- 3 months ago
Fame doesn't shield you from your worst decisions... Join us as we look at instances where celebrities openly acknowledged their shocking misdeeds! From infidelity scandals and cultural appropriation to criminal acts and disturbing revelations, these stars came clean about their darkest moments - whether they were genuinely remorseful or just caught red-handed.
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00:00But I wouldn't change a thing. I've said that three times, and I'll say it again. I would not change a thing.
00:04Welcome to WatchMojo.
00:06And today, we're looking at instances where celebrities openly acknowledged that they did something terrible,
00:13whether or not they were remorseful about it.
00:15Not really. I mean, it's not really a big deal to me now as far as that situation. I think I'm past that in my life.
00:21Tiger Woods. Still widely considered the GOAT of the golf course.
00:26Tiger Woods' reputation was squeaky clean until 2009, when rumors of an extramarital affair started circulating.
00:33The plot thickened days later, when Woods was involved in a car accident, leading more to speculate if there was trouble at home.
00:41Initially, it was Tiger Woods' life that appeared to be in jeopardy. No one knew it was merely his reputation that was in danger.
00:49Woods released multiple statements tiptoeing around the elephant in the room.
00:53As more women claimed to have been involved with Woods, he eventually made another statement.
00:59Woods admitted that he had been unfaithful, apologizing to his wife, children, and others he had disappointed.
01:06I owe a lot of people an apology. I heard a lot of people, not just my wife, my friends, my colleagues, the public, kids who looked up to me.
01:17There were a lot of people that thought I was a different person.
01:20Woods announced he'd be seeking therapy and taking a break from golf.
01:25While Woods would make a professional comeback in the years that followed, his marriage to Aline Nordgren ended in 2010.
01:33Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
01:35RFK Jr. admitting that he once dumped a bear carcass in Central Park wasn't on our bingo sheet for 2024.
01:42In retrospect, though, maybe it should have been.
01:45A woman in a van in front of me hit a bear and killed it. A young bear.
01:51So I pulled over and I picked up the bear and put him in the back of my van.
01:57Based on Kennedy's accounts, the incident occurred a decade earlier, when another driver struck the bear.
02:03Rather than call animal control, Kennedy loaded the carcass into his car, planning to skin it and refrigerate the meat.
02:09Kennedy changed his mind about halfway through, instead deciding to leave the bear's remains in Central Park, arranging the body to make it seem like a biker hit it.
02:19I said, let's go put the bear in Central Park and we'll make it look like he got hit by a bike.
02:24It'll be fun and funny for people.
02:26The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation deemed that Kennedy's possession and disposal of the bear was illegal.
02:34Since the statute of limitations had passed, though, he avoided a $250 fine.
02:40Sharon Osbourne.
02:41Appearing on the game show, Would I Lie to You?
02:44The Osbourne family matriarch recalled a house fire that occurred around Christmas.
02:49Ozzie was set ablaze, but Sharon managed to get him into a fountain.
02:52So then outside, there was a fountain.
02:56Right.
02:56So I pushed Ozzie out.
02:58You threw him in the fountain?
02:59And then the arm.
03:01Sharon proceeded to fetch their assistant from the guest house, telling him to get their paintings and dogs out of the burning building.
03:08Osbourne then gloated about firing the assistant.
03:11This story was true, although Osbourne later clarified that she actually fired the assistant years after the incident.
03:18Oh, I don't know what the real story is.
03:20And you actually didn't fire him, or you didn't fire him, or you didn't fire him later?
03:23No, no.
03:23You know, I fired him about 15 years later.
03:26Osbourne acted as if this made things better, but she still prioritized her dogs over a human life.
03:33At one point, Osbourne even said she took the assistant's mask while she was receiving oxygen, putting it on her dog instead.
03:42Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis.
03:44Many struggled to re-watch that 70s show, not only because Danny Masterson was found guilty on two counts of sexual assault, but because some of his former co-stars supported him during the trial.
03:55In their unreserved praise, Ashton says of his 25-year friendship with Masterson,
04:00Amid Masterson's sentencing, it was revealed that Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis had written character references, describing him as a role model and brother figure.
04:18The two didn't deny writing the letters, although they acted as if their privacy had been invaded.
04:23Kutcher noted that they were intended for the judge, failing to acknowledge that writing the letters in the first place was misguided.
04:31They were intended for the judge to read, and not to undermine the testimony of the victims or re-charmicize them in any way.
04:38We would never want to do that.
04:40While Kunis said that they support victims, many felt the damage had been done.
04:44The couple didn't make matters better with their so-called apology.
04:49Matthew Broderick
04:50Vacationing in Northern Ireland with his then-girlfriend and Ferris Bueller co-star Jennifer Grey, Matthew Broderick was behind the wheel when they struck another vehicle.
04:59Broderick was in the wrong lane, a mistake that cost a mother and daughter their lives.
05:04I was in shock because I was the only living witness, and Matthew was unconscious and had amnesia, and the other two women died.
05:13The actor faced a dangerous driving charge that could have resulted in a five-year sentence, although this was adjusted to a more lenient, careless driving charge.
05:23While Broderick had endured memory loss, he entered a guilty plea.
05:27Despite his admission, Broderick only had to pay a $175 fine.
05:31Martin Doherty, the son and brother of the victims, forgave Broderick years after the 1987 crash.
05:37And it had very serious, traumatic, lasting effects on, I'm sure, Matthew and the family of the other women and me.
05:49Broderick said that it was extremely difficult coming to grips with what happened, but time and therapy helps.
05:55Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin.
05:58During the 2019 Varsity Blues scandal, two names stood out among the accused.
06:04Lori Loughlin of Full House fame and Emmy winner Felicity Huffman.
06:08Loughlin, along with her husband Massimo Giannulli, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud.
06:14The day of reckoning has come for Lori Loughlin and her husband as they plead guilty in federal court.
06:20Huffman also accepted a plea deal, admitting that she conspired to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud.
06:27While Loughlin and Giannulli got two and five months, respectively, Huffman's sentence was just two weeks.
06:34She'd get out two days early, although Huffman would still have to pay $30,000 and commit to 250 community service hours.
06:42It seemed like, and I know this seems crazy at the time, that that was my only option to give my daughter a future.
06:49And I know hindsight is 20-20, but it felt like I would be a bad mother if I didn't do it.
06:57Loughlin was fine five times more than Huffman, although she only received 100 hours of community service.
07:04You don't need a college degree to know that cheating is wrong.
07:07Millie Vanilli
07:08Speaking of cheaters, there's no Grammy for best lip-syncing.
07:13That would have been more than a fitting category for R&B duo Millie Vanilli, who won Best New Artist in 1990.
07:19A lot of artists here in this room, there are a lot of artists outside in the world who can achieve the same award that we achieve today.
07:28And it's an award for all artists in the world. Thank you very much.
07:31Members Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus were stripped of this honor as it came to light that they didn't provide their own vocals for the album, Girl You Know It's True.
07:41Although Morvan and Pilatus were capable of carrying in notes, they confirmed that it wasn't them on the album.
07:47As such, they didn't fight to keep their award.
07:50A day after their Grammy-winning status was rescinded, Morvan and Pilatus gave a press conference supporting the Recording Academy's decision.
07:58As the duo saw it, they made a deal with the devil.
08:02The pair now hope to continue recording as Rob and Fab, the German and the French.
08:07Liam Neeson
08:08This actor is known for playing badasses who just take justice into their own hands.
08:14If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it.
08:18I will not look for you.
08:19I will not pursue you.
08:21But if you don't, I will look for you.
08:26I will find you.
08:29And I will kill you.
08:30This real-life incident was far from heroic, however.
08:34Doing press for the revenge movie Cold Pursuit, Neeson recalled how a female friend had been sexually assaulted years earlier.
08:41Little was known about her attacker other than that he was a black man.
08:45Neeson spent a week roaming the streets, hoping a black person would pick a fight so he could kill him.
08:51The way Neeson worded the story made it sound like he wanted to take his anger out on any black man.
08:56Looking back, Neeson felt ashamed about his actions.
09:00And I'm a fairly intelligent guy, and that's why it kind of shocked me when I came down to earth after having these horrible feelings.
09:08He had never told anyone up until this interview.
09:11Even Neeson seemed uncertain why he was confessing this now.
09:15Lena Dunham
09:16Though the comedy Girls, Lena Dunham was praised for presenting a brutally honest look at being a young woman in this day and age.
09:24To this book that I am willing to get pretty thrifty on this.
09:27Why don't you get a job and start a blog?
09:30You are so spoiled.
09:32Dunham got a little too honest in her memoir, though.
09:35Chronicling a disturbing childhood incident with her sibling, Cyrus.
09:39Dunham wrote about inappropriately touching her sibling, opening a debate on whether she had committed sexual assaults.
09:46Some argued that Dunham was young, curious, and didn't know any better.
09:51Others felt she had crossed a serious boundary, and then made light of it with passages like,
09:55Anything a sexual predator might do to woo a small suburban girl, I was trying.
10:00Dunham acknowledged that her word choice was poor.
10:03But however you phrase it, this was TMI.
10:07I'm aware of the criticisms, and I'm able to live with them.
10:12Sean Penn
10:13This two-time Oscar winner has a reputation for erratic behavior, but that didn't make this revelation any less shocking.
10:21Okay, maybe a little.
10:23Dropping by John Mulaney's talk show, the host asked Penn to talk about his teen years.
10:28You growing up in Malibu?
10:29Mm-hmm. Partly.
10:30Were you a, did you like get in scraps in fights?
10:33Yep.
10:34Growing up in Malibu, Penn and his friends felt compelled to protect their surf turf from outsiders.
10:39He did so by torching a guy's van with a Molotov cocktail on one occasion.
10:43Penn and his pals were able to get away with crimes like arson, since they had family in the sheriff's departments.
10:49One of the deputies that we would encounter was the big brother of one of us.
10:55Ah.
10:55And so that, that allowed for more, um...
10:59Molotov cocktail bombing?
11:01Yeah.
11:02That's fantastic.
11:04Reflecting on his youth, Penn conceded that their actions might have been kind of reckless.
11:09Why do we get the sense that Penn was just like the surfer gang in that Nick Cage movie?
11:14Kristi Noem.
11:15Remember when Barack Obama swatting a fly was considered controversial?
11:19Now, Washington has an authority figure who didn't just kill a dog.
11:23To include the story about the dog, it's not gone down well.
11:26Many people are questioning your political future.
11:28Well, I don't think you have the facts straight.
11:30Um, this was a vicious, dangerous dog that was a working dog.
11:35And I had to make a choice between the safety of my children and an animal that was killing livestock and attacking people.
11:41She bragged about it in a book for the whole world to read.
11:45Before becoming Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem took her family dog, Cricket, on a hunting trip.
11:51Although Cricket was just over a year old, still technically puppy age, Noem concluded that she couldn't be trained.
11:58Cricket chased the birds instead of hunting them.
12:00Although she did attack some chickens.
12:02That story's in the book because I want people to know that I'm honest and that I, when I have difficult jobs, that I take responsibility myself.
12:09After Cricket bit Noem, she decided it was old yeller time.
12:13Oh, and then she killed a goat.
12:15Some might describe this as an irrefutable act of animal cruelty.
12:20Of course, Noem isn't above human cruelty either.
12:23Paula Deen.
12:25To say this celebrity chef landed in hot water would be an understatement.
12:28Food is a vehicle that gets you here with me.
12:33But look at this.
12:34And look at that.
12:36It was more like a boiling pot of butter that just kept overflowing.
12:40Deen and her brother, Earl Bubba Hyers, stood accused of sexual and racial discrimination in the workplace.
12:46While the lawsuit wasn't a good look, there was a possibility that Deen could move past this chapter as long as she was careful with her words.
12:54Everything collapsed when Deen was questioned about whether she'd ever used a particular racial slur.
12:59Her response?
13:01Yes, of course.
13:01Deen also confirmed that she had considered arranging a Southern Plantation-themed wedding with black male servers.
13:08Do you have any doubt in your mind that African Americans are offended by the N-word?
13:14I don't know, Matt.
13:15I have asked myself that so many times.
13:18The Food Network ultimately terminated their ties to Deen, whose attempts at apologizing came off as disingenuous.
13:26In 2022, Julia Misley, a.k.a. Julia Holcomb, took out a lawsuit against the Aerosmith frontman, claiming that he sexually abused her and made her terminate a pregnancy.
13:40I was just shocked.
13:41I couldn't imagine even thinking about having an abortion.
13:44I had thought I was going to get married and have a baby and start a family.
13:48The relationship allegedly started when Misley was a teenager and Tyler was several years older.
13:54The so-called smoking gun?
13:56Tyler's memoir, which had been published over a decade beforehand.
14:00While Tyler had a different perspective, he did open up about gaining guardianship of Misley, writing,
14:05with my bad self being 26 and she barely old enough to drive and sexy as hell, I just fell madly in love with her.
14:13Tyler also described her as his partner in crimes of passion, presenting the relationship as consensual.
14:19But you were irresponsible.
14:21Were you not irresponsible?
14:23I was.
14:23Yeah.
14:23I was.
14:24Whether or not it was, Misley still would have been underage.
14:29Cardi B.
14:30Cardi B might not be proud of her past, although that doesn't mean she feels all that bad about it.
14:35Foreshadowing her future role in the movie Hustlers, the rapper used to be a stripper.
14:40While there's certainly nothing wrong with that, it wasn't Cardi B's only source of income.
14:45She also used substances on men and took their money.
14:48Cardi B first talked about her former life of crime in 2016, just as she was starting to make a name for herself.
14:55The artist went on to explain that her options were limited and she was just trying to survive.
14:59She recognized that her actions shouldn't be glorified.
15:02But if Cardi could do it all over again, she likely wouldn't change a thing.
15:08James Fry.
15:09The life of James Fry isn't the one that he sold to Oprah and the countless others who read his book A Million Little Pieces.
15:16Presented as a memoir, it covered Fry's history with substance use, criminal activity, and recovery.
15:22That book coming out and the controversies related to it were obviously a big moment for me, but probably not in the ways people might think.
15:33As the book began to dominate the bestseller list, investigators found that not everything added up.
15:39Although aspects of Fry's story were true, many of them were grossly embellished.
15:44Some might even call a few details straight up lies.
15:48Fry initially tried to downplay the fictional nature of his book.
15:52I did that show and I was pretty defensive.
15:56I was defending my turf and defending, uh, every single viewer who had bought that book.
16:04I am standing here on behalf of the reader who's pissed off.
16:09When Oprah brought him in on her show in 2006, though, Fry relented that he wasn't in jail for 87 days as the book claimed.
16:16It was only a few hours.
16:18Lance Armstrong.
16:19Lance Armstrong was once the definition of inspirational.
16:24To his credit, Armstrong did overcome some major obstacles, such as cancer.
16:28He went from survivor to victor in what was called at the time, one of the most unbelievable comebacks in sports history.
16:38For seven straight years, he dominated arguably the hardest sporting event in the world.
16:44Unfortunately, Armstrong's legacy is largely defined by his deceit in the world of sports.
16:49Between 1999 and 2005, the cyclist won the Tour de France seven straight times.
16:56While there was speculation of doping going as far back as his first victory, Armstrong consistently denied this.
17:02Fans generally believed him until 2012, when the United States Anti-Doping Agency concluded that the rumors were true.
17:10What we had to do to win.
17:12Once again, it was Oprah who interviewed the accused.
17:16Although Armstrong claimed that some allegations were false, he admitted that not all of his tour titles were achieved honestly.
17:24By then, Armstrong's honors had been taken away.
17:28Mark Wahlberg.
17:28You could say that Mark Wahlberg came from humble beginnings, going from an ordinary Boston kid to singer to actor.
17:36Just because Wahlberg didn't grow up rich doesn't mean his upbringing wasn't without privilege.
17:41White privilege.
17:42I'm from the wrong side of the tracks, I think.
17:44You know, I'm trying to work my way into good grief.
17:46During his teen years, Wahlberg and his friends physically and verbally attacked multiple people of color.
17:51In 1988, he assaulted two Vietnamese men, Thanh Lam and Hoa Trinh.
17:57Wahlberg pleaded guilty, serving 45 days of a three-month sentence.
18:02He expressed regret about his mistakes in 2006, with Trinh ultimately forgiving Wahlberg.
18:08At the same time, Wahlberg tried to have his crimes removed from the record.
18:12Another choice, he regrets.
18:15That I've been committed to turning my life around and becoming a productive person in the community.
18:19Victor Salva.
18:20This director is known for his work on the first three Jeepers Creepers movies.
18:24Salva's actions behind the scenes are far more horrifying, however.
18:29In 1988, a year before his feature debut Clown House came out,
18:33Salva was at the center of a sexual abuse case against a minor, Nathan Forrest Winters.
18:38Some of the cast and crew came to my mom and said, you know, Nathan and Victor's interaction on set is not okay.
18:45Salva also stood accused of possessing inappropriate imagery of children.
18:49He pleaded guilty to several charges, serving 15 months of a three-year sentence.
18:55While his incarceration was relatively short, you'd think that his confession and conviction would have been career-ending.
19:02Even after Salva's crimes gained more traction in 2006, he continued to find work.
19:07But I'm also the writer-director of Powder and Peaceful Warrior and Rites of Passage.
19:12I love drama and I do drama very well, too.
19:15His most recent directorial credit was in 2017, although Winters has remained vocal about what Salva did to him, Chris Brown.
19:24To some, Chris Brown is better known for his toxic relationship with Rihanna than his music.
19:29Although Brown is still consistently releasing new albums, his reputation has never been able to shake his 2009 domestic violence arrest.
19:37Like I said, I'm really sorry for what went down and what happened.
19:43The case against Brown was as evident as the marks on his then-girlfriend's face.
19:48Brown decided to turn himself in, releasing an apology.
19:52Even so, Brown initially delivered a not-guilty plea when presented with felony assault charges.
19:58It wasn't long until Brown accepted the plea deal, however.
20:01While it didn't entail jail time, Brown got five years probation, a year of mandatory counseling, and six months of community labor.
20:08At a time, I didn't know how to put those feelings, you know, out there.
20:13I didn't know how to say it or I didn't know how to express myself without it being anger.
20:17Years later, Brown reflected on the experience, which made him feel like a monster.
20:38Jared Fogel
20:40Before 2015, the public assumed that the worst thing the former Subway spokesperson could do was eat a Big Mac.
20:47Then I found Subway restaurants, and I realized I could enjoy lots of great-tasting food without lots of fat.
20:55There was a far more menacing side of Jared Fogel that wouldn't become general knowledge until he was arrested for various sex crimes involving children.
21:03Subway wasn't going to bail Jared out.
21:07Fogel entered a guilty plea, being sentenced to more than 15 years in federal prison.
21:11Jared Fogel expects to go to prison.
21:14He will do his time.
21:16He expects to get well.
21:19He expects to continue to make amends to those people whose lives he has affected.
21:23Outside of an apology around the time of his sentencing, Fogel remained mostly silent until 2021,
21:29when he released a handwritten letter from prison.
21:33Fogel stated,
21:34I really royally screwed up to wind up where I am.
21:38Jared might not be incarcerated forever, but it's hard to imagine him ever coming back from this.
21:44Can you think of any other celebrities who confessed to terrible things?
21:49Let us know in the comments.
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