Principle: Don’t contradict people when they say you were upset about something.
They’ll never believe you.
A mediocre way to deal with this situation is to elaborate with a sob story about how you’re in recovery from whatever thing upset you. This is acceptable but will mostly engender pity. Ideally, you should try to always fascinate and terrify your audience.
Elaborations involving how you got revenge on the person, people or group that upset you should either be lighthearted and full-of-yourself (i.e. “but then I made a hundred jillion dollars on that movie, so that’ll show ‘em!” [audience laughter and clapping]) or theatrical and full of occult references (i.e. “what most people don’t understand about voodoo is that it really works!” [audience silence, chair-shifting and sporadic claps]).
If you feel bad about possibly lying to your audience, just remind yourself that as a famous person, you’re always on display, and you owe it to your audience to play an interesting character.
Examples of famous people who succeed at this principle: Tom Cruise (who fascinates and terrifies us), Angelina Jolie (who never says she wasn’t upset about something)
Examples of famous people who follow the principle, but by virtue of our being afraid to suggest they’ve ever been upset: Christopher Walken, Mr. T.
Examples of famous people who fail at this principle: Jennifer Aniston
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