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Celebrity stalking has ranged from repeated unwanted messages and boundary-crossing to home intrusions, threats, assaults, attempted murder and murder. The cases below show that range, but they are not a ranked list: no authoritative measure establishes the “15 most dangerous” celebrity stalkers. They are selected for documented persistence or escalation, access to the target, threats or violence, and the strength of the available record. The outcomes differ, too: some people were convicted, some were only accused in the cited accounts, and one person listed below was acquitted.
15 celebrity stalking cases, with the record distinguished from the allegation
1. Mark Chapman and John Lennon
John Lennon was shot and killed by Mark Chapman. In a 2002 scholarly analysis of public-figure attacks, forensic psychologist J. Reid Meloy included Lennon’s killing among attacks preceded by stalking behavior. The case is a stark example of stalking followed by lethal violence, but the source does not provide a detailed chronology here; it should not be embellished with unsupported claims about Chapman’s planning or motive.
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2. Robert Bardo and Rebecca Schaeffer
Robert Bardo fixated on actor Rebecca Schaeffer over several years, wrote to her and visited the studio where she worked. According to the Los Angeles Times, he obtained her home address through a private investigator and killed her at her apartment door on July 18, 1989. The case shows how access to a private address can turn persistent fixation into physical access to a target’s home.
3. John Hinckley Jr., Jodie Foster and Ronald Reagan
Meloy’s 2002 analysis links John Hinckley Jr.’s stalking of public figures with the 1981 shooting that wounded President Ronald Reagan. Jodie Foster was the celebrity focus in accounts of Hinckley’s fixation; Reagan was the person shot. Keeping those roles distinct matters: Foster was not the victim of the shooting.
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4. Richard Jackson and Theresa Saldana
Meloy identifies the knife attack on actor Theresa Saldana as preceded by stalking. A 1989 TIME report said Richard Jackson, who was convicted in the attack, continued to threaten to kill her after his conviction. The case involved both an attack on Saldana and later threats, rather than a threat that should be confused with the physical assault itself.
5. Robert Dewey Hoskins and Madonna
A 1996 Los Angeles Times report says Hoskins was convicted of stalking Madonna, threatening her and members of her staff, and repeatedly intruding onto her property. During a final confrontation, a security guard shot Hoskins while struggling with him. Hoskins did not kill or injure Madonna in that confrontation. After the verdict, Madonna released a statement saying the outcome showed victims that “the system can, and does, work”; that was her response to the conviction, not a general finding about how stalking cases are handled.
6. The woman accused of threatening Michael J. Fox
TIME reported in 1989 that a woman was arrested after allegedly sending thousands of threatening letters to actor Michael J. Fox. The account establishes an arrest and an allegation, not a conviction. It belongs in a history of reported celebrity-stalking cases only with that distinction intact.
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7. The man accused of seeking access to Michael Landon
In its 1989 coverage, TIME reported that a man allegedly shot and killed two guards after being refused access to actor Michael Landon at a studio. The guards were the victims of the fatal violence. The account connects the alleged demand for access to Landon with the shooting, but does not establish a court outcome for the man.
8. The woman who broke into David Letterman’s home
TIME described repeated break-ins at David Letterman’s home by a woman who called herself “Mrs. Letterman,” along with the theft of a car. The report does not establish the full adjudicated outcome. The documented conduct in that account is intrusion and theft; it should not be presented as an assault on Letterman.
9. The person convicted of harassing Anne Murray
TIME reported multiple harassment convictions involving a person who repeatedly contacted singer Anne Murray, including a high volume of calls during a six-month period. Those details describe a historical report, not a measure of current stalking patterns. The available account supports repeated harassment and convictions, but does not establish physical violence against Murray.
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10. Nishil Patel and Sophie Ellis-Bextor
Crime+Investigation UK reports that Nishil Patel sent singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor hundreds of messages and gifts and contacted members of her family. The outlet says he received a stalking protection order. This account describes persistent contact extending beyond the target, but does not report an assault on Ellis-Bextor.
11. Myra Carvalho and Harry Styles
Crime+Investigation UK reports that Myra Carvalho sent Harry Styles more than 8,000 cards in under a month and received a 10-year restraining order after a jail sentence in 2024. That is the outlet’s account of the sentence and order; it does not describe physical violence against Styles.
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12. Matthew David Hughes and Eminem
Crime+Investigation UK reports that Matthew David Hughes broke into Eminem’s home in 2020 and again in 2024. The repeated home intrusions make this a serious access and safety case. The outlet’s roundup does not establish the latest legal outcome, so the reported break-ins should not be mistaken for a complete account of the proceedings.
13. Justin Massler and Ivanka Trump
CBS News reports that Justin Massler admitted harassing Ivanka Trump and was sentenced to time served and probation, with treatment conditions. Unlike reports that describe only an arrest or accusation, this account includes an admission and a sentence.
14. Genevieve Sabourin and Alec Baldwin
CBS News reports that Genevieve Sabourin was convicted of stalking Alec Baldwin and related charges and sentenced to six months. The report establishes a conviction; it does not describe a physical attack on Baldwin.
15. The Sheryl Crow case: an acquittal, not a conviction
CBS News reports that Ambrose Kappos was acquitted of all charges in 2004 in a case involving singer Sheryl Crow. An acquittal is not a stalking conviction, so Kappos should not be described as a convicted stalker. The case is included because legal outcomes are part of the history—and because an accusation alone does not establish guilt.
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What these cases show—and what they do not
The cases span very different conduct and evidence: repeated letters or calls, contact with family, entry onto property or into a home, threats, a knife attack, shootings, and killings. They also span different legal statuses. A conviction or admission is not interchangeable with an arrest, a reported allegation, an order, or an acquittal. Nor does a frightening pattern of unwanted contact by itself establish that violence followed.
A 1989 TIME article summarized a National Institute of Justice-sponsored study of 1,500 “inappropriate” letters sent to dozens of Hollywood celebrities. As reported there, researchers characterized 5% of the writers as enemies or would-be assassins, and said about 15% tried to approach stars personally, usually at home. These are figures from a historical study as summarized by TIME, not current prevalence estimates or a prediction tool for assessing an individual case.
Public attention and security arrangements do not guarantee that a person’s home address or other private information will remain inaccessible. Schaeffer’s case is especially relevant to that risk because Bardo obtained her address through a private investigator. It is not evidence that every celebrity faces the same level of danger, or that celebrity status itself predicts violence.
These reports also do not support diagnosing the people involved or treating mental illness as a proxy for dangerousness. The useful distinctions are behavioral and evidentiary: what contact or intrusion was reported, whether threats or violence occurred, who was harmed, and what a court actually found. Meloy’s 2002 scholarly analysis is valuable as a grouping of historical public-figure attacks, not as a current ranking or a tool for predicting who will become violent.
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