From royal secrets to political affairs, these historical blackmail cases changed lives and even nations. Join us as we explore the most devastating extortion schemes throughout history! Our countdown includes Marie Antoinette, Alexander Hamilton, the Duke of York, Joe Francis, and more! Which scandal shocked you the most?
00:00And they go, yo, Hamilton, we know what you did, you know what you did, check out these checks to James Reynolds.
00:07Welcome to WatchMojo, where we'll be looking at the most damaging extortion schemes in history.
00:14Oh, Leonard, you're the best.
00:19The Murdered King
00:21This is the room where Edward II was murdered.
00:23One of England's longest reigning kings was Edward III, who ruled from 1327 to 1377.
00:29He rose to power after his father, Edward II, fled to Wales and gave up the crown.
00:33Soon after, he died in suspicious circumstances, and his son became king.
00:41Well, in 1337, the Fieschi letter was sent to Edward III, written by a priest from Avignon.
00:47It claimed Edward II was still alive and was hiding out in Europe.
00:51Its authenticity is heavily debated, but some scholars believe it was an attempt to blackmail Edward III, since many believed he killed his father.
00:57This knowledge would undermine his position.
00:59The king didn't seem hasty to respond, furthering uncertainty about the allegations and whether this letter constituted blackmail.
01:05Emily Post's Adulterous Husband
01:07Post is most famous for her 1922 book Etiquette, which turned her into a celebrated author and expert on propriety almost overnight.
01:14Years prior, she had married Edwin Post, a banker, in 1892, but he was unfaithful to her.
01:19This caused a scandal in 1905 when a newspaper publisher threatened to expose his infidelity unless he paid them $500.
01:26Edwin didn't cave either because he didn't have the money or because he wanted an excuse to divorce his wife.
01:31The police got involved and caught the culprit, prompting a New York Times article on the incident.
01:35This made Edwin look like a hero, but unfortunately, Emily was seriously embarrassed and the two soon divorced.
01:41Joe Francis' Humiliating Tape
01:42In the late 90s, Francis created Girls Gone Wild, an adult video franchise which became relatively popular.
01:48Francis isn't exactly someone to look up to, having several convictions and having fled America to avoid further legal troubles.
01:54In 2004, while Francis was still in the U.S., a man named Riley Perez broke into his home and forced him at gunpoint to star in a highly unflattering video.
02:03Perez then demanded money or else he'd make the incriminating footage public.
02:06Perez didn't get away with it, he was sentenced to nine years in prison.
02:09Meanwhile, Francis got a taste of the humiliation many of the girls in his videos may have felt, but likely didn't learn from it.
02:15Nelson Bunker Hunt's alleged bribe
02:17During the 20th century, Hunt was a Texas billionaire who tried to acquire a monopoly on silver.
02:23In 1981, a man named Arthur Eamons wrote to him, demanding over $400,000 or else he'd tell the FBI that he was bribing Republican Representative George Hansen as part of his effort to acquire silver.
02:34We've done the same thing in a lot of other cases and it costs money and it takes time.
02:37The politician insisted he was innocent and insisted that the U.S. Attorney General be told of the blackmail attempt.
02:42In the end, Eamons was convicted for his blackmail and Hansen for filing false financial disclosures.
02:48In 1992, Hansen was imprisoned again for something entirely different and he died in 2014.
02:53Hunt eventually filed for bankruptcy related to lawsuits from his silver speculation activities.
02:58George Hansen was sentenced to jail today and fined $40,000 for filing false financial disclosure forms.
03:05The Duke of York's Indiscretion
03:07The early 19th century was a period of immense societal upheaval and warfare.
03:11Napoleon was the emperor of France and the rest of Europe wasn't having it.
03:14Prince Frederick, the Duke of York, was the British commander-in-chief during the wars.
03:18Between 1803 and 1806, he kept Marianne Clark as a mistress.
03:22After breaking up, she was in huge debt so she threatened to publish incriminating letters written by Frederick unless he coughed up some cash.
03:29Mary was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment but things began to look up afterwards.
03:33The Duke gave her 7,000 pounds plus an annual stipend, allowing her to live the rest of her life in France until 1852.
03:39Yuan Bao Jing's murderous inclination.
03:42By 1997, Yuan Bao Jing was a billionaire and president of the Jianhao Group, a huge company based in Beijing.
03:48He was also a bit of a thug who got outraged after he believed a broker, Liu Han, had cost him 100 million yuan.
03:54Liu Han gained notoriety as the head of a mafia-like gang.
03:58So he did what any sane man wouldn't do and hired an ex-police officer, Wang Xing, to off him.
04:03Wang hired assassin Li Haiyang, who botched the job and got himself a life sentence.
04:07Wang decided to blackmail Yuan, so naturally Yuan had him killed in 2003.
04:12Two years later, Yuan was convicted of murder and was given the death penalty.
04:15Liu Han, a gangster type himself, was executed in 2015, meaning no one came out on top.
04:21Five defendants, including the Liu brothers and another three, were sentenced to death.
04:25Harriet Wilson's memoirs.
04:26In the first half of the 19th century, Wilson was a famous courtesan who had relationships with figures like the Earl of Craven and the Duke of Wellington.
04:33In 1825, she decided to publish her memoirs, which included lots of juicy details about these figures.
04:39Scholars believe she sent roughly 200 letters in the mid-1820s attempting to extort numerous men.
04:45Wilson demanded that they pay her to keep silent about their naughty bedroom secrets.
04:49The Duke of Wellington supposedly replied to her demands, publish and be damned.
04:53One Earl did offer to purchase the books for 1,000 pounds, but that didn't satisfy Wilson's desire for revenge.
04:59Empress Dowager Xia Xi's puppetry.
05:01The last adults to control China's Qing dynasty were Empress Xia Xi, alongside her nephew, the Guangxu Emperor.
05:08He was a puppet ruler, and Xia Xi held the majority of the power from 1861 until 1908.
05:13While she was known to use manipulation, a biography written by Yong Chang alleges that blackmail was also a favored tool of hers.
05:20To keep her nephew loyal, she supposedly pressured him to reveal secrets to her using brutal methods.
05:25This all began after the disastrous Hundred Days Reform, which prompted her to put her nephew under house arrest and monitor him heavily.
05:31Keep in mind, scholar Yong Chang's book is somewhat controversial, as she's more sympathetic towards Xia Xi than the average historian.
05:38And unfortunately, she died in 1908.
05:42Alexander Hamilton and the Reynolds Affair.
05:44By now, most people are familiar with founding father Alexander Hamilton, whose story is famously told in the hit musical Hamilton.
05:50He was also the victim of America's first major sex scandal in 1791.
05:53While he was Secretary of the Treasury, he had an affair with a lady named Mariah Reynolds.
05:58When her husband found out, he blackmailed Hamilton out of $1,300 to keep it quiet.
06:02He's like, yo, that's my wife.
06:06I'm happy to, like, keep it on the low, but you have to pay me.
06:11In 1792, James was jailed for a separate scandal, so he tried pressuring Hamilton into helping him out.
06:17This didn't work, and Hamilton came clean to prove he wasn't involved in James' schemes.
06:21I didn't touch American money, and I have all kinds of proof.
06:24It went fully public in 1797 after Hamilton had lost his position.
06:28It majorly ruined his reputation and debatably ruined his chances of being president.
06:33Hamilton's like, well, it's all out in the open, and if you still want to settle this, because I know you're the one who leaked it.
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06:54Marie Antoinette's secrets.
06:56When Marie Antoinette became queen in 1774, the people loved her.
07:00But in 1793, they cheered when she faced the guillotine.
07:05One of the many scandals that caused her downfall was a variety of pamphlets published by English blackmailers.
07:10They accused the queen of having some egregious desires behind closed doors.
07:14Let them eat cake.
07:15To stop them from being spread widely, King Louis paid the English thugs to keep quiet.
07:24In the end, this didn't work out, with the mob that stormed the Bastille getting their hands on them.
07:28It wasn't the only reason the monarchy was deposed, but it's hard to deny it was a contributing factor.
07:32Were there any particularly impactful scandals we forgot to mention?
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