Donald Trump has the most hated star on the Walk of Fame, Hollywood Boulevard's Batman says
There are more than 2,500 stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but only one regularly compels people to stomp on it, deface it with spray paint, and pretend it's a toilet.
The star belongs to Donald Trump, and street entertainer Austin Franklin, who patrols the area dressed as Batman, says he's astounded by the things that happen on the tiny piece of sidewalk. "I've never seen this kind of hate put on a star before, not even Bill Cosby," he told The Wrap. "At least 50" tourists clomp over the star at 6801 Hollywood Blvd. every day, he said, while others "pretend to take a dump on it as they pose for pictures."
Mimicking defecation is one of the tamer things to happen at the star, which Trump received in 2007 and is on prime real estate outside the Hollywood and Highland complex. Last week — months after a vandal used yellow spray paint to cross out Trump's name on the star — someone used black spray paint to scrawl a swastika on it, and although it was quickly cleaned up, a snapshot of the damage was posted on Reddit. Franklin/Batman has witnessed a lot go down on this stretch of the Walk of Fame, and said there's just one place in the world where a piece of terrazzo could elicit such rage: "Only in Hollywood."
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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