Celebrity Renovations That Went Viral For All The Wrong Reasons

Let's face it – we love celebrities. Whether we love to double-tap their photos and chat endlessly about them, or prefer to rail on them, our culture can't stop obsessing about the rich and famous. Laurie Santos, a psychology professor at Yale University, theorizes that our celebrity obsession lies in the fact that "we have always searched for role models, whether those have been the heroes of fictional stories or real life people with these amazing lives," per Grazia. And nowadays, these amazing lives feature amazing houses that we just can't get enough of.

With our zeal for celebrity home interiors being more popular than ever — Architectural Digest's YouTube channel, which profiles the homes of our favorite famous folk, has over 4.8 million subscribers as of November 2021 — we can't help but endlessly share the inspiration we get from these renovated spaces with the world on social media. But what happens when these renovations end up being shared for less ... altruistic reasons? Like the rest of us, celebs aren't immune to renovation jobs that'll make your hair stand on end, for one reason or another. And when the internet pounces on viral renovation mishaps, things can get pretty brutal out there. Let's take a look at some celebrity renovations that did the rounds online, for reasons you might not expect.

"How I Met Your Mother" star Neil Patrick Harris has always had a flair for showstopping moments (if, for whatever reason, you haven't seen his iconic 2011 Tony Awards opening number, drop everything you're doing and watch it now). And when he showed off his Harlem brownstone to Architectural Digest in a YouTube home tour, viewers got to see that he brought that sensibility home with him — with a décor choice in the home bar that he and his husband David Burtka built that is frankly bananas.

As Harris and Burtka sweep into the "parlor" section of their home, Burtka begins to explain his taxidermy hobby, while the camera reveals that, perched upon the top of their bar, are four monkeys. Yep. Taxidermized monkeys. Arranged into the "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" poses, no less. The room, which the pair dub their "monkey bar" (get it?), also features another taxidermized primate on top of a wooden telephone box (sure! Why not!) and various monkey statuettes dotted around the place. Predictably, the comment section of the video exploded once posted, with YouTube users rushing to affectionately discuss the home. "​​This house screams: IM RICH AND DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH MY MONEY. and I f-ing Love it," exclaims one highly-rated comment. Fair enough!

Honestly, would you expect Drake to have anything but an outrageously luxurious home? If you would, we're here to disappoint, unfortunately — Drake's home is every inch the modern opulent palace, as Architectural Digest shows. In 2020, the musician let the publication inside his staggering Toronto mansion, a 50,000 square foot home nicknamed "The Embassy" of almost unimaginably plush proportions. In one shot, Drake is pictured sitting next to a "bespoke Bösendorfer concert grand piano," with marble black-and-white floors and, behind him, a gold-detailed mirrored wall that stretches up to the cavernous ceilings above.

Honestly, this home has to be seen to be believed — and when it reached social media, a lot of people had a few choice thoughts. One commenter on a popular tweet posted by user @yayaxtonye describes the home as looking like a hotel. Another points out the logistical difficulties of living in a property with such sky-high ceilings, stating that "changing those lightbulbs gotta be a pain in the a**." Others, however, heaped praise on the modern Art Deco-style of the property, calling it "impressive" and "amazing." To each their own, we suppose.

The words "Naomi Campbell" and "eternal style icon" are pretty much interchangeable. So when Campbell's name started showing up online in association with one of the most distinctive houses we've ever seen, we had to figure out whether this was the ultimate home fashion moment or a wild misfire — and the jury's still out.

The house in question was a property built for Campbell by her former partner, billionaire Vladislav Doronin, and designed by legendary architect Zaha Hadid, per the Daily Mail. The 35,520-square-foot home set tongues wagging for its one-of-a-kind design, a futuristic aesthetic which has the feel of a starship. Built in a secluded patch of Russian forest land, the home's central tower section extends over a hundred feet tall and contains a bedroom and en-suite bathroom. Elsewhere in the property, there's a sports hall, a nightclub, and a 20-meter swimming pool. 

Somewhat predictably, a house as unique as this takes a specific kind of buyer, which is the problem that Doronin faced when trying to sell the property; he had to reduce the price substantially (to a paltry $104 million ... what a shame) when he couldn't attract a new owner.

While most people who enjoy flying simply like the benefits of a free vodka tonic after take-off, John Travolta does things his way. The "Grease" star has such a passion for the skies that he's been known to fly a Boeing 707 jetliner with his pilot's license (you know, the kind of plane on which you drink said vodka tonic on your way to some exotic location), per CBS News.

But despite knowing this, the internet was still agog when Architectural Digest took a look at Travolta's home — which he built on a literal airport with its own 7,500-foot runway, upon which he could land his 135-foot plane, per Architectural Digest. The 8,900-square-foot home, built on eight acres of Florida land, incorporated enormous glass windows from which Travolta and wife, Kelly Preston, could see the aircraft — the tail of which, at 30 feet high, was as tall as the property itself. Travolta's house is so legendary that it's re-viralized (we're claiming that word right now) periodically, with a tweet from user @JoePompliano displaying the property renewing the online attention towards it in 2021. It's somewhat of a shame that Travolta's home is rarely mentioned without the runway, as the retro-futurist-inspired property, complete with a sky-blue pool and adjoining pool house, is simply dreamy.

Of all the people to have a renovation go viral for less than ideal reasons, you wouldn't assume it'd be fashion legend Gigi Hadid. But when the model updated the world on her year-long renovation escapades, "designing and curating my passion project/dream spot" as she put it on Instagram, the world wasn't quite as receptive as she might've hoped.

Her fans immediately jumped on the fact that Hadid's New York house, one of the two units she owns in a building in the Cast Iron district (per the New York Post) was decked out with some pretty eccentric choices. In the kitchen, where most people would have a bowl of fresh fruit on the central island counter, Hadid has a bowl of ... billiard balls. Sure! And below the counter, cupboards of dyed pasta are displayed through glass-windowed doors, in bright, almost garish colors that are reflected throughout the rest of the home. Online commenters didn't go lightly when talking about the property, with one Twitter user proclaiming that the pasta cabinets "ruined [their] day" (per News.com.au). We're not sure we'd go quite that far, but hey, we all have our tastes, right?

David Dobrik's YouTube success took him straight to the top pretty much overnight, and with a staggering net worth of $20 million (per Celebrity Net Worth), his house stood to be something that people were salivating over. But when he finally revealed his home on an Architectural Digest video home tour on YouTube, it wasn't quite the house that people were looking at — it was the flamethrower. Yep, you heard us right. In the middle of the video, Dobrik picks up a flamethrower from a midcentury-modern pool table which sits under an orb-like hanging light ornament and fires out a load of fire. We mean ... cool, we guess?

Unsurprisingly, this become a choice moment for many online commenters and did the rounds online almost instantly. "It's like babysitting a kid and he's just showing you his toys," stated one YouTube comment. It's a shame, too, that the house is overshadowed by this moment, as the three-bedroom home itself is pretty beautiful, a mix of contemporary interior and Mediterranean-inspired outside (via Dirt).

When you need a reliable Top 100 hit, you can do worse than going to Zedd. And the DJ has parlayed his success in the charts into real estate gold, with an ultra-modern 9,400-square-foot mansion in Beverly Hills (per Architectural Digest). But, as always, the internet is a funny old place, and although the house tour that he did for Architectural Digest's YouTube channel featured the $16 million property in all of its expansive, white-walled, Japanese-inspired glory, viewers didn't care that much anymore when they saw the custom Skittles machine he has.

"This is the Skittles machine, that will go to whatever flavor you pick," Zedd states, as the camera lingers on the endless little candies. "Would you like some?" he says, offering the cameraman a cup (for future reference, yes, we would, Zedd). The moment quickly became Architectural Digest house tour legend, with People citing it as one of the strangest things found in a celeb home. Viewers, however, seem to see how much Zedd vibes with the item. "I like how the most important part of this house is its Skittle machine," one states. It would be in our house too, to be fair!