Sometimes being a celebrity is hard. Especially if you've been well-known for a few decades. There are certain things people will always want to know about, no matter how many times you've answered those questions, and Jean-Claude Van Damme wants everyone to know that he's tired of that shit. Take a look.
Uh, OK Jean-Claude. I think we get it. Van Damme was doing satellite interviews for Australian TV this week when he got tired of the questions the interviewer was asking him and, eventually, stormed out of the interview. After a little lesson for the folks at home about how the people on the other side of the camera (producers and camera operators, I guess) were talking about how he was sweating during the interview, he gets visibly annoyed at a question about actress and singer Kylie Minogue, whom he dated and starred with in the 1994 movie Street Fighter. After saying that he likes her, he announces, "Sorry guys, I cannot do this," and begins to take off his microphone and give us all the specifics on why the line of questioning he was undergoing didn't sit well with him.
Van Damme soon instructs those same people behind the camera that he referenced earlier to let him talk, which makes a lot of sense. You don't have a live interview start to go haywire as a producer, interviewer or camera person and not start a lot of behind-the-scenes chatter. A lot of which will probably include trying to calm the subject down so they don't become even more agitated or leave you hanging when they decide to just walk off camera. He tells the audience that "the press, they've been asking me the same questions for 25 years," and those questions mostly seem to revolve around how he trains and his relationship with Kylie Minogue. Man, I can already see why he's irritated. Can you imagine being asked questions about an old flame for over 20 years of your life? After about five years most people would just start punching people who broached the topic right in the throat.
He notes several times that he wants to come to Australia and talk about things, and that he now has a different view of life since he's 55 years old. And then (I love this), he says, for all to hear, "Those interviews you are giving me on TV right now? They're very boring...You have something interesting to ask me?" Boom! Slamming your interviewers live on TV is a pretty badass move, and one that likely will make any TV professional's heart stop for far too many seconds. Now we're getting to the meaty part, y'all. Van Damme don't give a shit how this looks.
It isn't long after when Jean-Claude Van Damme lets everyone know he has to use the bathroom and gets up from his seat to finally rip off his mike and get outta Dodge. In what is probably my favorite moment of this failed interview he says, "What the fuck is going on in Australia. I cannot do this. I'm too natural." What? What the hell does "I'm too natural" even mean? And I don't want to hear any crap about English being his second language, we all know he's been speaking it for at least the same 25 years he's been getting questions about how he became the Muscles from Brussels. He knows that phrase makes no damn sense.
Well, let this be a lesson to us all. If you ever encounter Jean-Claude Van Damme do not ask about how he works out or Kylie Minogue. He just might get angry enough to kick you in the heart, and I'm sure you don't want your day to end like that.
