Can Foster rest easy?
A Massachusetts man who once admitted to writing anonymous letters to Jodie Foster has been arrested for mailing a bomb threat that mentioned the actress to a California airport. "What's with the fascination with Jodie Foster?" said the Boston H
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
What happened
A Massachusetts man who once admitted to writing anonymous letters to Jodie Foster was arrested Tuesday for mailing a bomb threat to Van Nuys Airport. The note also mentioned the Oscar-winning actress. If convicted, the man, Michael Smegal, could face 10 years in prison. (E! Online)
What the commentators said
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
“What’s with the fascination with Jodie Foster?” said a Boston Herald blog. Remember him? First John Hinckley Jr. tries to assassinate Ronald Reagan in 1981 to impress her, and now this. Foster’s role in that “masterpiece about loneliness and dysfunction”—Taxi Driver—sure made an impression. “She became a cult hero for the unstable among us and it has stuck.” No wonder Foster says that, for her, “staying private is a necessity.”
Foster certainly seems to be a magnet for crazy men, or “allegedly crazy men," said the Boston-area’s Unversal Hub. About 100 nearly identical letters—some also mentioning Foster, and all allegedly sent by Smegal—were sent to the addresses of celebrities, businesses, airports and other institutions in the area last year. This has to make Foster the world’s “most stalked celebrity.”
Foster isn’t the one who needs to worry about her “creepy” followers, said Stuart Heritage in Hecklerspray. Hinckley shot Reagan to prove his love for her, and, according to an alleged confession, Smegal threatened to blow up the airport “because he thought that the Screen Actors Guild had offices there, and he wanted to punish it for disparaging remarks it had apparently made about Jodie Foster.” So, if there’s a third Foster stalker out there, “we liked Jodie Foster in Silence Of The Lambs. And Panic Room. And Inside Man.” Please, then, “don’t bomb us.”
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
One great cookbook: Joshua McFadden’s ‘Six Seasons of Pasta’the week recommends The pasta you know and love. But ever so much better.
-
Scientists are worried about amoebasUnder the radar Small and very mighty
-
Buddhist monks’ US walk for peaceUnder the Radar Crowds have turned out on the roads from California to Washington and ‘millions are finding hope in their journey’