Russell Crowe said in a 2005 interview with GQ Australia that Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terror network planned to abduct him as part of a “cultural destabilization plot.” The threat, according to Crowe, emerged in 2001, a few months before he won an Academy Award for his performance in Gladiator. Because of the threat, the Australian actor requested additional protection on the sets of A Beautiful Mind and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, among other films.

Crowe had a trail of FBI bodyguards and security following him everywhere for two years. Crowe collected his Academy Award for Best Actor for his part in Gladiator with them in attendance. When he went to the Golden Globes that year, the FBI was also present, providing at least 16 personnel for his protection. It may have kept Crowe safe for those two years, but it didn’t always work out for him professionally. Many people assumed Crowe was a total narcissist for hiring so many “men in black” to simply follow him about. That was not the case, as we now know.

Crowe confesses in an interview with Australian GQ that he was approached about the storyline in the months running up to the 2001 Academy Awards.

“That was the first conversation in my life that I’d ever heard the phrase al-Qaida.

“And it was something to do with some recording picked up by a French policewoman, I think, in either Libya or Algiers. It was about – and here’s another little touch of irony – taking iconographic Americans out of the picture as a sort of cultural destabilisation plan.” Crowe grew raised in Australia after being born in New Zealand.

Crowe reflects on the bizarre episode and how it affected his reputation indirectly in an interview with The Guardian. He says:

“I still really don’t know to this day what the fuck that was all about. All I know is, I arrived in LA, got to my hotel, as I’d done umpteen times before, started unpacking, and there was a knock at the door and a team of FBI guys wanted to sit down and discuss something with me. And then, for nearly two years, they were always around. I remember going to the Golden Globes and having, like, 16 security guys with me. I don’t even know why. They wouldn’t give me any details. And of course, people were like: ‘Look at him, he thinks he’s fucking Elvis.’ And then one day they just weren’t there any more.”

After all that transpired so many years ago, the threat was most likely underestimated in retrospect. It may have been due to an overabundance of resources or a lack of a genuine danger to begin with, but nothing occurred. After that, the FBI retraced its sources’ credibility, and it has since stopped following Crowe around. Crowe now provides his own protection to ensure his safety. After all, you can never be too safe after being threatened by al-Qaeda. And we all know Crowe has a lot of detractors, as shown by his own Twitter account. Crowe isn’t short of solutions, though, with his personal preference being to just block everyone who irritates him. We can’t blame him for going to such lengths, since we’re learning that he’s gone to such lengths himself.