Cristin Keleher: The woman who bizarrely ate George Harrison’s pizza
People might want to argue that crazed fan behaviour has become a much broader issue in recent years with the growth of social media allowing any old Joe Bloggs to interact with their favourite artists in a seemingly close yet still parasocial manner, but ever since the concept of celebrity has existed this has been an issue. We might have had a neologism coined for this sort of conduct thanks to Eminem’s ‘Stan’ providing a harrowing fictionalised tale of fan obsession gone awry in 2000, but so-called fans have interacted with their idols in bizarre ways since long before this time.
From Björk being the victim of an obsessive stalker who attempted to send an acid bomb to her home to John Lennon being fatally shot by Mark Chapman in 1980, some people will go to exceptional and deranged lengths to forever find themselves associated with their musical heroes, often attempting to bring harm to themselves and the artists in the process. While there can sometimes be malicious intent behind fans inserting themselves into the personal lives of such icons, there are also some far less grisly examples of when they have tried to brush shoulders with those they look up to.
Much like his fellow Beatle, George Harrison was also the unfortunate victim of a violent attack from a fan in December 1999, when an assailant stabbed him 40 times after breaking into his house in Oxfordshire. While Harrison did eventually make a recovery from the incident, it marked the end of a tumultuous month for the guitarist, as this was the second time in as many weeks that one of his properties had been broken into.
It’s common for people to get starstruck in the presence of famous celebrities and not know how to behave, but it’s a lot less common to break into their second home when they’re not present and choose to act in a confusing manner. For Cristin Keleher, who had managed to invade Harrison’s private residence in Maui, Hawaii, earlier in the month, her first instinct when entering Harrison’s property was not to try and ambush the star but was instead to make herself at home.
Retrieving a pizza from the freezer and calling her mother, Keleher instead chose to make herself comfortable rather than operate in a clandestine fashion, and seemed unfazed by the fact that her presence had triggered an alarm which police were alerted to. By the time the authorities had arrived on the scene, the 27-year-old intruder hadn’t suddenly made an attempt to flee the premises, but was instead indulging in a spot of laundry.
When questioned about her motives for breaking and entering into the Harrison household, she said that she believed she “had a psychic connection with George”, but this doesn’t exactly explain her instinct to feast upon his secret stash of Margheritas. While Harrison himself was luckily not present at the time of the incident, Keleher was briefly afforded some time to see how the former Beatle lived when residing in his holiday home before being sentenced to four months in prison.
As amusing as this tale might seem, it did end in more tragic circumstances six years later, with Keleher being the victim of a murder-suicide in California. There is little known information about what led to this horrific ending, and the situation would suggest that her life may have been troubled both before and after her intrusion of Harrison’s home, but her place in unusual Beatles folklore has forever been cemented by the image of her putting her feet up with George Harrison’s snacks.
