Selma Blair reveals why she used to bite celebrities, from Kate Moss to Sienna Miller

‘I grabbed her arm and bit it, playfully, as if it were an apple’

(Getty Images for Discovery)

Selma Blair has revealed how she used to bite various celebrities, including Sienna Miller, Seth MacFarlane, and Kate Moss, when feeling “overwhelmed” in “social situations”.

The 49-year-old actor discussed how Miller was one of the first celebrities she bit, in her newest book, Mean Baby: A Memoir of Growing Up, Page Six reports. According to Blair, the night after she divorced musician Ahmet Zappa in 2006, she introduced herself to Miller at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles.

“I couldn‘t begrudge her for any part, she was winning over me,” Blair wrote. “So, I grabbed her arm and bit it, playfully, as if it were an apple.”

“Even as I held her forearm in my mouth I was aghast at myself,” she continued. “I thought, ‘What have I gotten myself into? Or her? This is horrible behaviour.’”

However, Blair expressed that Miller wasn’t angered by the bite and “kind of scream(ed), ‘Opa!’ in response. Miller also said: “You bit me, didn’t you? You really did?”

“She didn’t shame me,” the Cruel Intentions star added. “She will forever be the belle of the ball.”

She also recalled how she first became friends with Scarlett Johansson, who had invited Blair to hang out with a group of other people, in the early 2000s.

While at dinner, Blair, who has previously spoken about her struggles with alcoholism, noted how she “wasn’t good at social drinking”. She also “did not realise how drunk one can get while seated at a table, eating”.

Blaire wrote that once the meal was over, she went to a club, where she was introduced to Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane by her friend Seth Green.

The Legally Blonde star explained how she felt like she wasn’t “bringing anything to the party”, which is why she ended up biting MacFarlane.

“I was starstruck,” she wrote. “What do I do in public situations where I admire someone, but feel as if I don’t bring anything to the party? I bit him on the hand. ‘Whoa!’ he yelled. ‘That really hurt.’ It wasn’t a disaster; I didn’t break skin. But I soon hated myself.”

Blair went on to describe her friendship with Kate Moss and detailed a time when the two of them and others hung out in a hotel suite in London after a Marc Jacobs fashion show.

As she was taking polaroid photos with Moss, Blair was encouraged to bite her finger, causing the Calvin Klein model to laugh. However, when bitten by Blair a “second time”, Moss didn’t have the same reaction.

“And because she laughed, I did it again,” Blair wrote. “The second time, she did not laugh and exclaimed, ‘That really f***ing hurt!’”

According to Blair, the supermodel then grabbed her thumb “and crushed right into it”.

Through the interaction with Moss, Blair wrote that she came to the realisation that she could be hurting people when she bites them.

“This was the first time I had any inkling of how much I might hurt people when I bit them,” she continued. “Immediately, I transformed into a shamed nursery school kid. ‘Oh my gosh,’ I whispered, ‘I am so sorry.’”

Regarding why she would bite people, Blair acknowledged that she’s done this in public situations where she has felt “overwhelmed”.

“My system gets overwhelmed and instantaneously short-circuits,” she wrote. “In my life, social interactions have been cumbersome.”

The actor’s memoir was released on 17 May and “tells the captivating story of growing up and finding her truth”. The book also explores the “periods of darkness that overtook her” throughout her acting and modelling success in Hollywood.