When you live a life in the spotlight, it’s very easy to accidentally slip up and make comments that seem innocent enough, but have the power to end your whole career. These celebrities have had to learn the consequences of thoughtless comments and legal scandals the hard way…
Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson’s career was hitting a steady decline by 2003, and he was less of a mega pop star and more of a creepy recluse whose children wore veils in public and lived in a fantasy mansion. When the first of many molestation charges were filed against Jackson in December of 2003, Jackson’s popstar royalty reputation was tarnished. Before his death of an accidental overdose in 2009, he faced more than 20 years in prison if found guilty of the charges against him. He was ultimately deemed not guilty, much to public disbelief.
R. Kelly
Where to BEGIN with R. Kelly… In 2002, Kelly was indicted on 21 counts of child pornography, along with a sex tape depicting him having relations with a minor. He fiercely rebuked the claims until they came back for him in 2018. His has been accused with the help of hard evidence of entrapping young girls and keeping them as sex slaves. He’s lost nearly every endorsement he’s ever had.
Chris Brown
By 2009, Chris Brown had risen through the ranks of R&B and pop music and quickly became a household name. He’d received lots of media attention when his relationship with Rihanna was heating up. However, at a pre-Grammy party in 2009, the couple got in a hellish argument and Brown assaulted Rihanna. She suffered from a split lip, bruised cheeks, and lesions on her forehead. Brown would never live down the incident.
Mary J. Blige
Miss Mary J. Blige seems to thrive on pain and drama whenever it comes to marketing her image. Fans really had a problem with her when she stooped to sing for a Burger King commercial about fried chicken wraps, claiming she was playing up racial stereotypes.
Boy George
Remember that one time Boy George was sentenced to 15 months in jail for handcuffing and beating a male escort in his hotel room? I don’t care how good “Karma Chameleon” was. He whipped this guy with a chain and accused him of stealing his stuff. Bad move all around, George.
Ashlee Simpson
Ashlee Simpson can credit her own undoing to a tragic Saturday Nigh Live performance in 2004. While starting off the second song of her set, “Autobiography,” the backing track from her first song, “Pieces of Me” began to play instead, and a flustered Simpson attempted to distract fans from the revelation that she’d totally lip-synced by dancing. SNL cut to commercial IMMEDIATELY, and Simpson tried to blame the band for the whole mishap.
Jared Fogle
The face of Subway’s weight loss marketing campaign, Jared Fogle, was arrested in 2015 on counts of child pornography and paying for sex with minors. He once had a net worth of $15 million, but now currently sits in jail with a sentence of minimum 13 years.
Mariah Carey
Mariah Carey has made so many unforced errors and career left-turns that they would surely be the undoing of any starlet if they weren’t her. When she closed out the 2016 New Year’s Rockin’ Eve show in Times Square, she apparently couldn’t hear the backing track, so she just didn’t sing. The next song was mostly lip synced. Her response: “It happens.”
Michael Richards
Kramer, Kramer, Kramer… In 2006, the “Seinfeld” star went on a heated racist rant during a stand-up set when he began angrily harassing a black man in the crowd. That was the end of his career, and he said that he broke down immediately after the performance, completely ashamed.
Lil Wayne
Lil Wayne should have known better. He compared the murder of Emmett Till to some present day sexcapades and caught major heat for it. The line “beat that p***y like Emmett Till” from Future’s “Karate Chop” remix references a young black man who was murdered in 1955 for allegedly whistling at a white woman. Um. WHY. Why would he do that? It’s a completely tasteless line. He issued a lengthy apology and promised not to perform the song and have it removed from airwaves. Yeesh.
Miguel
2013 was Miguel’s YEAR. His hit “Adorn” gained him some chart-topping success, and his performance at the Billboard Music Awards that year was…unforgettable. Poor guy tried to jump over the pit and ended up accidentally crash landing on fans before making it to the second stage. He severely injured one girl who threatened to sue because she never received proper medial treatment on sight.
Janet Jackson
Okay so this one was truly just an accident. Jackson has never been able to live down a very public wardrobe malfunction that happened during her performance during 2004’s Super Bowl halftime show. The incident, now affectionately known as “Nipplegate,” went something like this: Right at the end of the show, Justin Timberlake reaches across Jackson’s bustier and rips off the top portion, a little too aggressively, and the whole world saw Jackson’s breast for 9/16ths of a second.
Jennifer Grey
Her iconic role as Baby in “Dirty Dancing” skyrocketed her career in the 1980’s, but when she decided to go under the knife for a nose job, she credits that as the undoing of her success. Her nose was her biggest identifying feature, but if she felt insecure about it, let her do what she wants!
Robin Thicke
Y’all remember “Blurred Lines”? Us too. 2013 revealed a whole new side to not only the child-star-turned-pop-singer and Miley Cyrus, who performed a raunchy duet at the MTV Music Video Awards. Things got a little too out of control for the crowd and Thicke tried to blame Cyrus for the R-rated stunt. She held her own, saying he knew exactly what was going to happen onstage. In the end, Thicke’s wife ultimately filed for divorce even though he’d released a follow-up album using her name as the title. Ouch!
Natalia Kills
It’s difficult to maintain composure when judging a live talent show. Judges have to entertain as well as evaluate, and on New Zealand’s version of “The X Factor,” Natalia Kills took it a little too far… she absolutely dug into contestant Joe Irvine in 2015, calling him a “laughing stock,” and essentially accused him of copying his act and persona from Kills’ own husband, singer Willy Moon, who was also on the panel of judges. Kills and Moon were soon dropped from the show.
Natalie Maines
Dixie Chicks frontwoman Natalie Maines learned the hard way that country music and politics do not belong in the same arena. She made some snide comments about then President George Bush, and radio stations responded by asking listeners if they should ban the Dixie Chicks from their streaming platforms. In hindsight, Maines should have known that most of her fans are southern conservatives, considering she herself is from Texas.
Mark Salling
“Glee” star Mark Salling was launched into fame for playing the bully-turned-rockstar best friend to Corey Monteith’s character. However, he ran into some legal trouble in 2015 when he was accused of rape and several counts of child pornography. The story ends quite sadly, however, because Salling eventually committed suicide in 2018.
Sinead O’Connor
O’Connor stunned audiences during a 1992 Saturday Night Live performance. She changed the lyrics to Bob Marley’s “War” in order to reflect the rampant child abuse occurring within the Catholic Church. At the end of her emotional performance, she ripped up a photo of Pope John Paul II live on camera.
Jeffrey Jones
The least likeable character from “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” is also an incredibly unlikeable person in real life! Jones was charged with child pornography in 2002, sentenced to 5 years probation, and had to register as a sex offender.
Jerry Lee Lewis
Jerry Lee Lewis was only 23 when he married for the first time… and his wife was his 13-year-old first cousin. They kept the details of the marriage quiet until a reporter eventually found out and leaked the truth. His popularity plummeted and his earnings went from $10,000 a night to a mere $250. The two were married 13 years and had two children together, but his image was never the same after that.
Charles Rocket
We don’t like to talk about the 1980-81 season of Saturday Night Live. New producer Jean Doumanian was a train wreck with casting, and the sketches were painfully unfunny. A historic low was reached in the 11th episode of the season, when cast member Charles Rocket decided to let the F-word fly in the closing moments. The studio, no matter how desperate times may have been, was not pleased and promptly got Rocket off the show. SNL was in the process of purging all of its cast members anyways, so I suppose it was only a matter of time.
Amanda Bynes
In 2012, Bynes was arrested with a DUI as well as hitting a police officer with her car. She then retired from acting, except removing yourself from the spotlight doesn’t necessarily mean you can do whatever you want, so Bynes found herself in handcuffs again for a second DUI. She was placed on a temporary psychiatric hold too. Overall, not looking good for Amanda.
Jamie Kennedy
Imagine: “First Night 2013.” Scream alum Jamie Kennedy is your fateful host for the New Years Day show. A procession of paid professionals really just falling on their faces while our poor host is unsure if the cameras are even live or facing him. The profanity bleeper missed his mark consistently, the cameras never switched on time, and there was an actual fistfight on stage. 2013 was certainly off to a good note.
Milli Vanilli
In an incident a la Ashlee Simpson, Milli Vanilli’s 1990 performance of “Girl You Know It’s True” for a live-to-tape segment for MTV. the track began to skip, revealing that Milli Vanilli wasn’t actually singing at all. Journalists and former fans descended on the duo like vultures, labeling them as frauds. Lawsuits were filed. Fans demanded refunds. Their GRAMMY was REVOKED. They basically fell off the face of the Earth after that.
Doug Williams
Things took a turn for comedian Doug Williams during Shaq’s All Star Comedy Roast of football player Emmitt Smith. Following an introduction from host Jamie Foxx, Williams’ set starts slowly, then about three jokes in, Foxx begins sniping at the comic, mocking Williams punchlines and telling him to get off the stage. It was a completely unscripted dig, and Foxx defended himself later, calling his barrage “very dark” and “liquor-induced.”
Ian Watkins
Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins released five studio albums with the band since 1997 before his arrest. He was charged with three different counts of possessing, taking or making indecent photos of children and one image of extreme bestiality. My stomach is sick reading this. Nobody liked Lostprophets anyways!
Charlie Sheen
I think the last straw of Charlie Sheen’s ridiculous antics back in 2015 was when he admitted on live television that he is HIV-positive. This didn’t come without backlash, of course, because up to 10 of his previous sexual partners sued him for not disclosing the truth. He claimed he’d told all 200+ (ugh) women that he’d slept with that he was positive, but many of them rebuked that.
Hulk Hogan
Hulk Hogan never really pegged me as a racist, but I’m also not totally shocked to hear this. Hogan’s racist remarks came out in the middle of filming a sex tape, no less, and he’s recorded as making really terrible remarks about a black man his daughter was dating. He blatantly admits he’s a racist, “to a point,” followed by various slurs. He was removed from all WWE events and a termination notice. Guess you should, uh, not be a racist, Hulk.
Howard Dean
The 2004 Presidential campaigns were a wild time. Remember when Democratic leaders ha d a chance to contest Republican incumbent George W. Bush? Well. Vermont governor Howard Dean had an impressive lead over opponents Dennis Kucinich and John Kerry until…one pivotal moment. He was all fired up, promising to “TAKE BACK THE WHITE HOUSE” when he just. Screamed. Like, REALLY screamed. I have secondhand embarrassment just from writing this. He did not win the campaign.
Stephen Collins
After appearing on “7th Heaven” Stephen Collins revealed that he has pedophilic tendencies. He’d engaged in inappropriate behavior with a 10-year-old girl, and when his wife filed for divorce she said he’d admitted to sexual contact with three minor girls in the past. Well, YOU certainly can never work on any television show, especially one that revolves around family, ever again.
Belle Gibson
The disgraced health blogger, who had made a name for herself with a clean eating app and companion cookbook, was caught in a serious, immoral lie. She’d been faking brain cancer, a sickness she’d based her entire career off of. She went on the Australian version of 60 Minutes and was called to task for her manipulations.
CeeLo Green
CeeLo Green’s opinion on rape has been SEEN and UNDERSTOOD by the entire Internet. In 2014 he decided to tweet out: “People who have really been raped REMEMBER!!!!…If someone is passed out they’re not even WITH you consciously! so WITH implies consent.” Green was dropped from concerts left and right, and his TBS show The Good Life was immediately cancelled.
Jackie Mason
When things should have been the most acceptable in 1964, Jackie Mason managed to cross the line and annoy host Ed Sullivan when he appeared on the iconic nighttime talk show. Mason’s recurring slot on The Ed Sullivan Show was revoked when he got loose with his hand gestures and gave the finger to both the live and studio audiences. Mason’s career was never the same after that.
Michael Vick
Michael Vick will probably go down in history for his stint in dog fighting back in 2006. He went to prison, came back, and still had a mildly successful football career, but many people believe he does not deserve forgiveness even though he was one of the top players in the league at the time. He helped organize dog fighting rings and dog executions. I don’t… I don’t think he should ever be allowed to own pets…
Gilbert Gottfried
Known better for his voice acting – specifically as the Aflac duck – Gilbert Gottfried got into some hot water after tweeting about the Tsunami that killed thousands of Japanese people. He wrote, “Japan is really advanced. They don’t go to the beach, the beach comes to them” He was QUICKLY fired from his job as the duck, especially when you consider that much of Aflac’s business is done in…JAPAN.
Paula Deen
Paula Deen really put her foot in her mouth with this one. Apparently, the home cook mogul cultivates an environment based on “violent, sexist, and racist behavior in her restaurants.” THEN news broke that Deen has “of course” used racial slurs for black people during her lifetime. Instead of apologizing, she deflected all her criticism with shock and disbelief that people were actually offended by what she’d said.
Tila Tequila
I’m pretty sure the gist of Tila Tequila is that she’s a professional Internet Troll. However, in 2013, she released a rant with a title that ACTUALLY said “Why I Sympathize With Hitler: Part 1.” PART 1. You’re telling me there’s a PART 2. She then took to Twitter in 2016 to post herself posing like a Nazi. Can we cancel 1 Tila Tequila???
Josh Duggar
19 Kids and Counting for real NEEDS to end. Josh Duggar, the oldest of the Duggar children, recently revealed that he had molested four of his younger sisters when he was around 14 years old. His parents unsurprisingly defended his actions, saying “He was just curious about girls and he had gone in and just basically touched them under their clothes while they were sleeping. They didn’t even know he had done it.” I just… don’t even have words for this. People will do anything to keep their slot on TV.
A.J. Clemente
This newscaster suffered from some major first day of work jitters. He probably couldn’t have handled going live on air for the first time any worse. The world’s introduction to the Bismark local news was a string of: “f**king s**t” into the mic. In the live take, Van Tieu’s face is priceless as she realizes the f**king s**tstorm he’s just unleased. He nervously continues the news, hoping to have gotten away with it, but of course that would have been too easy. He was quickly fired and now bartends.
Jenny Slate
New to Saturday Night Live in 2009, Jenny Slate landed a coveted writer-performer role for a sketch she’d written, “Biker Chick Chat.” However, in the live take, she accidentally misread “friggin'” in the script for its grown-up word. The audience laughed awkwardly through the mishap, but Slate left after her first season and has said she’s never watched that episode.
Aaron Hernandez
Tight end for the New England Patriots, Aaron Hernandez, was arrested in 2013 in connection with the murder of Odin Lloyd. He was later charged for the crime and sentenced to a jail that was painfully close to his home of Gillette stadium. After being connected to a string of more crimes, Hernandez ultimately committed suicide while in prison.
Montana Fishburne
Daughter of The Matrix series’ own “Morpheus,” Montana Fishburne hoped to kick off a career in Hollywood just like her dad. With the release of her film Montana Fishburne: Makes Her XXX Debut,” the movie not only literally did not pay her, but also caused a major (understandable) rift between her and her father. She was obviously trying to look up to young Kim K and dip her toes into porn, but sweetie, that is a BAD IDEA.
Karmin
Something cruel: Karmin had to follow Lana Del Rey’s SNL performance back in 2012. You just… can’t. Sad E-Girl dream queen just isn’t possible to outdo, and Karmin certainly failed. While Del Rey was accused of looking “lost” onstage, her career still skyrocketed. Karmin, however, was just bad all around. They quickly fell into irrelevancy after that.
Dani Mathers
This former Playmate was sentenced to 45 days in prison/30 days of community service for body shaming a woman at the gym. It might technically seem harmless, but Mathers took it to the next level and went so far as to film this 71-year-old woman in the shower with the caption, “If I can’t unsee this then you can’t either.” Like what the heck? How vain and thoughtless do you have to be? She should be ashamed.
Zoe Sugg
When YouTube and beauty guru Zoe Sugg (or Zoella, as her brand states), released her 2017 makeup advent calendar in 2017, fans didn’t react kindly to the hefty prices. And of course, where there’s a spark there’s a flame, because fans quickly trolled her social media and unearthed some nasty tweets she’d posted years prior. Fat shaming and hurtful gay slurs were revealed. She apologized and stated the comments were taken out of context from 8 years ago, and she’d never say anything like that today.
Ryan Lochte
Going into the 2012 Olympic Games, swimmer Ryan Lochte had racked up roughly $2.3 million in endorsements. But of course, who could forget “Lochtegate”? He lost several of his endorsements including Speedo and Ralph Lauren after he over-exaggerated a story about him and his teammates being held at gunpoint while attending the games in Rio de Janeiro. He later admitted he was drunk at the time and was incredibly apologetic.
Felix Kjellberg
YouTuber Felix Kjellberg (aka PewDiePie), was walking on thin ice after he used some anti-Semitic language and Nazi propoganda in one of his posts, and fans were highly distraught when he slipped and threw out the N-word in one of his live streams in 2017. He issued a forma apology quickly after, stating it was said “in the heat of the moment, and one of the worst things” he could have possibly thought of. “I’m not going to make any excuses as to why I did it, because there are no excuses for it.”
Veronica Rose & Jason Sampson
These YouTubers were accused of cultural appropriation when they literally flat out said that’s what they were doing when they posted pics of their new dyed hair and dreads. The caption: “2 years of Cultural Appropriating,” which clearly indicates that they didn’t really care about who they were offending. Social media users fired back, saying black people are still stigmatized for wearing dreads, and called the duo racist and insensitive. They also just blatantly refused to apologize. *rolls eyes heavily*
Logan Paul
Logan Paul’s demise came from a lengthy vlog of his trip to Japan, where he visited the tourist-trap “suicide forest,” Aokigahara Forest. In the vlog, there is footage of a dead body hanging from a tree, and Paul is shown cracking jokes and acting completely insensitive. In a statement following EXTREME criticism, Paul apologized and said he was only trying to bring awareness to suicide and suicide prevention, but many found that hard to believe. YouTube temporarily suspended his ad revenue, one of the biggest sources of income for a YouTuber.
Anthony Fantano
Fantano is one of YouTube’s pioneering music critics, thanks to his channel The Needle Drop, where he reviews the latest music releases from our favorite artists. However, in 2017, The Fader published an article that revealed Fantano was also the mastermind behind an alt-right channel called thatistheplan. It’s essentially cringey 4Chan-esque content and features rages against SJWs and feminists. Eventually, Fantano accepted the loss and deleted the channel. He also lost 400,000 subs in the process.
Patrick Starrr
Starrr has amassed more than 3 million followers on YouTube, but when he was accused of cultural appropriation, that all went out the window. In August 2017, he uploaded a photo of himself donning a curly afro wig a la Solange Knowles, and his follows just weren’t about it. They criticized his “costume” and shamed him for attempting to “look black.”
Jeffree Star
A makeup mogul, Jeffree Star has had some beef with Kylie Jenner ever since she released her groundbreaking line of cosmetics in 2016. He slammed the quality of her products and has even feuded with other gurus like Kat Von D and Kim Kardashian. In 2018, he revealed that Kylie had taken him off the press list for Kylie Cosmetics releases.
Tana Mongeau
Tana Mongeau is just another example of an Internet personality who thinks she can get away with using racial slurs and then issuing a half-baked apology. In a feud with YouTuber iDubbbz, she called him out for his repeated use of the N-word, but he decided to get revenge on her and make a compilation video of her using the same word in various contexts. Her followers then deemed her hypocritical and racist, and she’s never been able to totally live it down.
Sam Pepper
Sam Pepper. Problematic E Boy #457348. In 2014, Pepper posted a video of himself crudely grabbing women where they definitely did not want to be touched, and the video got intense criticism and calls for its removal from the web. If you thought he’d learned his lesson, you’d be painfully wrong. In 2015, he uploaded another “prank” video where a man was led to believe his best friend had been murdered in front of him.
Nicole Arbour
Nicole Arbour’s “Dear Fat People” video, which was supposed to be a comical attempt of encouraging obese people to lose weight, could not have been any more of a flop if she tried. She was accused of fat-shaming – which she absolutely was – though she denied the allegations.
Adam Saleh
In December 2016, YouTube prankster Adam Saleh uploaded a video to Twitter appearing to show him being kicked off a plane for speaking Arabic on a phone call. At first, the airline took the heat for the seemingly racist act, but witnesses claim there’s another side to the story. Apparently nobody was on the phone, and Saleh made a friend yell in Arabic across the plane to upset other passengers.
Austin Jones
In May 2019, the 26-year-old was convicted to 10 years in prison for soliciting inappropriate videos from minors. He was tried on counts of child pornography, and claims of his crimes emerged in 2015 when he was accused of asking underage fans to send him “twerking” videos. He allegedly asked over 30 girls to “prove” that they were real fans by getting naked and performing sexually explicit acts on camera. His channel has been terminated by YouTube.
Sam & Nia (Part 1)
These Christian YouTubers FAKED a miscarriage for views. It starts off with Sam surprising Nia with her own positive pregnancy test that she found, and then a few days later upload another video revealing that Nia had suffered a miscarriage. Viewers were quick to call out the couple for supposedly faking the pregnancy in the first place. Sam later admitted “it was staged. It was all orchestrated by God above and nothing else.” I’m just so, so confused.
Sam & Nia (Part 2)
Okay, if you thought THAT was bad, shortly after the whole miscarriage debacle, Sam was accused of CHEATING on Nia. Our friend Sam was a member of the incriminating site, Ashley Madison. In 2015, hackers exposed the names and email addresses of thousands paying Ashley Madison members, and Sam had been on the list since 2013. Apparently, APPARENTLY, Nia has since forgiven him. This is a problematic couple if I ever saw one.
Marina Joyce
In July 2017, popular YouTuber Marina Joyce uploaded a video advertising fora clothing company, but the behavior in the video seemed a little too odd, claiming her actions seemed forced and she may have whispered “help me” at one point. Rumors that she was kidnapped by ISIS, and when she began advertising for a rave meet-up, her followers started believe the rave was an ISIS trap. Apparently, nothing was ever wrong at all…?
Calum McSwiggan
YouTuber Calum McSwiggan uploaded a photo of himself in the hospital to Instagram, with a caption claiming that after leaving a gay club in West Hollywood, three men attacked him and afterwards was treated poorly by police. “I’ve never felt so terrified to be a gay man in the public eye,” he wrote. But in a strange turn of events, police arrested McSwiggan after the fact for vandalism. It turns out, the truth lies in a moment of blind rage, with both parties guilty of assault. Don’t try to clickbait your way into popularity, sir.
Yovana Mendoza
Vegan blogger Yovana Mendoza’s empire came tumbling down she she was filmed eating fish in Bali, a place she’s described as a “plant-based paradise.” She was caught on camera and then the video was posted, and she issued a lengthy apology stating how deeply ashamed she was. So apparently she wasn’t completely vegan this WHOLE time…