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?
07:44Let us know in the comments section.
07:46I've got dirt on Alexander Hamilton.
07:48Everyone goes, really?
07:50Really?
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