Julia Roberts: From America's Sweetheart to America's Fun, Drunk Aunt

Passages from New York's article "Julia Roberts Runs Amok at Celebrity Charades Game," written 12/08/09:

We're not sure exactly when last night's annual Celebrity Charades benefit for LAByrinth Theater Company, sponsored by Entertainment Weekly and Duracell, devolved into complete chaos, but we'd say it was inevitable from the moment Julia Roberts took the stage.

Roberts eventually got both bidders to pony up $13,500 each (for two slots) by using the following exhortations: "All right, people, let's have order! I only have THREE kids!"; "My pants are SO tight, come on! I wore these tight pants just for you"; "Handsome guy is on my team. Someone rich and not so smart on the other team"; and "Why don't you want to give us more money? I am so CUTE!"

As a player, Roberts was equally distracting to her own team. Screaming out "Vagina!" at random, or becoming fixated on certain wrong answers. "M.A.S.H.! M.A.S.H.! M.A.S.H.!" she screamed out as her teammate tried to act out Damages. Another favorite of Roberts's? "Driving Miss Daisy! Driving Miss Daisy!" which seemed to be the answer for every other clue she couldn't get. When Roberts's team lost "because we're just a bunch of drunk guys," and she ran out of time acting out In the Heat of the Night, she grabbed the mike from Bogosian and demanded, "a teeny, tiny, little more time ... I bought a ticket for Talk Radio, back off!"

During the second half of the live auction before the charades finale, Roberts once again stole the mike to goad the audience into spending way too much for a dinner for six at Rao's, explaining to the crowd she was up past her bedtime. "I go to bed, truly, at 8:17. What time is it? 9:17? Oh, let's have fun!" she continued. There was a lot of running back and forth across the stage, and somehow she eventually started calling one side of the room "Manhattan," and other side "New Jersey," as in "Come on, New Jersey, you have five seconds to not be shit over here!"

But, it seems winning wasn't really foremost on Roberts's mind. Even as her team shuffled off in defeat, she grabbed the mike for old time's sake, and waxed poetic about the final clue. "The other day I put on a fuchsia dress, and my son said, 'Mommy, you look just like a High School Musical girl. Now, isn't that worth some money?"

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