Being followed to your home, asked inappropriate questions by strangers, and having crowds wait outside whatever building you’re in when you’re in public; to an everyday person, this would be cause for much concern and be absolutely terrifying. But celebrities are used to these kinds of interactions, with a camera or a phone shoved in their face.

      The idea of paparazzi, on the surface, seems harmless – it’s just someone who happens to stumble across people of importance and snap pictures of them out and about. But that’s not the whole truth. Marriam-Webster defines them as “a freelance photographer who aggressively pursues celebrities to take candid photographs.”

      Usatoday.com reports, “In August, [actress] Jennifer Garner and [singer] Halle Berry showed up in Sacramento and tearfully described how paparazzi had stalked, shouted at, provoked and chased their children in public to get pictures.” The article continued, “[Lawmakers] don’t have a strong argument other than the fact that their celebrity constituents want this,” says Mickey Osterreicher, general counsel of the National Press Photographers Association. “[Celebrities] want their cake and eat it, too.”

     The concern of celebrities’ children also comes into play when their parents are high-profile people. Usatoday.com states, “Parents sign a permission slip for their child to be photographed at their school. I don’t see this as any different,” [Actress Kristen] Bell says. She continues with “[Papa]razzi never used to hunt kids, but with all the magazines and blogs looking for picture content now, things have gotten out of hand because there is a lot of money to be made … at the expense of little kids who didn’t sign up for this,” Bell says.

      Paparazzi don’t just stop at harassing new parents for exclusive pictures of their babies; some will take the opportunity to harass celebs at their homes. In an infamous video of rapper Kanye West, it shows the rapper in his garage, when the paparazzi is shown early in the morning trying to ask West questions until he closes the garage door on the paparazzi.

     This is not the only time West has had unfortunate encounters with the paparazzi. According to latimes.com, he “grabbed a phone from a paparazzi photographer and threw it into oncoming traffic while she recorded him, according to claims in a lawsuit filed in Ventura County.” The photographer is “suing West on allegations of assault, battery, negligence and a violation of her civil rights.” Another incident, according to rollingstone.com, where West “settled a civil lawsuit stemming from a July 2013 incident where the rapper assaulted a photographer outside Los Angeles’ LAX airport.”

       While some people may not go about addressing this issue in the most calm manner, these celebrities are tired and done with being stalked and harassed by people on the street.