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From beloved celebrities to respected leaders, these figures once held our admiration before their dramatic falls from grace. Join us as we examine how these once-celebrated individuals became infamous for their scandals, crimes, and controversial actions. Our countdown includes JK Rowling, Bill Cosby, OJ Simpson, and more!
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00:00Here is Jared Fogle. You may have seen him on the news.
00:03Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at times where beloved celebrities and figures ended up becoming the bad guy.
00:10I think it's very clear what's true.
00:13O.J. Simpson. In American football, few running backs are as talented as Simpson was in his prime.
00:20During the 70s, he played for the Buffalo Bills and became massively famous.
00:25Simpson retired in 1979, then pursued a career in acting.
00:30Yeah, Doc says I should be on my bean and as good as new in a week.
00:32And back on the force.
00:34Thornburg, that's wonderful.
00:37Whoa!
00:381994 saw his fall from grace after the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ron Goldman.
00:45Simpson became the prime suspect, which resulted in a publicized chase when he tried to flee.
00:50There was nothing ever, ever in the past that would indicate O.J. would be capable of doing what he is doing right now.
00:56While he was ultimately found not guilty, his reputation took a major hit.
01:01His viewpoint, I'm back and I'm going to be playing golf every day and I'm going to be O.J. and everything's fine.
01:07And I think he felt he could con the rest of the world into believing that.
01:12In 2007, he was arrested again in Las Vegas, charged with armed robbery and kidnapping, resulting in him serving nine years behind bars.
01:21Bill Gates.
01:22Microsoft was founded by Gates and his friend Paul Allen in 1975.
01:27Now, barely any companies are more well-known.
01:30What are your annual revenues, Microsoft?
01:32We're expecting to do just over $100 million this year.
01:35Gates' work on computers was revolutionary, making him a billionaire by age 31.
01:40Unfortunately, he's not as loved as he used to be.
01:43One major reason is that he has ties to the infamous criminal Jeffrey Epstein.
01:47You know, those meetings were a mistake.
01:50They didn't result in what he purported and I cut them off.
01:55He's also the founder of the Gates Foundation, which is the third wealthiest charity on earth.
02:00While its intentions are admirable, it's been heavily criticized, with many claiming it makes poverty worse rather than its stated goal of helping.
02:08Among the many criticisms, the idea that private finance can solve the problems of the developing world.
02:14Should poor farmers be trapped into debt by having to use chemicals or fertilizers underwritten by offshoots of the foundation?
02:21Henry Heimlich.
02:22Most of us should be aware of the Heimlich maneuver used to stop someone from choking.
02:26As you could guess, it's named after Henry Heimlich, who first publicized his idea in 1974.
02:33So the simple solution was, how do you always drive the object away from the lung and toward the mouth?
02:38And as a chest surgeon, I knew if you pushed up on the diaphragm and compressed the lungs, it would act like a bellows and blow the object out.
02:46It was an amazing development, which has since saved countless lives.
02:49Well, after creating it, Heimlich went pretty far off the deep end.
02:53Heimlich suggested his maneuvers should be used in a lot of ways that the Red Cross disagreed with.
02:58Also, he became controversially involved with malaria therapy.
03:03This is when you inject people with malaria and hope it cures their other ailments.
03:08Unsurprisingly, Heimlich wasn't allowed to test this theory in America and had to do it in Ethiopia.
03:13It turned out to have the opposite effect, increasing the spread of diseases.
03:17Here, in the Dembea district of Ethiopia, malaria is endemic.
03:21Rudy Giuliani
03:22From 1994 until 2001, Giuliani was the mayor of New York City.
03:28If after 2001 he'd left the public eye, he'd still be widely adored.
03:32He's the mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani!
03:38Giuliani ended up doing the opposite, which ruined his reputation.
03:42As mayor, he cracked down on mobs and criminals while being relatively socially liberal.
03:46I'm the Republican mayor, but I'm really not.
03:49I'm the mayor of New York City.
03:50Now, he's regarded as not much more than one of Trump's lackeys.
03:55In 2018, he joined Trump's legal team.
03:57Many believe he was highly corrupt in this role and was a major figure in numerous scandals.
04:03They're not going to steal this election.
04:05This election gets decided by the people.
04:07He was indicted multiple times and later disbarred from practicing law in both New York and D.C.
04:13Richard Nixon
04:14In 1969, Nixon was elected President of the United States after a major victory.
04:23One of his main promises was to honorably end the Vietnam War.
04:27Another was that of détente, which resulted in improved relations between America, China, and the Soviet Union.
04:34After a popular first term, Nixon was re-elected again in 1972, winning 60.7% of the votes.
04:41Nixon would eventually resign in 1974, after the Watergate scandal ruined his reputation.
04:47Because people have got to know whether or not their president's a crook.
04:51Well, I'm not a crook.
04:52This was because in 1972, burglars were found in the Democratic National Committee headquarters.
04:58You found the door taped once, and you took the tape off.
05:02And then you found it taped a second time.
05:04It was something that told me that you should check, not only check the door, but you should call the police.
05:10Investigations found Nixon was responsible, and he resigned just before being impeached.
05:15Therefore, I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow.
05:21Mao Zedong.
05:22If the founder of the People's Republic of China had died in 1949, he'd be widely considered a hero.
05:28Mao Zedong, once a lowly party worker, now assumed the stature of the dominant figure in all of Eastern Asia.
05:36This is because Mao fought heroically during the Civil War and the Second Sino-Japanese War.
05:41After taking over China, Mao encouraged land reforms, which often resulted in bloodshed targeted against property owners.
05:48I was totally pouring my energy, even my life, into it to support whatever Mao asked me to do.
05:58In 1958, Mao began The Great Leap Forward, which resulted in the largest man-made famine in human history.
06:05His party began to dislike him, so Mao responded with the Cultural Revolution, which lasted from 1966 until his death in 1976.
06:14The Cultural Revolution was extremely violent, and the number of fatalities caused by Mao's rule is a figure we'll never truly know, but it's definitely horrifically high.
06:30Now it's the regular generation, 70. I hope that they reflect, they regret, they re-examine what should we prevent this kind of human tragedy happen again.
06:47Kevin Spacey. For over two decades, Spacey was one of the most celebrated actors in Hollywood.
06:52You think you can catch Kaiser, Jose? You think a guy like that comes this close to getting caught and sticks his head out?
06:59He's won two Academy Awards, and was given an honorary KBE by the Queen of England in 2015.
07:05In 2017, his career took a turn for the worse.
07:09Multiple actors accused Spacey of sexually assaulting them, which ended his career temporarily.
07:14I hope that everyone who's dealing with these sorts of situations does feel the courage to come forward.
07:23In response, Spacey decided to come out as a gay man. This came across as ignorant of the real issue, and only increased controversy.
07:31Spacey denied the allegations, and was eventually found not guilty in two separate cases. That didn't save him.
07:37He's a widely disliked actor who struggles to find work, but not as much as he used to.
07:42But I very, very, very much am so grateful that I am alive, and I got through this. And I'm coming out the other side of it.
07:49Jared Fogle. In 1998, Fogle began a diet that helped him lose 245 pounds in a year. During this period, he frequented Subway.
08:00Hey, Jared.
08:01Hey, guys.
08:01This led to him being hired by the chain to promote their products. For 15 years, he was the face of Subway all over the globe, earning him the nickname, The Subway Guy.
08:12There's always excuses. You know, you can always have a million excuses out there, but you just got to finally put up and just do it.
08:16This all came to a crashing halt when it was publicly revealed that he was a child abuser.
08:21Allegations first began in 2007, but the FBI finally caught him in 2015. Fogle was sentenced to 15 years and eight months in prison that same year.
08:30He expects to get well. He expects to continue to make amends to those people whose lives he has affected, both family and non-family members.
08:42And he at some point hopes to become, once again, a productive member of society.
08:47Bill Cosby. By the end of the 20th century, Cosby was widely revered as America's dad.
08:54Come in.
09:00He was an adored stand-up comedian, most famous for playing Cliff Huxtable on The Cosby Show.
09:12From 2014 onwards, public opinion of him soured severely.
09:16This was due to numerous allegations from women that he had assaulted them.
09:20Next thing I know, I'm in the bathroom. And, um, I am thrown up.
09:27They began surfacing in 2004, but in 2014, Hannibal Buress joked about these allegations in a comedy routine.
09:34This triggered a domino effect of people becoming increasingly aware of his dark side.
09:40The stories just keep coming.
09:43Eventually, Cosby was convicted in 2018 and stayed in prison until 2021.
09:49Now he steers clear of the public eye, as he's one of America's most hated celebrities.
09:53To every woman who, again, got dragged to filth for speaking the truth after saying nothing for decades.
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10:16J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, used to be idolized almost unanimously.
10:25How does it feel to have really motivated an entire generation to read?
10:28Nothing better. Nothing better.
10:30No.
10:30Once, she famously fell off the Forbes billionaires list for how much money she donated to charity.
10:36Now, she's more known for spreading hate than anything else.
10:39The woman who is likely the world's best-known children's author is defending herself against growing accusations of transphobia.
10:47Transgender individuals are the primary target of her hate, despite them reportedly being not even 1% of the UK's population.
10:54Trans people are a population of people who have a right to equality and to freedom from discrimination.
11:01We are not an ideology that's up for debate.
11:04But that's how J.K. Rowling frames the trans question.
11:08Not as a struggle for equality that she opposes, but as an ideology that she disagrees with.
11:14Many Harry Potter actors, like Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe, have fallen out with her because of it.
11:20Rowling's anti-trans beliefs are seriously harmful, even for people who aren't trans.
11:25For example, in 2024, she caused a ruckus over Algerian Olympic champion Emane Khalif, whom Rowling considered trans.
11:33This was an entirely made-up fact, which seriously hurt Khalif.
11:37Were there any figures we failed to include that you think deserve a mention?
11:48Let us know in the comments below.
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