Russell Crowe’s worst moment

last updated 8 January 2015

Russell Crowe is kind of sorry he threw that phone, said Andy Morris in British GQ. The Aussie actor, 46, admits that he “should not have responded that way” back in 2005 when he launched a telephone at a concierge in a New York hotel. After a few drinks, he tried to call his children in New Zealand from his room. When the call wouldn’t go through, and the concierge told him he couldn’t help him—responding to Crowe’s exasperation with a “whatever”—the actor lost it and charged down to the lobby for a confrontation. “I defy anyone to be in that situation and not have a simple human response,” Crowe says. The concierge, he said, could have been more helpful, “considering I was spending in the region of $15,400 a day for 11 rooms in that hotel.

I can beat myself up for it and be regretful. Which I am. But all you can do is shrug your shoulders and say it was bound to happen.” Crowe admits he can be difficult at times, but insists that his reputation as a “hell-raiser’’ is greatly exaggerated. “I know some hard men, and I’m not a hard man. I’m a guy who puts on makeup for a living. If I was a hard man, I wouldn’t be any good at my job.”