Back in 2005, Russell Crowe gave an interview to GQ Australia, during which he said that Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terror network wanted to kidnap him as part of a “cultural destabilization plot.” Crowe claimed that the threat came in 2001, several months before he earned an Academy Award for his work in Gladiator. And because of the threat, the Australian actor required extra security detail on the set of A Beautiful Mind and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.

And now, a decade after that revelation, Crowe looks back on the surreal incident and how it indirectly harmed his reputation. Speaking to The Guardian, Crowe says:

“I still really don’t know to this day what the fuck that was all about. All I know is, I arrived in LA, got to my hotel, as I’d done umpteen times before, started unpacking, and there was a knock at the door and a team of FBI guys wanted to sit down and discuss something with me. And then, for nearly two years, they were always around. I remember going to the Golden Globes and having, like, 16 security guys with me. I don’t even know why. They wouldn’t give me any details. And of course, people were like: ‘Look at him, he thinks he’s fucking Elvis.’ And then one day they just weren’t there any more.”

Crowe has said that the F.B.I. found out about the threat from a French policewoman in either Libya or Algeria who picked up on the recording. In 2001, the F.B.I. confirmed that it was indeed investigating a plot to kidnap Crowe. By 2005, though, the actor said that the F.B.I. eventually began to suspect that the “threat had probably or had possibly been overstated, and then they started to question their sources.”

These days, Crowe says that he provides his own security, at least when it comes to social networking services. Asked by The Guardian about how he protects himself from rude fans, the actor revealed, “Well, you just block people. Block the motherfuckers.” In fact, he enjoys bouncing Twitter users so much that he wishes the service would make the experience a little more gratifying. “The thing [Twitter] need[s] to work on is giving you more satisfaction when you block somebody. When you push ‘Block,’ there should be like a nuclear explosion, and that person’s photograph is shattered to a million fucking pieces, so you go: ‘Yeah, see ya mate.’ BOOM.”

The actor knows he is onto something with this Twitter-blocking vision. “Sooner or later they’ll do that, right,” he adds. “And you’ll know where the idea came from.”