'Mad Men': The Cast's Off-Season Controversies

AMC's award-winning drama "Mad Men" finally ends its 17-month hiatus when it returns with new episodes this Sunday. But instead of sitting around stirring martinis with all that free time, the cast managed to stir up controversy instead. A shocking number of "Mad Men" cast members have found their names splashed across the tabloids for all the wrong reasons. Here, a quick roundup of all the trouble the cast and crew found themselves in during their time off.

Jon Hamm vs. Kim K. and Paris
Good thing Don Draper doesn't live in the era of reality TV. "Mad Men" star Jon Hamm revealed he's no fan of the genre in a recent interview with Elle U.K., dissing reality starlets Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton: "Stupidity is certainly celebrated… Being a f---ing idiot is a valuable commodity in this culture because you're rewarded significantly."

Kardashian responded on Twitter (of course), saying that "calling someone who runs their own businesses, is a part of a successful TV show, produces, writes, designs, and creates, 'stupid,' is in my opinion careless." (Paris, to her credit, was smart enough to stay out of it.) But Hamm stuck to his guns, defending his statements to "Today's" Matt Lauer: "I don't think they were careless; I think they were accurate." Ouch… sounds like someone won't be receiving a Kardashian Christmas card this year.

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January Jones and baby-daddy drama
Granted, Jones's "Mad Men" character, repressed ice queen Betty Francis, isn't exactly a barrel of laughs. But even Betty seems to get more slack than Jones herself, who's been a constant target of gossip-column venom over the past year. The tabloids pounced when Jones was involved in a bizarre car accident last June that involved her calling TV chef Bobby Flay for help. And tongues continued to wag when Jones gave birth to her first child, a boy named Xander, in September -- and declined to name the father.

Watch January Jones talk about her new baby boy with Jimmy Fallon:

If that weren't enough to deal with, Jones even got kicked on the way out by her former TV son. 11-year-old Jared Gilmore, who played Don and Betty's son, Bobby, before leaving to join ABC's "Once Upon a Time," had this advice for his replacement: "Be careful around January. She’s not as approachable as the others… Everyone else is so nice.” Guess we know who Jared thinks the real Evil Queen is.

Elisabeth Moss lashes out at her ex
The 29-year-old Moss, who plays secretary-turned-copywriter Peggy Olson, isn't a frequent topic of conversation in the tabloids, but she did spark some controversy earlier this month when she unloaded on her ex-husband, "Saturday Night Live" veteran Fred Armisen. Speaking to the New York Post's Page Six magazine, Moss said of Armisen, "One of the greatest things I heard someone say about him is, 'He's so great doing impersonations. But the greatest impersonation he does is that of a normal person.' To me, that sums it up." You go, Peggy!

Moss did feel a twinge of guilt after bashing Armisen, telling the Page Six interviewer, "I'm probably going to get a slap on the wrist. But I've just been such a good girl. And sometimes you just want to be a bad girl for a minute." And she even flaunted that bad-girl side of hers with a racy, cleavage-baring photo that accompanied the story. Who knew Peggy had so much Joan in her?   

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Christina Hendricks gets overexposed
Speaking of Joan, the buxom Hendricks was recently the victim of the latest Hollywood crime wave: celebrity cell-phone hacking. A few weeks back, revealing photos of the actress hit the Web, including one nude shot of her famous… um, assets. Hendricks' representatives confirmed that her phone was hacked and that several of the photos were indeed of Hendricks -- but insisted that the topless shot was a fake. Sorry, fellas; looks like only her actor hubby, "Body of Proof" co-star Geoffrey Arend, gets to lay eyes on those curves. Oh, and Roger Sterling, of course.   

Matthew Weiner tangles with network brass
The biggest off-season controversy for "Mad Men" was the one that threatened the show's very existence. Creator Matthew Weiner, the auteur-like mastermind behind the show, saw his contract run out after last season, and the rancorous negotiations that ensued with AMC dragged on for months -- to the point that Weiner actually thought the show was finished. "I had come to terms with the fact that it was over," Weiner told the New York Times. "There was a terror in me that someone else would come in and do it. And I don't know how they would do it, but I would have to live with that." Lucky for us, he doesn't have to live with that: Weiner eventually signed a deal with AMC to come back for not just one, but a total of three more seasons. Three more years of Don Draper and company? We'll drink to that.