10 famous faces who called out South Park for crossing the line

South Park crashed onto TV screens in the late ‘90s, right when comedy was getting wild and the internet was starting to mess with everyone’s brains. Trey Parker and Matt Stone just went for off-the-wall satire. While other shows tiptoed around touchy stuff, South Park set up camp in controversy, probably to check how many people they can piss off each week.

What keeps people hooked is that nothing is off-limits. They’ll roast politicians, celebrities, religion, and everything you can think of. South Park showmakers take a sledgehammer to whatever society puts on a pedestal. Sometimes that’s awesome, sometimes you are left wondering if they really had to go there. But fans love the no-holds-barred attitude, but plenty of folks think it’s just mean, or worse, fuel for stereotypes and cheap shots. The “equal opportunity offender” thing is kind of their whole deal, which is both what makes them great and what gets them in hot water all the time.

But, you know, the more outrageous the jokes got, the more people started to feel the sting. Big-name celebs, politicians, and even religious leaders. Some took it with a laugh, others… not so much. Every so often, someone famous would clap back, calling the show out for crossing a line or dragging their personal lives through the mud. Sometimes it’s about making fun of tragedy or just straight-up recycling old stereotypes. And with social media now, these beefs don’t just fizzle out; they explode into full-blown debates about what’s fair game for comedy, who gets to draw the line, and whether creators owe anyone an apology.

The fallout from all this is way bigger than just some celebrity feeling salty. South Park episodes (and the blow-ups they cause) are little battlegrounds for bigger fights: free speech, censorship, and who controls the story. By digging into the most headline-grabbing feuds between the show and its targets, you get a peek at how the rules around satire and representation keep shifting.

This isn’t just about a cartoon poking fun; it’s about the high-stakes dance between creators, their subjects, and the culture watching it all go down.

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10 famous faces who called out South Park for crossing the line

Barbra Streisand: The “Mecha-Streisand” blowback

Back in the OG days of South Park, they turned Barbra Streisand into this giant, rampaging Godzilla knockoff. That episode let everyone know that they were going to roast celebrities, and they probably don’t care who gets mad.

So Streisand didn’t even see it at first, but once she caught wind of the whole thing, she went off about the show’s “cynicism and negativity,” especially toward kids. She called it a sign of everything that’s wrong with the world. And did Trey Parker and Matt Stone apologize or back off? No, they kept poking fun at her in later episodes.

People still pull up Streisand’s reaction whenever there’s a debate over whether TV satire is “going too far” or making celebrities’ lives hell.

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Tom Cruise: Closetgate and the Scientology throwdown

Jump to Season 9, and South Park goes after Tom Cruise and Scientology with Trapped in the Closet. The jokes weren’t subtle. They locked Cruise “in the closet,” torching those rumors about his sexuality.

Meanwhile, Cruise lost it. Word is, he threatened Viacom, allegedly saying he’d bail on the Mission: Impossible III promo if they didn’t pull the episode. It was a whole scandal, and people called it “Closetgate.” After much drama, the episode eventually aired anyway. Cruise tried to deny some of the behind-the-scenes stuff, but the whole mess kind of blew up the conversation about celebrity privacy and the bizarre grip Hollywood deals have on what gets shown.

Cruise’s reaction is the perfect example of how celebrities try to micromanage their image, but South Park just steamrolls right over them.

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Isaac Hayes: Chef, Scientology, and quitting in a huff

Isaac Hayes, aka Chef, was on the show forever, but after South Park went after Scientology, he was out. He was a practicing Scientologist, and the Trapped in the Closet episode did NOT go over well.

He dropped a statement calling out the show’s “intolerance and bigotry” toward religion, saying satire has its limits, and South Park crossed the line. Parker and Stone, however, defended their creative independence. Hayes's walking out is still cited as one of those times when the show’s own crew thought that they went too far.

Media people love bringing up Hayes’ exit as proof that sometimes, even the people cashing the paychecks can’t hack the hit job.

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Ed Sheeran: “Ginger Kids” and life ruined by Cartman

Ed Sheeran got the short end of the stick here. The Ginger Kids episode (Cartman’s anti-redhead crusade) didn’t just stay on TV; it exploded into real-world bullying incidents such as “Kick a Ginger Day.”

Sheeran has been extremely blunt in interviews: he was already teased back in the UK, but South Park made it a global phenomenon. Suddenly, being a redhead was this meme, and he says it made being “cool” with red hair impossible in America.

Now, whenever people talk about how TV jokes can turn into real-world bullying, Sheeran’s story gets tossed out there. It is a textbook case of a joke snowballing way too far.

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Prince Harry & Meghan Markle: The worldwide privacy tour circus

In 2023, South Park came for Harry and Meghan with the Prince and Princess of Canada parody, roasting them for wanting privacy... by being everywhere at once. Meghan got labeled everything from “sorority girl” to “victim,” while Harry came off as this whiny royal desperate for attention.

Rumors flew that the couple was gearing up to sue, but their reps denied it. Still, the British tabloids and social media had a field day as Meghan allegedly took it pretty hard, and the episode kicked off a fresh wave of trolling online.

The whole thing illustrates how a viral parody can intensify the pressure on people already living in the media spotlight. South Park’s roast turned into another round of online pile-ons because apparently, the internet never gets tired of that.

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Rosie O’Donnell: “It Hits the Fan” and “The Tooth Fairy’s Tats 2000”

Rosie O’Donnell got roasted all over the place in South Park. They don’t hold back at all. She’s loud, in-your-face, and the punchline for a bunch of jokes about her activism and how she’s all over the media. Remember It Hits the Fan and The Tooth Fairy’s Tats 2000? Those episodes went in hard.

And Rosie was not having it. She straight-up called the whole thing “mean-spirited” and “vicious.” Not just poking fun at her causes, but going after her personally. She even talked about it in interviews and her books, saying the jokes stung, and it wasn’t just playful teasing; it felt nasty.

The wild part is that her reaction kind of blew up. Everyone was debating about where the line is with satire. Is it cool to go after someone just because they’re a loud woman in the spotlight, or is that just lazy, mean comedy? It turned into this big conversation about how female celebs get targeted way more brutally in pop culture.

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Paris Hilton: “Stupid Spoiled Whore” goes nuclear

South Park went after Paris Hilton hard in Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset. They called her the poster child for everything wrong with ‘00s celebrity culture.

Paris clapped back, calling the episode mean and slut-shamey, and said it just made bullying worse for girls. Feminist groups had her back, too. This one got a lot of people talking about how satire can straight-up reinforce crappy stereotypes about women, especially for younger viewers.

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Kanye West: “Fishsticks” and the art of not getting the joke

South Park just went wild on Kanye in that Fishsticks episode. They turned him into the butt of this ongoing joke, stating that he just cannot wrap his head around a simple punchline. The whole bit is that if you like “fishsticks,” you’re a “gay fish.” Super dumb, but that’s the point. Kanye spends the entire episode getting roasted because he takes himself so seriously, and the show just keeps pushing his cluelessness way past the breaking point.

He fired back in his music (“choke a South Park writer with a fish stick”) and admitted the episode made him rethink how he comes off in public. The Internet ate it up, and the memes still float around. People point to this as a classic example of South Park exposing celebrity ego, but also, maybe going for the jugular a bit.

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Sally Struthers: When satire just feels mean

South Park skewered Sally Struthers in Starvin’ Marvin, painting her as a hypocrite who was hoarding food while talking about starving kids. Meanwhile, she wasn’t laughing. She was "devastated" and said it was not just unfair but led to hate mail and made people question her actual charity work.

People now use this one to talk about when satire stops being “critique” and just turns into a personal attack, especially when it undercuts legit good deeds.

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Sarah Jessica Parker: “The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs”

South Park went all in on roasting Sarah Jessica Parker in their episode The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs. They wrote a whole book in the show, packed with 465 insults about her. The book is so gross, characters puke when they read it.

Fast forward a year, and Parker finally speaks up about how everyone thinks it’s hilarious to be nasty. She dropped this line:

“Personal criticism I find distasteful. We think it’s funny to be mean, and women say awful things about other women and use terrible language, and call each other awful names. It’s so uncivilised and vulgar; it’s not good for our souls.”

Her reaction got a ton of attention. Folks weren’t just talking about the episode but about how there’s a line you probably shouldn’t cross, even in comedy. And SJP became kind of the poster person for standing up and saying enough with the appearance-based bashing.