About

Christian Bale Rant is an audio segment released by celebrity blog TMZ, featuring the voice of American actor Christian Bale going ballistic on the director of photography Shane Hurlbut on the set of "Terminator Salvation" in July 2008.

Origin

On February, 2nd 2009, TMZ released an unedited audio segment from the set of "Terminator Salvation" (captured previously in July, 2008), which evidently reveals Christian Bale going ballistic on Director of Photography Shane Hurlbut for about four minutes. For many fans, the famous English actor went from a superstar fairy-tale hero to a complete and utter d-bag. You can listen to the original, uncut freakout here.

Spread

Links to the audio clip quickly circulated around the net, becoming a top topical trend on Twitter. Boosted by Hollywood celebrity factor, Christian Bale's freakout story quickly spread across the blogosphere and mainstream media alike, including Perez Hilton and other news blogs. Within hours of TMZ blog post, mash-ups and remix videos began popping up on YouTube and other hubsites. The online entertainment blog UGO produced a good old-fashioned Christian Bale soundboard.

By February 15th, two weeks after the clip was posted, the Christian Bale Freak Out was given the meme kiss-of-death when it was parodied by the popular animated TV series Family Guy.

• Bale Out – RevoLucian's Christian Bale Remix:

• Video of re-enactment by actor portraying Bale, set to original audio track:

• Audio over video looping remix:

Oscars 2011: Christian Bale Jokes about His Rant

At the 83rd annual Academy Awards ceremony held on February 27th, 2011, Christian Bale received his very first Oscar for his supporting actor role as Dicky Eklund in the boxing drama The Fighter. The 37 year old English actor opened his acceptance speech by telling the audience that he wasn't going to "drop the F-bomb" as his co-star Melissa Leo did earlier in the ceremony, then he joked, "I've done that plenty before."