Star Admits She Used to Bite Other Celebrities: "This Is Horrible Behavior"
Selma Blair explains why she's done this more than once in her new memoir.
In her new memoir, Selma Blair opens up about her health issues, her struggle with alcoholism, and her career, but she also addresses a strange habit she used to have. The actor's book, Mean Baby: A Memoir of Growing Up, was released on May 17, and it covers talks everything from her childhood to how she's living with multiple sclerosis after being diagnosed at age 46. Blair, now 49, also writes about her experiences in Hollywood and encounters with other celebrities—including the fact that she has bitten a few of them. Yes, bitten.
Read on on to find out who the actor sunk her teeth into and why she developed this bizarre way of dealing with nerves and anxiety.
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Blair had a history of biting as a kid.
Blair's book includes some wild stories from her childhood, including that she hit an adult neighbor with a sprinkler rod and that, at her grandfather's funeral, she "stood next to [her] dad as he accepted condolences … and punched every man who came near us in the [expletive]." She also mentions that she once bit a "chunk of flesh" out of one of her sister's back (via The Washington Post).
According to People, the book's press release describes Blair as "a disagreeable child with a terrible disposition" and explains that she had been known to bite all three of her older sisters.
As an adult, she chewed on some fellow celebrities.
In the book, Blair names three celebrities she bit when she first met them. In 2006, Blair met Sienna Miller, who was her peer and had been up for some of the same jobs as her, at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles.
"I couldn't begrudge her for any part she was winning over me," Blair writes in Mean Baby (via Page Six). "So, I grabbed her arm and bit it, playfully, as if it were an apple. Even as I held her forearm in my mouth I was aghast at myself. I thought, What have I gotten myself into? Or her? This is horrible behavior."
Blair appreciated Miller's reaction, however. The actor "kind of screamed, 'Opa!' as I do whenever someone breaks a plate," she writes. She also recalls Miller saying, "'You bit me, didn't you? You really did.'" The Cruel Intentions star continues that "[Miller] didn't shame [her]. For this, in my book, she will forever be the belle of the ball."
She bit another star when she was drunk.
Blair also writes about biting actor and Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane when she was out to dinner with a group that included him. At this point, Blair had been struggling with alcoholism for years, but explains that she "wasn't good at social drinking."
"I did not realize how drunk one can get while seated at a table, eating," she continues.
Meeting MacFarlane, she writes, "I was starstruck. What do I do in public situations where I admire someone, but feel as if I don't bring anything to the party? I bit him on the hand. 'Whoa!' he yelled. 'That really hurt.' It wasn't a disaster; I didn't break skin. But I soon hated myself."
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And she bit a supermodel twice.
Kate Moss was also on the receiving end of this habit when she and Blair were hanging out together after a fashion show in London. Blair bit the supermodel's finger while they were taking Polaroids together, which made Moss laugh. Because she got a positive reaction, Blair bit her again.
"The second time, she did not laugh and exclaimed, 'That really [expletive] hurt!'" Blair writes that Moss then punched her in the back and "crunched right into" her thumb.
"This was the first time I had any inkling of how much I might hurt people when I bit them," Blair writes. "Immediately, I transformed into a shamed nursery school kid. 'Oh my gosh,' I whispered, 'I am so sorry.'"
She says this happened sometimes when she was overwhelmed.
Of the biting, Blair writes in the book, "[M]y system gets overwhelmed and instantaneously short-circuits…In my life, social interactions have been cumbersome." According to the New York Times' review of the book, Blair also now sees the biting through the lens of her MS diagnosis; the disease, which impacts the nervous system, had plagued her for years before she found out what it was.
While not referring to the biting in particular, Blair has said that MS had an effect on what she thought was just her personality. "Emotionally there is an impulsivity of thoughts and too many tears," she told Elle. "I didn't know that what I thought was part of my personality actually had a lot to do with prefrontal damage."
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