Hathaway channels paparazzi frustration into gangsta rap

Actress Anne Hathaway has explained the reason behind her gangsta rap on late night TV earlier this week (begs15Aug11) - she's taken to writing rhymes to exercise her anger at the paparazzi.

The Devil Wears Prada star stunned viewers of Conan O'Brien's talk show on Tuesday (16Aug11) when she took aim at the snappers with a verse "in the style of Lil Wayne".

She rapped, "I'm a paparazzi/I don't play no Yahtzee/I go pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop/My camera's up your crotch..."

The clip has since gone viral and Hathaway reveals she is constantly channeling her fury at the photographers who follow her every move into similar rhymes.

In an interview on Today show on Thursday (18Aug11), she said, "I've now had to start to deal with the paparazzi presence a bit more in my life. It's not something I ever expected to encounter so I don't wanna be angry about it, I don't wanna have negative feelings about it, I just wanna get them out so I just started to write rap lyrics about it 'cause that's just the way it came out."

But Hathaway admits it was never meant to be performed in public - until the comedian's producers learned of her rapping skills and thought it would make for good TV.

She added, "I did it for my friends and they all laughed so when the producers at Conan asked me to do it - because I'd mentioned in an interview that I write songs to make me feel better sometimes - the producer said, 'Would you do it?' and I said, 'Yes'."