Winona Ryder, Peaches Geldof and even OJ Simpson - Ever wonder why so many celebrities steal things? I don’t. They take things because we all take things. We take shampoo and soap from hotels, packets of sugar, and matches from restaurants. Have you ever accidentally walked out of a store with something and realize you didn’t pay for it? Did you go back in and tell them. No, it’s one of God’s freebies.

I had a roommate that used to steal toilet paper! He’d come home from work with this industrial sized roll of toilet paper-like a wheel of cheese-only it was toilet paper, stolen from where he worked! 

Don’t laugh. How many office workers reading this have pocketed pens, paperclips, and post-it’s from where they worked? What’s the point of working an office job unless you can come home with a few supplies? Free printing anyone?

So let’s not be so hard on celebrities with sticky fingers. Most of them, from Hedy Lamar to Farrah Fawcett to tennis star Jennifer Capriati get caught shoplifting clothes. I think the public has this idea that actresses steal things because they have a sense of entitlement. No. Actresses, in particular, take things because they can’t afford to buy them.

The constant pressure from the media to be outfitted in the latest expensive designer duds causes actresses to risk shoplifting rather than face the embarrassment of having the public realize they can’t afford the very designer duds they’re taking!

I don’t think actress Bai Ling swiped 2 celebrity magazines and some batteries because she had a sense of entitlement. I think she swiped them because she couldn’t afford to buy them. If she did have a sense of entitlement I’m totally on her side. Why should Bai Ling have to pay for celebrity magazines that she’s in?

I remember hearing about an A-list actress from the 40s (still alive) notorious for lifting props from the sets of movies she was in.  I once had an actress greet me on a set wearing my own wardrobe from the day before!

Actresses are like squirrels. Leave it lying there and they are bound to run off with it.

You know what makes me bitter? Randy Quaid may have skipped out on an overpriced Bel Air hotel bill but Wall St. steals millions from us and it barely gets the same ink. 

Talk about entitlement.

All that said – stealing stuff at IKEA, where everything is a steal anyway, is shameful. So don’t let Illeana Douglas off too easy for her cookies-and-jam-scam. She is not the only actress working in the store, so put your vote for “Co-Worker of the Year” on the one that at least has enough street-smartness not to get caught in the act, so to speak…