But, as great as those sacrifices are, they’re nothing compared to the sacrifice made by David Copperfield’s stagehand on Wednesday – he got sucked into a giant fan, broke his arm in three places and badly mangled his face up.

Still, at least David Copperfield was decent enough to visit the stagehand in hospital with a gift – a children’s magic set. Ah, all the fun of magic but with none of the screaming fear of death. What a gent!

Performers, when will you learn – Las Vegas hates you. We’re being serious. It actually hates you. Look at Toni Braxton – she went to Las Vegas and ended up getting a chronic heart condition. And look at Suge Knight’s girlfriend – she went to Las Vegas and ended up getting repeatedly punched in the head by Suge Knight. And look at Siegfried And Roy – they went to Las Vegas and one of them ended up getting mauled by the giant white tiger that they let roam around freely with them all the time.

And that goes double for David Copperfield. He went to Las Vegas and what did he get? An FBI investigation into a series of alleged rapes. Oh, and – more relevantly – a stagehand who buggered himself up in a fan quite badly.

On Wednesday night during his Las Vegas revue, David Copperfield attempted a trick called The Fan – one that he’s performed hundreds of times in the past without a hitch. Here’s what the trick is supposed to look like…

And on Wednesday it looked exactly the same, expect a) David Copperfield’s hair is a different kind of bad now, b) Oprah Winfrey wasn’t staring at him like he was a big fat ham and c) at some point while David Copperfield was titting around with his billowy lady friend, there was probably a noise that sounded a bit like “Wait, christ OH JESUS NO MY ARM! OW! MY ARM AGAIN! AND OW AGAIN ON MY ARM NO NO NOT THE FACE NOT THE FACZZZZUGHHHARGH!”

Because that’s when David Copperfield’s stagehand Brandon was sucked into the fan, shattering his arm in three places and heavily lacerating his face. Obviously the show was immediately stopped and Brandon was hospitalised for his serious injuries. But at least David Copperfield didn’t act like a massive dick afterwards, did he, E! Online?

“Many people assume that the death-defying illusions I do onstage are not dangerous,” Copperfield said. “This unfortunate accident shows that couldn’t be further from the truth, and we’re just thankful Brandon’s injuries weren’t worse.” To show just how thankful he was, Copperfield paid a conciliatory visit to Brandon to give him what every post-op patient most hopes for: a children’s magic set.

A children’s magic set. What a sweet and completely cost-equivalent gift to give a man who’d just been mutilated by the metal blades of a 12-foot industrial fan.

Really, it’s lovely of David Copperfield to present his injured stagehand with a gift that will most closely remind him of the violent trauma he’s just been through. Maybe the hospital gift store didn’t have David Copperfield’s first choice of gift in stock – a miniature 12-foot fan that, when switched on, emits a sound that alternates between agonised screaming and a group of cackling children.

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So we may have been a little sceptical about the whole ‘curse’ thing ever since the term started getting bandied around, but on this evidence it’s hard not to think that maybe, just maybe there are nefarious forces at work. Just days after having a serious car accident, Morgan Freeman and his wife of 24 years are to get a divorce.

According to a friend of Freeman, the divorce had been in the works for a while before the accident even occurred – so don’t go accusing Morgan of having a relationship with Demaris Meyer, the passenger in his car during the accident, that was anything beyond platonic friendship.

We thought about it – purely for comedy effect, of course – but libel is too big a word.

No, this is something that has been around for quite a while in the world of Morgan Freeman and his soon-to-be-ex wife Myrna Colley-Lee, who have been separated since December of 2007. So fortunately it does look like it may well be the work of our old friend coincindence and circumstance – or ‘real life’ as it’s sometimes called – and not the frankly ridiculous notion of a curse on a film Morgan starred in.

While he may have known it was coming for a while, it still can’t be good for the old man, who was hospitalised with a broken arm, a broken elbow and neck injuries, and had to undergo an operation to make sure things healed up properly. Sitting, recouperating in hospital and seeing the news splashed all over can’t be a good feeling – so hey, Morgan, if you’re reading – we’ll try and cheer you up!

Isn’t it strange how utterly awful the film Evan Almighty was?

No, that’s not going to work…

Hey – the narration on March of the Penguins was utter balls compared to David Attenborough’s!

Ah, he wouldn’t like that either…

Ah, screw it. Hecklerspray isn’t the greatest medicine for aching bones, we can admit that much.

But it’s not all bad for Morgan Freeman – as his friend and business partner Bill Luckett told the press:

“The doctors have said it will be six months to a year before he plays golf again.”

So… hmm… at least that means he won’t have to play golf again for a while. That could be considered a good thing, if you don’t like golf. What do you mean Luckett said more?

“He hates that.”

Ah.

So you’ve starred in one of the biggest movies of all time, but have seen a co-worker die, another arrested for allegedly threatening his family then you yourself have been in a serious car accident requiring surgery, and it’s become public knowledge that you’re getting a divorce.

At least… people like your freckles? Sorry Morgan, we just can’t do this cheering you up thing – it’s too hard.

It’s something that maybe, possibly just should have been taught to everyone’s favourite beef machine, Shia LaBeouf, before he was involved in a smashed-up cartastrophe a week ago.

Unfortunately it seems that noone did teach Beefy this one life lesson, and the manchild has ended up with something of a mashed up hand. Halfway through filming Transformers 2. You broke the golden rule, Shia. Silly boy.

Fear not though, as director extraordinairre and all-round BOOM! BLAMMO! KABLAM! personality Michael Bay may well have a solution to the age-old problem of children crashing their cars halfway through filming huge-budget blockbusters: give him a CGI hand four times bigger than his head that transforms into a public toilet – of death.

What do you mean that’s not what he said? Ohhhh – he said he’d probably just write it into the script somehow. Makes more sense, we suppose.

Yes – while some actors have the good grace to go the whole hog and actually die towards the end of filming, so all that is needed is a stunt double and a few special effects (thanks, Brandon Lee in The Crow!), Shia LaBeouf had to go and hurt himself quite badly, but be alright enough to carry on with filming.

See, that’s just the selfish behaviour of a child, meaning that once again the adults have to come in and clean up the mess by writing in a scene when Optimus Prime stands on your hand or something.

Selfish, selfish, silly boy.

Not content with saying a naughty word and making everyone in the world overreact at him, he had to go and have himself a fairly serious accident, be accused of drink driving (which Michael Bay seemingly legally cleared him of) and then have it turn out that in all likelihood the accident wasn’t even his fault in the first place, thus making any criticism we may have levelled at Beefy concerning the accident null and void.

Selfish, selfish, silly boy.

In a typically balls-out, playing-by-his-own-rules fashion, director Michael Bay decided to ignore the four hours of surgery, the apparent partial paralysis and the fact that Shia’s hand probably doesn’t look much like a hand right now. Bay told Access Hollywood:

“His two fingers are pretty smashed, but we’re figuring out a way to shoot around it, kind of write it into the story.”

Where other directors fear to tread – where they are sure they will fail, Michael Bay will emerge triumphant. Simply by saying Grimlock mistook Shia’s hand for the metal he so loves to “munch,” or that Beefy tried to take a cassette out of a tapedeck which turned out to be the evil Soundwave, who proceeded to slam the deck shut, trapping the tiny man’s hand. Or Kup makes a cameo, forcing Bifstek to mangle his own paw in a bizarre rite of passage, seeing as he’s old and mental.

Maybe?

Seriously – hecklerspray should charge for this stuff.

It's emerged that Jerry Seinfeld was in a terrifying-sounding car accident last weekend in The Hamptons when his brakes gave out and, in trying to prevent a more serious accident, he flipped his vehicle. 

Miraculously, Jerry Seinfeld emerged from the crash completely unscathed – something that's being put down to either remarkable fortune, the quick-thinking of Seinfeld himself or the cushioning effect of the 45 pillowcases stuffed with high-denomination banknotes that Jerry Seinfeld always keeps on him as small change.

When a celebrity crashes their car it's usually only their fault. Sure, they'll blame the paparazzi whenever they can in the hope that they'll be able to glean a fragment of Princess Diana-style pity from the incident, but that tends not to disguise the fact that they were slammed off their shit on booze, talking into three telephones at once and wearing a Juicy Couture blindfold because they saw that bitch Kim Kardashian in the same thing a week before.

But sometimes, just sometimes, celebrity car crashes aren't a celebrity's fault. And that tends to be the case more often if you were in a successful 1990s American sitcom. Ellen Degeneres' crash was due to another driver and Jerry Seinfeld's recent crash was mostly due to his car being a lousy no-good piece of crap. 

That's right, Jerry Seinfeld crashed his car a few days ago. Well, maybe 'crashed' is a strong word. We meant 'flipped it over like a blimmin pancake'. Don't worry, though – Jerry Seinfeld doesn't need your pity. He came out of it totally unharmed, as E! Online reports:

Seinfeld was motoring by himself along Skimhampton Road in East Hampton when the harrowing accident occurred at about 7:40 p.m. Saturday. "The brakes went bad," East Hampton Police Chief Todd Sarris told the newspaper. "He had to pull the emergency brake." According to authorities, the 53-year-old comic's car was headed directly towards traffic on Montauk Highway when he lost control, forcing him to swerve drastically to the right to halt the 1967 Fiat BTM's momentum. The two-door sedan reportedly rolled over onto its passenger side, then the roof, before coming to rest just several feet shy of the other vehicles at an intersection on the driver's side.

It sounds like a rare combination of luck and good judgement came into play for Jerry Seinfeld on Saturday – if the circumstances were even slightly different then he could have been seriously injured or worse. Unless, you know, the circumstance that changed was that his brakes were OK. This'd be quite a dull story if that were the case.

But it just goes to show, you can be as rich, as famous or as mullety as you like, but brakes can go bad on anyone. It was just an extremely unlucky accident, that all, nobody's to blame for it.

Although we wouldn't be surprised to see the publication of a new cookery book called The Sneaky Chef : 20 Mouthwatering Ways To Get Your Kids To Eat All That Brake Fluid I Syphoned Out Of Jerry Seinfeld's Car When He Wasn't Looking The Other Day in the next few weeks.

What? It's a joke.

Read more:

Seinfeld OK After Scary Car Wreck – E! Online