As I covered on Sunday, the night before the Golden Globes, Sean Penn hosted an A-list gala to benefit his Help Haiti charity. The benefit had a much better guest list than any other event during Golden Globes Weekend, perhaps because people wanted to schmooze with Sean and his new girlfriend Charlize Theron. Charlize was in attendance, of course, and they sat together during the charity auction. Yes, there was an auction. And Sean auctioned off a very special Jeff Koons sculpture that he (Sean) commissioned at Charlize’s behest. It turns out that Charlize convinced Sean to give up all of his guns, so Sean gave his guns to Jeff Koons to make into a sculpture. Weird story, right?
Charlize Theron has convinced new boyfriend Sean Penn that it’s time to give up his gun collection. The Milk actor revealed this last night at his J/P HRO Haiti benefit, where a live auction item included a sculpture that Jeff Koons will make from his nearly 65 guns.
While Penn didn’t refer to Theron by her name, he said that “a strong woman who happens to be from South Africa” changed his mind about owning the deadly weapons. (Theron was just 17 when her mother shot and killed her father after he apparently fired his own gun into the future Oscar-winner’s bedroom after a night of drinking and threatening to kill her.)
“Being provoked by this aforementioned strong woman and considering how liberating of bulls–t and ugliness it would be not only get rid of the guns I have in the continental United States but also to destroy them, Jeff Koons and I had a chat the other day,” Penn said.
He said, “The highest bidder gets every single one of my guns put in the hands of this iconic artist and sculptor…Koons will decommission [and] render inactive all of my cowardly killing machines.”
And guess who won the still-to-be-made artwork for $1.4 million? Anderson Cooper! He outbid his CNN colleague Piers Morgan who stopped bidding at $1.3 million.
Cooper wasn’t the only boldface name spending big money last night. Coldplay rocker Chris Martin, with wife Gwyneth Paltrow by his side, won a 39″x48″ painting on a wooden board by British street artist Banksy for $650,000. The night raised a total of $6 million.
The evening, which took place at the Montage hotel in Beverly Hills, ended with a performance by U2. Among the star-studded crowd were also Penn’s children, Dylan and Hopper, as well as his mom.
So many details to discuss. First of all, Sean owned 65 GUNS?! I mean, I knew he was a gun owner and that’s fine and God bless, but having a collection of 65 GUNS? Once you get past, like, 20 guns, I suppose it’s all gravy. Gun gravy. Second of all, it’s insane that a Jeff Koons gun sculpture would be worth $1.4 million, but I guess it’s for a good cause and I can’t believe Anderson Cooper throws around money like that. Third thing: Chris Martin spent $650,000 on a tiny Banksy painting? That’s a lot of GOOP. Gwyneth is going to be so smug about that in this week’s Goop-letter, I can just feel it.
Photos courtesy of WENN, PR Photos.
How about the over-tanning? Can she get him to give that up or is he going into his grave this shade of orange?
He looks like a baseball mitt at this point.
demented, gun-loving oompa loompa
lol
That’s…wow. My father is a hunter and has a lot of guns – he also likes to collect rare and antique ones – but I think if I added them all up he’d have 20, tops. 65 is just amazing and scary both.
But I bet your father is not a rage monster with 65 guns in his possession.
Definitely not, lol.
That is why this story is so scary.
I love Charlize SO MUCH. I was her #1 fan especially when YOUNG ADULT came out, because in my opinion- she gave the performance of the year (2011, I think). And then this happens. I guess I’m a fairweather fan b/c I can’t handle her dating Sean Penn. I can’t handle it. No way.
Same here. Adore Charlize, but I cannot fathom – with her intelligence – why she would take up with a long-simmering abusive swine like Penn. Unless she has a magic vagina with anti-douching properties and is trying to bring peace to the world, one rageholic at a time?…..
“magic vagina with anti-douching properties” LOVE IT! My respect for Charlize hit rock bottom when I read this. I’m feeling a little sick right now. I watched the GG’s and was thrilled for Robin Wright’s win and her announcement of her engagement. I thought yes! she is moving on, after the crap she dealt with from SP. Then the next day all I see and read is about SP and CT…..I can’t undo it, but it’s articles like this that make me consider giving up gossip sites.
as if….
Have you ever read “The Woman Who Slept with Men to Take the War out of Them” by Deena Metzger?
I don’t know if she has a magic vagina but Sean Penn is desperate to find out. Someone is in serious lust.
Agreed. I can’t look at her the same way any longer. It’s like she’s been slimed. Permanently.
If you are going to stop being a fan because you don’t like her boyfriend then you were never a real fan to begin with. It doesn’t matter who she dates. She’s still the same actress with the same talent. Root for her to get a new boyfriend and still admire her talent.
65 guns? Compensating!
Sixty five guns is scary enough. Sixty five guns under the control of Sean Penn is positively terrifying.
I heard the saying that guns don’t kill people but people with guns kill people. I’m not saying that Sean is one of those people but he is a bit of a rage monster.
Did you hear on the news this morning that a man shot and killed another man in a movie theater because he was texting. Of course this happened in Fla where they have that out-dated stand your ground defense but this man was in a movie theater about to watch Lone Survivor with his wife. The man who shot him was a 71 year old retired cop. Who carries a gun to a movie theater!
I’m dating an FBI agent and he carries everywhere. The only time I’ve known him not to carry was on Christmas Eve, to church, and even then he has a gun in his car. I’m not defending what that guy in Florida did at all, but I have come to realize that law enforcement officers have a completely different set of expectations and reflexes when they’re out in the world. He doesn’t make a big deal about it and he never takes it out to show people or lets people touch it or anything like that, but he’ll never not carry it. It’s just part of who he is.
@Algernon I think you missed the line where I said he was a retired police officer, no longer active. I know law enforcement officers carry their piece even when they are not on duty. My brother is a deputy Sherrif in the South. This man was retired meaning he doesn’t have the right to pull you over, he doesn’t have the right to search your vehicle, he doesn’t have the right to arrest you and he doesn’t have the right to show up to investigate a crime scene. What he does have the right to do is dial 911 like the rest of us. He is now a citizen, not a cop.
I agree with you, totally. Go complain to the manager of the theater, don’t shoot someone. That we even have to explain that, jeez. Being with someone who’s in that mindset, though, I’m not sure he’d stop carrying even in retirement (unless gun laws changed and he legally couldn’t, which, to my guy’s credit, he’s a huge proponent of cracking down on guns). I guess I’m saying I understand why a retired cop would have a gun in the first place. I don’t understand why he used it.
@Algernon, the answer to that question is far from puzzling-old guy is a wacko.
Apparently he doesn’t have them any more so no need to be terrified.
65 guns seems… excessive. Unless he was expecting a zombie uprising. Of course, he specified that he’d donate his guns from the continental U.S. He’s keeping his international artillery. He doesn’t consider those to be cowardly killing machines.
Good point. This was all for show. He didnt really have a change of heart, just wanted the accolades.
Exactly! This was a shameless exercise in patting himself on the back.
I’m so relieved someone else noticed that. It stuck out to me light a neon light. The Continental US. How many International guns does this a-hole have? I’ve spent a little bit of time with him and his brother and the rumors of his sparkling personality are spot on.
I’m really turned off that she is with him. Just the worst. Long live Princess Buttercup!
Any may who owns 65 guns is scary and probably a bit mentally unbalance. But 65 guns + SEAN PENN???? I’m done with Charlize.
Sean has been in jail a few times – isn’t a felony under the federal law for a former convict to own firearms? I am only asking this because I am not from US and don’t know the law there.
As for Charlize and Sean couple – I have written on numerous occasions that nothing excuses Charlize to expose her son to a known violent man. I mean come on – Charlize grew up in a violent home where her mother ended up killing her father in selfdefence.
As the years pass the more we all get to see the real Charlize – the one who doesnt hesitate to date a man with a history of violence against women and who is BFF with a known racist Chelsea Handler (this despite adopting a black child).
These two things have completely changed my view of Charlize.
Doesn’t change my views of her at all. I have been hearing rumors for years that she’s a real B.I.T.C.H.
THANK YOU. I have NEVER liked Charlize Theron but I just couldn’t with her when she adopted a black kid and dated that Family Guy jerk, the Chelsea Handler dick and now Sean rage monster douche extraordinaire???????? Whatever.
What’s wrong with her adopting a “black kid”?
Why would you have a problem with her son being black? Were you dropped on your head as a child or something?
@Atorontogal: I think Renee meant to write the same as I did that despite having adopted a black child she is BFF with a known racist (Chelsea).
Because Sean Penn hits photographers, which is the only violence he’s demonstrated in the last 25 years, he’s going to hit Charlize’s son? That’s an incredible leap. Sean Penn isn’t perfect, but the man has a big heart, and no other celebrity would sleep in tents among Haitians instead of flying in for a photo and them leaving. Sean’s move to get rid of his guns for Charlize should be applauded. Stop judging the man because you may have heard some things that happened in the 80s. Move on already. Sean has countless friends in the business, so I guess you should dislike most of Hollywood.
Chelsea Handler a racist? That’s just a lie. Hey, she even sleeps with black men. If you’re going to take a comedian’s jokes seriously then you need to lighten up. She has many Hollywood friends too. Let’s start hating them.
@ Maya – I think the restriction about gun ownership applies to felons, meaning the crime was more serious than someone convicted of a misdemeanor. Someone can go to jail for driving under the influence of alcohol, which unless another person was maimed or killed as a result, is usually a misdemeanor.
I will never understand what people find attractive about this guy.
Here, if you would want to buy a gun, your house would be examined, your family and neighbours questioned to see if you were fit for ownership. The only person I know that owns a gun is my uncle who is a policeman.
65 guns? That would be a lot of check ups.
Yep, here too. No one owns a gun.
How’d Sean get the Banksy?! (Joke). I recognise that balloon. Wasn’t it on an NYC wall somewhere recently?
Banksy was here recently and put up several pieces around the city. Some shop owners then spent money to have special gates installed, as well as security guards watching over them because some fools had tried spray painting over his work.
Was the auction item a copy of one of that series? I’m sure I remember a balloon with plasters.
So many men and…she is basically acting out some type of Electra Complex.
Sean Penn looks like sh#t.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t a gun save her and her mom’s lives? What if she hadn’t had one? Charlize and her would most likely have been killed.
But if her dad and her mom never had one, he would be alive. She assumes.
Yes, because nobody ever killed anybody with a kitchen knife, or a baseball bat, or their own hands. If she thinks that not having a gun would have defused that situation, she’s deluding herself.
But having a knife in the house is normal. Having a gun is not.
It’s normal where I am.
@anon361 Yes, having one gun can be normal, but 65 is bordering on micro warlord paranoid psycho.
I was just letting you know her perspective.
stole the words right out of my mouth Nerd 🙂
he’s got 65 guns but are they all in the same house?
he’s got to have a bunch of houses around the country and world,
Anyway guns don’t kill people, bullets do 😛
Dizzybenny, Penn specified that he donated his guns from the Continental U.S.
“get rid of the guns I have in the continental United States”
So, basically he has a stash of dozens of other guns kept abroad or Hawai, and Koons won’t touch these ones.
Yeah,
I noticed that too. This guy is such a toolshed. I don’t like guns but I could see someone having one or two, perhaps even 5 but 65?!?!??!?!?!?! He only has two hands!!!!
Wow. She sure got his balls in a sling quick, didn’t she?
The thought of Sean Penn owning 65 guns is very frightening indeed! I hope this story is true and he doesn’t have them anymore.
Anderson Cooper is a Vanderbilt. He could throw that kind of money around regularly and probably never notice it.
I was going to post that too. The man is a Vanderbilt. From the main line, not subsidiary or distantly.
While I wouldn’t trust him with one, there are certainly lots of collectors who have huge collections. Plenty of people out there simply value the craftsmanship and the different historical periods from which they came. I doubt that was Penn’s interest, but it doesn’t make the people who are interested irrational in any way.
I would guess that, statistically, the guy who has a collection of 100 is probably a lot less likely to use one of them in a criminal way than the guy who just has 1.
I agree with your first paragraph. Can’t speak to the second, because I haven’t seen the data.
My major concern with Penn, in particular, is his gun ownership coupled with his history of domestic violence. I strongly believe anyone who has been convicted of domestic violence should not be able to legally own a gun.
I’m also disappointed that a woman brought up in the shadows of domestic violence would date someone with a history of domestic violence.
Jesus. And this is why we always wear sunscreen, people. He has the complexion of a 70-year-old.
Nah, my mother is 74 and she looks like a baby compared to this guy. SP looks like Methuselah’s older brother….
Amen to that!
I have 4. I like them, am propery trained, have a concealed carry license (but rarely carry them). If I had more money, I’d have more guns. I don’t see anything wrong with collecting something you love or are fascinated with.
This is what people who aren’t from the US find utterly baffling. How can anyone “love” guns? They are things designed to kill people and/or animals. That’s it. What is there to love?
Yeah, Canadian here. Don’t get the love for guns and never will (I’d still want a sword or axe in axe of a zombie uprising). Power trip I guess?
Hey Sean, you look like a pumkin, b*tch!
OK this LOL Diana.
*raises hand* Who else is tired of seeing this Troll’s face? It’s enough to give you damn nightmares. Eeep!
65 guns? He must “collect” them. Surely there’s no sane reason for having that many for personal protection. I’m not worried he has them, my only concern would be that they were legally purchased and fully registered.
He only got rid of the guns he kept in the “continental United States”. That means he’s got an arsenal somewhere else.
Ugh! I can’t stand these women who think they are so f*ing special that known philanderers won’t do it to them because there is nobody out there better than them that he’d want. That’s not why they do it. They do it because they’re jerks – narcissistics – and because they can. They do not love like normal people. You can’t change them. Sandra Bullock comes to mind. Acting like she was the love of his life and how happy they were. More like how stupid you were to think he’d treat you any differently than the woman he cheated on before her. Cheaters are cheaters. A therapist once said “when someone shows you their true self, beleive them.”
He could be someone who collects rare and antique guns not meant for shooting. I personally work in a crime ridden neighborhood. I have a concealed permit and I carry all the time. Doesn’t make me crazy just makes me cautious.
That may be true, but would you ask a modern artist to destroy rare and antique guns? wouldn’t you sell/give them to someone who valued them?
Maybe she should convince him to be a better parent so he wouldn’t have a son who feels free to use racist and homophobic slurs while angry.
Maybe she should think about her own son being in the company of a man who could raise a child like that, particularly since she adopted a black child.
Or maybe, she doesn’t care as much about that since she is getting the publicity for being with a walking glow stick.
How?! Why? I just don’t understand.
Why is Charlize Theron, kick-ass, highly awarded, and sink a thousand ships beautiful woman, dating greasy, red and simultaneously orange, weird and not in a good way Sean Penn?
Does he have some hidden charm I am completely unaware of?
Word.
Really scraping the bottom of the Hollywood dating barrel here.
Or belatedly working out her abusive father issues by dating his clone.
Good. Now dump him.
My father owned firearms. A shotgun and a Smith & Wesson with a pearl-inlay handle. They were for protection and defense of the home only. He did once bring out the shotgun and shot a rattler that came up in our yard. But the firearms were always locked up and us kids never knew where the key was. The fact is, America has millions of gun owners and the vast majority are law-abiding and responsible citizens.
As for Charlize … this whole thing is so yuck. I ranted about that already on a thread yesterday.
Maybe the majority are law-abiding, etc., but the fact is, America has the highest percentage of armed civilians world-wide and while not the highest murder rate, has the highest percentage of killings by gun. Citation from numerous sources but I used this one: http://o.canada.com/news/politics-and-the-nation/crime-and-justice/the-united-states-must-use-more-than-gun-control-to-fight-gun-violence/
Here’s some of the text:
Approximately 60 per cent of all homicides in the United States are committed with a firearm. In Canada, that number is a mere 30 per cent. In France, it’s less than 10 per cent and in Japan a mere 1.8 per cent.
Globally, an average of 32 per cent of all homicides are committed with a firearm.
What’s strange is that there are high rates of gun ownership around the world, but people in the U.S. use their guns to kill each other far more frequently.
Switzerland, for example, has the third highest rate of gun ownership in the world, but is 45th in the world for homicide with a firearm.
Canadians, as well, own guns at rate of 30.8 per hundred people — 13th highest in the world — but 56th in terms of killing each other with those guns.
The U.S. doesn’t even have that high a murder rate. At 4.8 homicides per 100,000 people, their murder rate is lower than that of 102 other countries in the world. Canada’s rate is a mere 1.6 per 100,000 people.
What makes the U.S. different is that when they kill each other, they have a habit of using guns. Guns, as it turns out, are particularly suited to killing more than one person at a time.
I’m just sad and shocked that Charlize would pick Sean as her next relationship. Wait until he has his first meltdown with her. Makes you wonder what the future holds?
Given that I am not American I must admit that the gun culture within the US just seems so strange. I genuinely am not trying to just rile peoe up. But it really is baffling. No one understands it – except Americans!
Why does anybody else need to understand it?
Where is Jeff Spicoli when you need him?
How typical of Gwyneth and Chris to spend a ton of money on a Banksy. They don’t seem to understand the point of his work. It’s supposed to be public and free. Paying a ton for it invalidates it.
It will be interesting what happens regarding the guns if they break up..
I say he will get more. Sometimes perspective changes when the bloom is off the rose.. or the heat is gone. Whichever.
Sounds to me like Sean is really in love with Charlize to do that. How sweet.
Why does everyone think Sean Penn is still the same man he was in the 80s? He’s not. He will never be a fan of paparazzi but this is a man who will sleep in tents in Haiti. He has a good heart and does more than most of these so called philanthropists and you do. He was with Robin Wright for 20 years and there was never anything to suggest he had been violent towards her.
Sean and Charlize looked the happiest I’ve ever seen them at that event. I’m glad he’s with a strong, beautiful woman and she has a real man.
He’ll sleep in a tent? For real?
Hoplophobia, the morbid fear of guns, is a real, extremely dangerous, widespread and clinically recognizable complex specific phobia with a number of unique characteristics.
His comment ‘in the continential United States’ is weird…so, does that mean he’s auctioning off the 65 he has here int he states, but he’s got others in other countries or hawaii/alaska and territories that he’s keeping?
also, i am not into charlize either. she’s always seemed cold. gorgeous. but icy. not that she needs to be warm per se, but i just didn’t get why ppl were so into her saying how she is this amazing woman, just b/c her mom shot her dad and she is gorgeous. she does rock a red carpet though. i dont think i’ve ever seen her fail a RC look. And I do like how she keeps her private life private.
I just don’t think she’s an example or role model, particularly.