hemsworth, and “furries and a number of dwarfs,” told The Daily, “Everyone in the room knows she’s a pothead.” Cyrus has stayed mum since the leak, but Osbourne took to Twitter to defend her friend: “let me make something very clear after @MileyCyrus salvia incident we started calling her bob miley as a JOKE! the cake was also A JOKE! it makes me sick that @MileyCyrus so called 'friends' would sell her out and lead people 2 believe she is someone that she is not! u guys if @MileyCyrus is not recording/filming/touring she is works everyday how could she possible do all that if she was a stoner! #think”
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When the Ivy League-educated actress hosted Saturday Night Live in 2006, she shocked viewers with her angry rap, in which she joked, “When I was at Harvard, I smoked weed every day.” Turns out, the lyric wasn’t completely off base. “I smoked weed in college,” the Oscar winner recently told Entertainment Weekly. “But I haven’t smoked in years. I’m too old. I wish I was that cool, but I’m like an old lady now.” Though she may no longer be a stoner, she isn’t too old to play one—Portman will be producing and starring in Best Buds, in which she plays a nervous bride-to-be who goes on a road trip with friends “to save herself… [with] a combo of marijuana and the bonds of their decades-long friendship.”
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Though the dreadlocks gave her away a bit, Whoopi Goldberg admitted on The View in February 2009 that she has “ smoked weed,” to which her co-host Joy Behar replied, “Shocking.” But what was truly surprising about Goldberg’s toking was that she managed to get through her 1991 Oscar acceptance speech for her performance in Ghost while under the influence. “I thought, ‘I've got to relax.’ So I smoked this wonderful joint that was the last of my home grown," Goldberg said in a 1992 interview, recently posted by TMZ. "And honey, when [presenter Denzel Washington] said my name and I popped up, I thought, 'Oh f---...okay, up the stairs ... around to the podium … there's millions of people, pick up the statue...” After her big win, Goldberg’s mother called her to simultaneously congratulate and scold her, who she could tell was high due to her “glistening” eyes.
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How else would one explain where ideas like grand egg entrances and horny faces and shoulders come from? Pop hit-maker Lady Gaga admitted to Anderson Cooper that smoking helps her creative juices flow. "I drink a lot of whiskey and I smoke weed when I write," Gaga said candidly on 60 Minutes. "I don’t do it a lot because it’s not good for my voice.” The new-age music icon added: “I don’t want to encourage kids to do drugs, but… what artists do wrong is they lie, and I don't lie. I'm not a liar. I built good will with my fans. They know who I am. And I’m just like them in so many ways." Stars—they smoke like us!
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If you needed some weed in Las Vegas in the ‘60s, Barbra Streisand was your go-to woman. Part of her stage shtick involved a rant about relaxation. Streisand would talk to her audience about avoiding drugs and alcohol as a crutch to calm her nerves before stepping into the spotlight. “It occurred to me to do this funny little routine—actually telling the audience about my hang-up… Then at the end, I’d take out a joint and light it,” she admitted to Rolling Stone. “First, just faking it. Then I started lighting live joints, passing them around to the band… It was great—it relieved all my tensions. And I ended up with the greatest supply of grass ever. Other acts up and down the Strip heard about what I was doing… and started sending me the best dope in the world. I never ran out.”
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Here’s one way to make Friday night television more interesting. Zach Galifianakis, star of The Hangover and the 2010 film, Due Date, smoked a joint live on Real Time with Bill Maher this past weekend. Although some have debated whether the joint was real or not, fellow panelist Margaret Hoover said in a tweet, “Sure smelled like the real thing.” Galifianakis said he hoped his on-air antics would prove that passing Proposition 19—which would effectively legalize marijuana in California—wouldn’t cause people to go insane. It did, however, lead the audience to erupt wildly in laughter and applause.
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Over the past 30 years, comedian Bill Maher has championed the legalization of marijuana. As a member of the advisory board for NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, Maher has not only been outspoken about his own pot use, but about regulating the substance’s legalization as well. “Every administration has done study after study after study on marijuana since FDR,” Maher told Jay Leno on The Tonight Show this month. “You know what they found? It makes you want to eat Spaghettios right out of the saucepan—that’s the worst thing.” Maher has long proposed the legalization of pot as a method to solve the economic crisis, but President Obama publicly disagreed with that notion. Upset with the rejection, Maher called Obama’s statements “ infuriating” and stands by his statement.
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At 76, Willie Nelson is certainly not your average American grandpa. The iconic country singer has been vocal about his lifelong passion for marijuana. In 2009, in fact, he got high before appearing on Larry King Live, nearly causing the CNN anchor to turn to ask: “You have pot in you right now?” Nelson was first introduced to pot by a friend in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1954 and in the 55 years that have followed, the musician’s life has never been the same. “ Marijuana is like sex,” Nelson told Blender. “If I don’t do it every day, I get a headache.”
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He may have a song about sucking on gin and juice, but we all know what really makes Snoop Dogg laid back—all that pot he’s smoking. Snoop has long been known for his affinity for weed, which he’s made no bones about. In 2002, on the eve of his 30th birthday, he told Access Hollywood that he decided one morning that he “ didn’t need it anymore,” which seemed odd coming from a rapper whose tours were given monikers like “Up in Smoke” and “Puff, Puff, Pass.” Saying he wanted to be a better role model for his children, it seemed like Snoop had turned a new leaf. But he’s since been arrested once more (in addition to a 2001 arrest) for pot possession and was later busted for “reeking” of the substance as recently as 2007. Snoop also appeared on the hit show Weeds in 2006 and just this month, in the live online debut of The Wake ‘N Bake Show, advised viewers: “If you got some chronic, now’s the time to blaze that shit up. Obama smoked too. Make sure you’re wakin’ and bakin’. Stay smoking.”
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It can’t be a coincidence that Sarah Silverman’s first book, her memoir entitled The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee, comes out on 4/20. How else would the comedian celebrate besides with a little bit of weed? Silverman has never been shy about her love of chronic—nor has she really been shy about much of anything. But she did have some words of wisdom for her fellow pot smokers at Comic-Con in 2008. “Make it a treat,” she advised the young marijuana users of today. “If it’s an everyday thing and it’s easy to get, it takes the fun out of it.” And Silverman certainly knows how to treat the subject with care and of course humor. On her TV show The Sarah Silverman Project, which has earned the comedian a cultish following, pot often pops up. The second season’s premiere episode, “High, It’s Sarah” included her classic line, “Marijuana really expands your mind” and in a more recent episode, she deeply declared, “It’s always 4/20 somewhere, right?”
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On December 27, 2007, The OC actress Mischa Barton pulled a Marissa Cooper-style stunt in West Hollywood when her vehicle was seen straddling two lanes of traffic, signaling trouble to police. She was charged in February with driving under the influence and possession of marijuana. Earlier in 2007, the now-23-year-old starlet and her then-boyfriend Cisco Adler had been photographed by paparazzi at a medical-marijuana facility and Barton had been smoking what appeared to be a joint in her car. But after her 2008 arrest, Barton alleged she was a changed woman, telling Ryan Seacrest,“I’m really disappointed in myself… I’m not perfect and I just don’t ever intend to do something this stupid again.” Less than a year later, Barton was photographed allegedly rolling a joint at a Hollywood club.
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Record-breaking Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps took a dive into some hot water in January 2009 when News of the World showed the all-American boy smoking marijuana out of a glass pipe. The 23 year old was photographed in November 2008 at a University of South Carolina party, just months after winning eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics. Phelps released a statement saying, “I engaged in behavior which was regrettable and demonstrated bad judgment… I acted in a youthful and inappropriate way, not in a manner people have come to expect from me. For this, I am sorry. I promise my fans and the public it will not happen again.” Some sponsors were satisfied with his apology—Omega and Speedo stuck by their man—but Kellogg's no longer wanted Phelps to be the face of Frosted Flakes and decided not to extend his contract.
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Back in 2002, 17-year-old Prince Harry was caught and admitted to binge drinking and, on at least one occasion, smoking pot while at a pub in western England. Because he is a public figure, he was swiftly embroiled in a press frenzy and whisked by his father, Prince Charles, to a rehab facility for one day to learn about the dangers of drug use.
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Zombieland star Woody Harrelson is a vocal advocate for legalization of marijuana and hemp, and in 1996 intentionally planted hemp seeds in order to be arrested and challenge existing possession laws. After a four-year court battle, Harrelson was acquitted of his misdemeanor charges, and went on to narrate Grass: The History of Marijuana, a documentary about the government’s war on marijuana.
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In October 1999, the Dazed and Confused star caused a neighborhood disturbance and was charged with possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia after police visited his house on a noise complaint. The officers reported finding McConaughey blasting loud music and playing bongos in the buff while another man “danced and clapped,” surrounded by “a faint odor of marijuana” as well as a pipe with herbal remnants. The drug charges against the actor were eventually dropped, although he did have to pay a $50 fine for violating a noise ordinance.
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Pictures surfaced in 2002 of the Oscar winner allegedly smoking out of a makeshift apple bong, then giggling after she exhaled. Not surprisingly, her publicist responded to the story with a resounding “no comment.”
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Brad Pitt has admitted to indulging in marijuana in the past, but has since claimed to have given up the drug after becoming a father. Bill Maher recently told a story about seeing Pitt roll “the most perfect joint” at a New Year’s Eve party, and Quentin Tarantino told Howard Stern that Pitt smoked with him earlier in the year when they met to talk about Inglourious Basterds. "He takes this brick of hash, whips out a knife, like Jesse James, and cuts me off a big slither,” said the director. “I go, 'Do you have a pipe to go with this?' And he handed me a Coke can!"
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Jennifer Aniston once told Rolling Stone that marijuana is her way of relaxing. “I enjoy it once in a while. There is nothing wrong with that,” she said. “I wouldn’t call myself a pothead.” In 2001, Star claimed she and then-husband Brad Pitt smoked nearly every day and that the actress told friends the two were high when introduced to President Bill Clinton. Years later, the rumor returned when The National Enquirer reported Angelina Jolie blames Aniston for Brad Pitt’s pot smoking “since the bulk of his drug-taking days were when he was with her.” A source alleged, “Angie is convinced Brad is reminiscing over his time with Jen every time he lights up a joint.” Whether that’s the truth or paranoia, we may never know.
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After the initial success of her debut album, soulful young British singer Joss Stone admitted to Q magazine, “I’m not much interested in drugs—apart from the occasional spliff. If I want to leave here right now and go to Amsterdam for the hell for it, I will. What this job has shown me is that there are many options in life, and I can do whatever I want.” But the self-proclaimed infallible musician has experienced more career lows than highs since that 2007 statement. She recently told Britain’s Star magazine, “I smoke weed, but I don’t think it’s really a drug. It’s more an herb… I think everyone smokes weed and people who say they don’t are lying! Weed has been given this evil stamp, but how is it dangerous? It’s going to make you laugh your ass off? You might go to sleep?”
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The ex-wife of music powerhouse Russell Simmons was arrested in New Jersey in July 2004 for having a small amount of marijuana in her Mercedes-Benz coupe when police pulled her over for minor violations. Though she was released after facing five charges, including possession of marijuana under 50 grams, her ex-husband spoke out on her behalf and campaigned to repeal New York state’s Rockefeller drug laws, which require long prison sentences for those caught possessing or selling relatively small amounts of any illegal substance. “The Rockefeller drug laws are unfair, unjust and un-American, and that’s why Governor [George] Pataki should repeal these unfair laws now,” Simmons told CNN in 2003. Pataki later signed legislation that slightly rolled back the drugs laws, and Governor David Paterson reformed the laws in 2008.
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Justin Timberlake first triggered rumors about his recreational drug use during a 2002 interview with Blender magazine. Advocating for an American’s right to get stoned, Timberlake said that he was in favor of legalizing marijuana. “It would cut the crime rate in half,” he explained. “All the stoners I know are too paranoid to do anything stupid.” Timberlake’s third single, “Rock Your Body” from his 2003 debut solo album Justified, included the lyric: “The air is thick/ It’s smelling right/ So you pass to the left and you sail to the right,” raising eyebrows among former ‘N Sync fans. That same year, the pop star infamously appeared on Punk’d, nearly crying after being tricked into believing that tax authorities were taking all of his earthly possessions. “'That was back in my first-album creative days. That’s why I looked the way I did, if that makes any sense to you,” Timberlake later told Entertainment Weekly. After the interviewer asked if the “LoveStoned” singer was high at the time, Timberlake answered with a laugh, “Incredibly… That was a trippy experience. That was why I was completely glassy-eyed… As a matter of fact, I was like, ‘OK, I got to stop doing this’… I don't do that anymore.” Just one year earlier, however, the lauded singer/dancer/ SNL host had an interesting interview experience for a Rolling Stone cover. “I can’t believe I forgot how much fun this is,” Timberlake said “before taking another drag” from a joint in 2006.
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The controversial Grammy Award-winning artist talked to Katie Couric about his marijuana use during the anchor’s 2009 All Access Grammy Special. “I will stand up for marijuana any day,” he told her with a smile, citing his use as medicinal for migraines that he said “make me want to kill myself.” In July 2007, he was arrested for smoking weed in New York City following a performance at the Beacon Theater, and again in January 2008 when Border Patrol agents in Arizona recovered 105 grams of marijuana, almost 29 grams of cocaine, 41 grams of MDMA and $22,000 in cash on his tour bus. The self-proclaimed “gangster” went on to tell Couric, “I do what I want. And I love to smoke.”
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The Spider-Man star got caught in a whirlwind web of media attention when she reportedly said the world would be brighter if we all started our days with more marijuana. “I do like weed,” she told The Daily Mail in April 2007. “I think America’s view on weed is ridiculous. I mean—are you kidding me? If everyone smoked weed, the world would be a better place.”
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In an interview with The Guardian in April 2003, the sage star of The Shawshank Redemption said he no longer engaged in hard drugs, but could never have his last dance with the Mary Jane. “Never give up the ganja,” he said in reference to what he calls “God’s own weed.” Unfortunately, the press representative for the Academy Award winner (for Million Dollar Baby) stepped in before he could continue speaking about “the burning bush.”
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