00:00Has someone coerced you into being here?
00:02Do you count Harvey Weinstein as a coercer?
00:05Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the most
00:08scandalous celebrities who got away with crimes, despite some obvious warnings.
00:12Did you ever try and do anything about Savile?
00:15I did my bit, I said what I had to.
00:19Number 10, Jeffrey Epstein.
00:20He was here around Easter, and he rides his bicycle around, usually with young girls.
00:25While he's now a household name, Jeffrey Epstein first came to the public's attention in 2005,
00:30at a time when he was a popular and successful financer.
00:33In March of that year, a woman informed the Palm Beach Police Department that her
00:37teenage stepdaughter was taken to Epstein's mansion and paid to massage him.
00:41Palm Beach Estate, formerly owned by Jeffrey Epstein, has been demolished.
00:44The demolition of the six-bedroom mansion began yesterday.
00:47An investigation was opened, and it uncovered a long history of
00:50sexual assault involving dozens of girls.
00:53Unfortunately, the law totally bungled the case by giving Epstein a highly
00:56controversial plea agreement, and he received just 18 months in prison.
01:00He was out in 12.
01:01It was a warning that no one heeded, and the assaults and sex trafficking
01:05continued for years after, until he was famously arrested again in 2019.
01:09He says it appears that many people here would prefer to forget or not even bother now
01:14with Jeffrey Epstein.
01:15Number 9, Lance Armstrong.
01:17For years, his achievements have been marred by whispers that he was a drug cheat.
01:22Well, they're whispers no more.
01:23There were few athletes as big as Lance Armstrong in the early 2000s.
01:27He brought cycling to the mainstream and won the Tour de France in seven straight
01:31years from 1999 to 2005.
01:33And from the very beginning, people were trying to tell us that he was a cheater.
01:37Many people came clean about Armstrong's history with doping,
01:40from journalists to fellow cyclists to Armstrong's masseuse.
01:43It was surreal to watch.
01:44You have to understand, this is a man who has fought with everything he could to
01:47maintain this lie through vicious attacks, threats, and lawsuits.
01:51However, their claims were often met with legal threats,
01:54or just blatantly ignored due to Armstrong's influence in the sports community.
01:57And year after year, Armstrong denied it.
02:00That is, until the United States Anti-Doping Agency proved conclusively that Armstrong
02:04was using PEDs, to which he finally came clean and admitted to years of cheating and deception.
02:10And then, of course, there is the question of how much of what he said can even be believed,
02:14since Armstrong clearly admitted to being a very, very good liar.
02:188. Ellen DeGeneres
02:20For a long time, Ellen DeGeneres was regarded as a pop culture icon with an enormously popular
02:25talk show and a legacy of aiding LGBT acceptance on mainstream television.
02:36But the house of cards started collapsing in March of 2020, when comedian Kevin T. Porter
02:41called DeGeneres one of the meanest people alive on Twitter.
02:44Many people responded positively to Porter's tweet,
02:46supporting the claim and sharing personal anecdotes about their harsh run-ins with DeGeneres.
02:58We didn't know it at the time, but this thread was a huge warning.
03:01Just four months later, an extensive report was released in which former
03:04employees accused DeGeneres of harassment, racism, and toxic workplace behavior.
03:09The allegations effectively killed her career and ruined what was once a sterling reputation.
03:257. Bernie Madoff
03:27While not necessarily a celebrity in the traditional sense,
03:41Bernie Madoff was widely known as the chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Exchange.
03:45He also owned his own firm, through which he conducted the largest Ponzi scheme in history.
03:50Warnings were raised by multiple people, including financial analyst Harry Markopoulos,
03:54who knew that Madoff's numbers were fraudulent after looking at them for just five minutes.
04:08Markopoulos told the Securities and Exchange Commission about Madoff's
04:11shady accounting back in 1999. They ignored him.
04:14Madoff was eventually turned in by his own sons in 2008,
04:17and investigators concluded that he had stolen over $65 billion from investors.
04:22The SEC was viciously criticized for its poor work ethic in investigating Madoff,
04:26despite repeated warnings over a number of years.
04:386. Kevin Spacey
04:52One of the biggest actors of all time was brought down in October 2017,
04:56when Anthony Rapp accused him of sexual assault. His allegation dates back to 1986,
05:01when Spacey made a drunken and unwanted advance upon the underage Rapp at a party.
05:05This accusation opened the floodgates, and Spacey's downfall is now the stuff of legend.
05:10But did you know that Rapp tried to warn us about Spacey before 2017?
05:22Yep, he shared this exact story with the LGBT magazine The Advocate all the way back in 2001.
05:27However, Spacey's name was redacted for legal reasons, and because no one knew who Rapp was
05:32talking about, the accusations were largely ignored. Heck, even Family Guy tried to warn
05:36us back in 2005. 5. Harvey Weinstein
05:50It was basically an open secret in Hollywood that Harvey Weinstein was a creep. Rumors of
05:54his salacious casting couch had circulated for decades, and references to his inappropriate
05:59behavior popped up in shows like Girls and 30 Rock.
06:07But it wasn't just shows. Multiple celebrities alluded to Weinstein's crimes years before they
06:14were publicly known. Seth MacFarlane made a joke at the Oscars, Courtney Love gave a startling
06:18piece of advice at the roast of Pamela Anderson, Gwyneth Paltrow told David Letterman that Weinstein
06:23will coerce you to do a thing or two. Looking back, these were obvious clues, but they went
06:27completely ignored and unchecked, allowing Weinstein's crimes to continue unabated for
06:32years to come. 4. Jimmy Savile
06:52The once-popular Jimmy Savile wasn't around to experience his downfall, as it occurred after
06:57his death in 2011. But there had been many warnings beforehand, warnings that went completely
07:02ignored. In fact, the allegations date all the way back to the 1950s. An official police
07:07investigation against Savile was opened in 1958 following claims of sexual abuse, but there was
07:12not enough evidence to charge him. Sex Pistols vocalist Johnny Rotten alluded to Savile's crimes
07:23in a 1978 interview with the BBC. Heck, even Savile himself tried to warn us. He wrote an
07:28autobiography in 1974 titled As It Happens, inside of which are blatant admissions of criminal
07:33conduct. No one cared. 3. R. Kelly
07:53The first major warning sign about R. Kelly appeared in the December 1994 issue of Vibe
07:57magazine. Inside was the secret marriage certificate between Kelly and Aaliyah. Their
08:02marriage had privately occurred on August 31st, 1994, when Kelly was 27 and Aaliyah just 15.
08:08Things took an even darker turn in 1996, when a woman named Tiffany Hawkins tried to tell the
08:13world about Kelly's dark propensities. She filed a lawsuit against the singer,
08:24claiming that she had been sexually abused and that Kelly had a thing for younger women.
08:27The suit was quietly settled in 1998 for $250,000. It was another four years before
08:33the Chicago Sun-Times broke the Kelly story wide open and kick-started the famous criminal
08:37proceedings of the 2000s. 2. Bill Cosby
08:53There were a multitude of allegations against Bill Cosby before the famous reckoning of 2014,
08:58but no one wanted to incriminate America's dad. Joan Tarshis told a reporter named John Millward
09:03that she was sexually assaulted by Cosby back in the 1980s. Millward did not write about it.
09:08Playboy playmate Victoria Valentino made sexual assault allegations against Cosby in 1996.
09:13The report was never published. The National Enquirer wrote a story about Cosby in 1990,
09:26and radio show host Wendy Williams openly spoke about the story on her program.
09:30No one cared. Lachelle Covington filed a complaint against Cosby in 2000. The district
09:34attorney never prosecuted him. Plenty of people tried speaking out, but everyone refused to listen.
10:011. Diddy
10:12While the allegations date back to the early 90s, the first major red flags against Diddy
10:17popped up in 2017. This is when his personal chef, Cindy Rueda, filed a lawsuit against him
10:22claiming sexual harassment. It was quietly settled in 2019, and the singer faced no
10:27major ramifications to his public image. Regardless, it was a clear snapshot of what
10:31was to come in 2023 and 2024 when Diddy faced an onslaught of accusations.
10:36Attorney Andrew Van Ardsdale reports that he's heard from 3,000 people with accusations against
10:42Diddy, and according to the Washington Post, over 120 lawsuits will be brought against him.
10:46Half of the plaintiffs claimed to have reported Diddy to the police,
10:50and some even went directly to the FBI.
10:52Wow, I mean, shocking details to say the very least, and I'm sure just the start
10:56of what's to come. Do you remember when these scandals broke? Let us know in the comments below.
11:00Many powerful people. There are many dirty secrets.
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