Billy Bob Thornton: I, not an actor

Given that he's not the greatest musician, you might have thought that Billy Bob Thornton would have been delighted that CBC's Jian Ghomeshi reminded the audience that he was also known for being an actor.

Nope. Cue a petulant bout of babying from Thornton:

Ghomeshi: Billy Bob, you guys formed only in the last couple years, right?

Thornton: I don't know what you're talking about.

Ghomeshi: How so?

Thornton: I don't know what you mean by that.

Ghomeshi: When did the band form?

Thornton: I'm not sure what that means.
[...]
Ghomeshi: You would prefer me to only do this interview not mentioning at all, just to clarify, at all that you've ever done anything in terms of acting, screenwriting.

Thornton: That's correct.

Ghomeshi: Part of the attention that you are getting is because of the great career you've had in other ways. What I'm explaining is, I'm not trying to be insulting to your musical ...

Thornton: What I'm explaining is that we said do not talk about s--t like that. And we also said that we didn't want to hear anything about how this is my first love. You wouldn't say that to Tom Petty, would you? "I understand music is your first love." Well, my first love was a chick named Lisa Cone. You know what I mean?

Well, perhaps not, Billy - although you might ask Petty "was music always your first love" - but given that you've only got people listening to your terrible music because you first made a name for yourself making movies, it's not like you're Tom Petty, is it? It's a fair question, surely: if you really always wanted to make music, isn't it curious that you made Bad Santa first?

Of course, suggestions that Thornton was behaving like a petulant jerk were quickly swatted away by his damage-limitation squad:

Thornton's publicist, Arnold Robinson, disputes suggestions that what followed was a breakdown by the actor -- hmmm, musician.

He "simply elected not to engage with the interviewer because of the direction of the interview from the outset," Robinson told CNN. Thornton took the reference to his movie career as an insult to his musical endeavor.

You know who else was like that? The Singing Postman. He was always telling interviewers to screw themselves - "why do you keep asking me about delivering letters? Why? Why?"