Threatening and Otherwise Inappropriate Letters to Hollywood Celebrities

Abstract

In this paper, the authors examine the characteristics of threatening and otherwise inappropriate letters sent to Hollywood celebrities. Such communications, known colloquially as “nut mail,” “hate mail,” obscene letters, and threat letters, are received by the famous in enormous volume. We studied approximately 1800 such letters to entertainment celebrities from 214 subjects, who averaged 8 letters apiece. We quote excerpts from these letters, describe objects enclosed with them, and provide quantitative data on such variables as the form, appearance, volume, and duration of such letters; the subject's perceived relationship to the celebrity; the thematic content of the letters; and the messages and threats they communicate. Comparisons between 107 subjects who pursued encounters with the celebrities and 107 who did not revealed 15 factors associated with such pursuit. Contrary to expectation, the presence or absence of threats was not associated with pursuit behavior.

The problem behavior model: the development of a stalkers clinic and a threateners clinic

“…There is a modest literature that empirically examines threats (Calhoun, 1998;Dietz et al, 1991aDietz et al, , 1991bMeloy, 2001;Scalora, Baumgartner, & Plank, 2003). One of the few systematic studies of psychiatric assessment after uttering a homicidal threat reported nearly half to be psychotic and most of the rest personality disordered (MacDonald, 1968).…”

Empirical Research Of Threat Perception

“…The scientific literature presents contradictory views on the emotions caused by threat. Psychological consequences of threat are often referred to the emotional sphere: anxiety, fear, and depression of a reader (Dietz et al, 1991). Intensive manifestation of emotions influences adequate perception of the image of the threat.…”

Content Analysis for Proactive Protective Intelligence

“…As reported in [2], six studies have been carried out to date on abnormal communication and approach to prominent people: one on the British royal family [18], two on Hollywood celebrities [19,20], and three on the U.S. Congress [21,22,23]. The studies relate the occurrence of problematic approaches to factors such as mental illness, threatening or antagonistic communication, requests for help, multiple means of communication, and multiple contacts and targets.…”

“…Use of insights of existing studies on abnormal communications and approaches [18][19][20][21][22][23] to tune the information extraction and content analysis capabilities available in the Frames in Action platform to the protective intelligent domain. The code books (list of factors and their explanation) developed in these studies (e.g.…”