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Steven Spielberg -

One of Steven Spielberg's most famous films is now one of his biggest regrets. During an interview with the BBC’s Desert Island Discs, the famed director was asked how he would feel being on a desert island surrounded by shark-infested waters, which he used as an opportunity to instead address the negative impact of 'Jaws' on the world's perception of sharks.

“That’s one of the things I still fear—not to get eaten by a shark, but that sharks are somehow mad at me for the feeding frenzy of crazy sport fishermen that happened after 1975, which I truly, and to this day, regret the decimation of the shark population because of the book and the film,” Spielberg explained. “I really, truly regret that.” 

Peter Benchley, who wrote the 1974 book upon which Spielberg’s film was based, also previously publicly apologized for his role in the sudden spike in fishermen setting out to catch trophy sharks, which George Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research, told the BBC was like “a collective testosterone rush” that “swept through the East Coast of the US” and caused a huge decline in the shark population. 

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Elizabeth Banks -

Actress-turned-director Elizabeth Banks has some regrets about 2019's reboot of 'Charlie's Angels,' which flopped at the box office. “I wish that the movie had not been presented as just for girls, because I didn’t make it just for girls,” Banks told The New York Times. “There was a disconnect on the marketing side of it for me.”

Banks criticized the way her film was given meaning she'd never intended, and all because she's a woman. “When women do things in Hollywood it becomes this story," she said. "There was a story around ‘Charlie’s Angels’ that I was creating some feminist manifesto. I was just making an action movie.” She added that though she'd love to direct 'Mission Impossible,' the only reason she was able to direct an action movie was "because it starred women and I’m a female director, and that is the confine right now in Hollywood.”

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Demi Lovato -

The singer—who uses she/they pronouns—revealed in an interview with Alternative Press that she regrets making her documentaries. "Honestly, I'm really sick of watching myself, and I think other people probably are too," Lovato said. "And if they aren't, then they can watch my music videos."

Throughout her 20s, she released three documentaries—2012's 'Stay Strong,' 2017's 'Simply Complicated,' and '2021's 'Dancing with the Devil'—covering her struggles with mental health and substance abuse, all the way up to her near-fatal overdose and subsequent road to recovery. "I wish I would have waited until I had my s–t figured out more because now it's cemented. Sobriety is what works for me and nothing else," Lovato told the outlet. She's referring to her self-determined "California sober" state in the last documentary which allowed her to drink in moderation and smoke weed, which changed in December 2021 when she decided to go fully sober and entered treatment.

Though Lovato won't be making any more documentaries, she's still releasing music and is open to other storytelling avenues. "My story's not done, so I want to be able to say by the time I've written a book, ‘OK, this is me grown up.'"

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Britney Spears - There's no shortage of things that come to mind when mentioning regret and Spears' name in the same sentence, though her own reply to the question might surprise some.

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Britney Spears - She considers her ill-fated reality show with ex Kevin Federline, 'Britney & Kevin: Chaotic,' to be her biggest regret. In her own words: "I would never do something like that again. Actually, that was really bad."

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Kim Kardashian - Surprisingly, one of the socialite's biggest regrets came on the day that she became engaged to Kanye West.

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Kim Kardashian - She has said that her biggest photo regret is when she got engaged and showed off the ring with short nails instead of long ones. Well, she seems to have her priorities straight!

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Oprah Winfrey - She's one of the most famous women in the world, with a list of accomplishments that's seemingly endless. Though they're few, she still has some regrets.

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Oprah Winfrey - According to the billionaire philanthropist, "the hardest part is really recognizing the time that you’ve wasted and the things that you worried about that really didn’t matter. You regret the time that was wasted." A piece of advice we can all relate to.

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Kanye West - The rapper stated that he really regretted not having more nudity in his famous 'Bound 2' video, featuring Kim Kardashian.

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Kanye West - In an interview with GQ magazine he commented, "I would have just liked to have had more nudity in it. That’s the only thing. I just want to do crazy, colorful s*** like that that has more nudity."

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Cher - With an Emmy, an Oscar, and a Grammy under her belt, Cher is one of the most successful people working in show business today.

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Cher - Her regrets? Dating! At different times in her career she had the chance to date Marlon Brando and Elvis Presley. So, why didn't she? With Elvis she "got nervous." On Brando she commented "We just hung out for a while, but I wished I had."

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Jennifer Garner - She regrets her marriage to her first husband, Scott Foley, whom she married when she was in her 20s. She thinks it was too early.

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Jennifer Garner - "I wish I’d known to wait for marriage until I was 30 or over," she confessed about the two-and-a-half-year marriage.

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Charlie Sheen - Charlie Sheen is another celebrity who's probably not lacking in regrets. But one of his biggest is actually pretty selfless.

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Charlie Sheen - He regrets calling his former 'Two and a Half Men' co-star Jon Cryer a "traitor" for not getting in touch with him after he left the show. He stated, "That was wrong. I whaled on him unnecessarily."

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Nicole Kidman - Even though it's been years since she divorced Tom Cruise, the Australian actress still considers her marriage to the actor deeply regrettable.

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Nicole Kidman - "I was so young when I got married [...]. I look back now and I'm like, 'What?'" Thankfully these days she's happily married to singer Keith Urban.

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Tom Cruise - What does the Hollywood actor regret most? No, it's not marrying Nicole Kidman. It was criticism he made in the media on Brooke Shields' alleged use of drugs to treat her postpartum depression.

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Tom Cruise - However a year later the actor repented, saying, "It came out wrong, it’s just not true. I was raised by four women who have children and babies. I’m not trying to tell anyone how to live their life or what they should believe or shouldn’t believe. I felt I could have handled it better."

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Justin Timberlake - This one's a little more serious. The singer says he still has regrets about what happened during his now infamous 2004 Super Bowl halftime show with Janet Jackson, otherwise known as "Nipple Gate."

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Justin Timberlake - Justin says he regrets not supporting Janet more after the media storm that followed the wardrobe malfunction live on air.

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Billy Bob Thornton - Billy Bob's regret stems back to the time he was married to Angelina Jolie. Not only was he 20 years her senior, he was also very insecure, especially when her career started to take off.

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Billy Bob Thornton - According to the actor, "We had a great marriage and I chickened out because I didn’t feel good enough." Ouch!

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Nick Lachey - The 98 Degrees singer has similar regrets to Britney Spears. But whereas Britney's reality show was mercifully short-lived, 'Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica' ran for three whole seasons.

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Nick Lachey - It aired from 2002 until 2005, roughly the duration of their marriage. What does he think of it now? Well, he called it "among the dumber ideas I think I’ve ever seen executed in history."

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Kelly Osbourne - Being a teenager is hard enough, but imagine having to spend most of your teenage years in the public eye. That's what happened to Kelly Osbourne, and she has a list of regrets to boot.

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Kelly Osbourne -

In hindsight she says she "did a lot of really, really stupid things and it was because it was my way of crying for help [...] being disrespectful to my mother, which to me is one of my biggest resentments because I love my mum; my mum’s my best friend. I hate the fact that I hurt her and my father."

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Kenny Rogers - The late country singer's biggest regret according to HuffPost was having to miss out on time with his family during his career.  

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Kenny Rogers - Before he died he shifted his priorities and said "my bucket list now concerns my kids. There are things I’d like to do with them so I’m putting work on the back burner for a while and really making them my priority."

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Usher - Usher's biggest regret is not spending more time with his dad before he passed away.

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Usher -

"Instead of being there when he was sick, I was working. No amount of money could have fixed my father’s health, but I could have just spent that time with him."

See also: Celebrities' biggest relationship regrets

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