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One wrong move on live TV can change everything... Join us as we count down our picks for the celebrities whose careers were devastated by infamous talk show appearances! From shocking confessions to erratic behavior, these are the moments when stars crashed and burned in front of millions.
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00:00I guess what I is, and I'm not changing.
00:03Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the most shocking talk show moments
00:07that devastated the reputation of a guest, or even the show's host.
00:11You judged me, you condemned me, you discarded me.
00:13Well, not anymore. Winning!
00:17Number 10, Bobcat Goldthwait, The Arsenio Hall Show, and The Tonight Show, starring Jay Leno.
00:23I mean, I don't want to be rude or anything, but will you still be able to help my career?
00:26Appearances on The Arsenio Hall Show and The Tonight Show were almost unthinkable for outsider
00:31comedian Bobcat Goldthwait before 1994. They definitely were after.
00:36As one of the last guests before the end of Hall's show, Goldthwait spray-painted Paramount
00:40Sucks on the wall of Stage 29 at Paramount Studios.
00:48Hall had to tackle him to stop the ensuing furniture rampage.
00:56A week later, Goldthwait sat across from Jay Leno and randomly set the guest chair on fire.
01:02Well, it is sweeps, and I love Jay very much, and I thought, well, what if I, I don't know,
01:07what if I set his furniture on fire?
01:09This earned him an arson conviction and a fine. These stunts told the public that Goldthwait
01:14might not be ready for the mainstream after all. He never lost a strong cult following as a maverick
01:19stand-up, actor, and filmmaker, but nobody trusts him with major work.
01:23Well, do you see yourself as a role model for our young people?
01:25I think I'm an excellent role model for children.
01:27Really? Really?
01:28I think they need more role models like me.
01:30Number 9. Andy Dick, Jimmy Kimmel Live.
01:33By 2007, comedian Andy Dick's reputation as a troublemaker had lost its charm in the
01:38throes of substance use disorder. He was clearly very intoxicated during his appearance on Jimmy
01:43Kimmel Live.
01:44I have no idea what he's doing behind me.
01:46He's...
01:46The host humored Dick's antics until Ivanka Trump's interview, which the earlier guest
01:50kept disrupting by touching her hair and leg. He even asked for a kiss.
01:54Andy, don't please. Don't touch Ivanka.
01:58Oh, wait. Did I say I was single? I meant I had a voice.
02:01Kimmel eventually had to call security to forcibly escort Dick out of the studio.
02:05Andy, you promised you would behave yourself.
02:08As audiences finally witnessed his erratic behavior in action, Dick was all but blacklisted
02:12in Hollywood for years. He has since worked towards sobriety, but has never been able to
02:17live down his past. Nor has he ever apologized to Trump for his particularly ruinous harassment.
02:22Number 8. Meg Ryan.
02:23Parkinson. One of Hollywood's most wholesome stars was looking to break that image in 2003.
02:29Unfortunately, Meg Ryan made the wrong impression when she appeared on Parkinson to promote the
02:33gritty thriller in the cut. She grew increasingly irritable as she brushed off Michael Parkinson's
02:48questions and told him to wrap it up on the sensitive subject of nudity.
02:52In other words, if you were me, what would you do now?
02:55Well, just wrap it up.
02:56Ryan would later explain that she wasn't used to the dynamics of the BBC's commercial free chat show.
03:01Alas, Parkinson cursed her with one of the most lethal labels for an actress.
03:05Difficult. The ultimately poor reception for In the Cut and other projects effectively ruined
03:10Ryan's serious turn. But with the damage done by the Parkinson appearance, among other scandals,
03:15her reputation never quite bounced back.
03:17I don't know what happened. I just took it against her.
03:20Number 7. James Fry. The Oprah Winfrey Show.
03:23An endorsement from Oprah's book club propelled A Million Little Pieces into a bestseller by 2006.
03:28It's a gut-wrenching memoir that is raw and it's so real.
03:34Our next book is A Million Little Pieces.
03:39The thing is that James Fry had fabricated much of his so-called memoir about his stint in a rehab
03:44center.
03:44The whistle-blowing website, The Smoking Gun, reported that key details of James' memoir were made up.
03:51Following an expose, the author went on The Oprah Winfrey Show to explain that the very demons behind his substance
03:56use disorder compelled him to embellish his story.
03:59He also claimed that he initially shopped the book as a semi-autobiographical novel.
04:03I've struggled with the idea of it and...
04:08No, the lie of it. That's a lie. It's not an idea, James, but a lie.
04:13Unfortunately, Winfrey's lack of sympathy escalated the media frenzy, costing Fry his manager and a book deal.
04:19Thankfully, he was able to save his career by founding the publishing company Full Fathom 5.
04:24Winfrey also publicly apologized for her own deceptive handling of Fry's confession.
04:27It didn't matter what happened on that show because in some ways I deserved it.
04:33You know, I made a mistake and when it kind of...
04:36And at a certain point, it came time to pay for it.
04:39Number 6. Paula Deen. The Today Show.
04:42Now to the firestorm of controversy facing Paula Deen after a leaked deposition revealed her admitted use of racial slurs.
04:49A lawsuit alleging racist incidents took a bite out of celebrity chef Paula Deen's popularity in 2013.
04:54She might have recovered if it weren't for The Today Show.
04:57After bailing on an interview to address the scandal, Deen showed up visibly distraught the following week.
05:02She mostly just made herself the victim as she denied the allegations and acknowledged past racial remarks.
05:08I'm so distressed that people I've never heard of are all of a sudden experts on who I am.
05:16And you know what distresses me the very most, Matt?
05:21Their words are being given weight.
05:23The public questioned the legitimacy of her defense and whether she even fully understood the issue.
05:28I is what I is and I'm not changing.
05:33And I...
05:38There's someone evil out there.
05:41Deen's massive empire had collapsed by the time she returned to Today in 2014 to apologize for her tone-deaf
05:46meltdown.
05:47Her brand has since thrived in niche markets, but it's nothing like it once was.
05:51Number 5. Phil Donoghue
05:53Donoghue
05:53Americans have historically looked to Phil Donoghue as a beacon of serious journalism on daytime TV.
05:59I think we brought a show to daytime television that they always wanted and no one gave it to them
06:06and we got lucky.
06:07So, in the wake of 9-11, MSNBC commissioned a new talk show to give desperate audiences some perspective.
06:13Then he became a vocal critic of a prospective U.S. invasion of Iraq.
06:17You're always looking and finding evidence to argue there's something wrong with this country.
06:21And I think this country is a good country with flaws and you think this country is essentially wrong on
06:26so many issues.
06:27This is one of the reasons why it's so easy to go to war.
06:30And in February of 2003, MSNBC canceled their highest rated show.
06:34In the wake of the anticipated invasion, a leaked memo confirmed that the network axed Donoghue because it jeopardized wartime
06:40morale.
06:41I couldn't get over the unanimity of opinion on cable.
06:45The drum was beating.
06:47Everybody wanted to bomb somebody.
06:49The political climate further suppressed the host's status as a public figure even after the public embraced his view.
06:56Now the once disgraced Donoghue is remembered only for maintaining his integrity, even when it cost him a proper finale
07:01to his career.
07:03Number 4. Charlie Sheen
07:12Two and a half men had made the regularly scandalous Charlie Sheen the highest paid actor on TV in 2011.
07:19You'd think he would be grateful, but it all imploded when he called into Alex Jones' already controversial radio show.
07:24I don't live in the middle anymore. That's where you get slaughtered. That's where you get embarrassed.
07:29In front of the prom queen. And it's just not an option.
07:33Sheen ranted about his critics, rehab, and even Thomas Jefferson.
07:37You sound like Thomas Jefferson.
07:39Well, I'm not Thomas Jefferson. He was a b****.
07:43Then he went after two and a half men showrunner Chuck Lorre in a sometimes anti-Semitic tirade.
07:49Sheen was fired from the show soon thereafter.
07:51It didn't end with the Alex Jones show, though, as Sheen had more viral outbursts on more talk shows in
07:55the coming months.
07:56You judged me. You condemned me. You discarded me.
07:59Well, not anymore. Winning!
08:01He's since achieved sobriety and a slight comeback, having learned that his status is not as resilient as he thought
08:07it was.
08:08Number three. Lance Armstrong. Oprah's next chapter.
08:11In your opinion, was it humanly possible to win the Tour de France without doping?
08:18Seven times in a row.
08:20Not in my opinion.
08:21The legacy of one of the greatest cyclists in sports history didn't crash all at once.
08:26Lance Armstrong was stripped of his honors and banned from professional racing after a 2012 investigation found that he used
08:32performance-enhancing substances for years.
08:34Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling.
08:37On Oprah's next chapter the following year, he confessed to doping during his historic Tour de France streak.
08:42Yes or no? Did you ever take banned substances to enhance your cycling performance?
08:47Yes.
08:47However, he maintained that he stopped there and never operated a doping ring with other athletes.
08:53Further investigations told a different story.
08:55Armstrong's admission to Oprah Winfrey might have just punctuated his already decisive downfall as an athlete.
09:00But his continued dishonesty then is credited with finishing off his endorsements and status as a public figure.
09:06Number two. Don Imus.
09:08Imus in the morning.
09:09From syndicated radio to MSNBC, Don Imus' talk show was an institution for half a century.
09:15The shock jock naturally accumulated many controversies in that time.
09:19I didn't think it was necessary to offer any excuse.
09:22No, I don't think there is now.
09:23He finally went too far in April 2007 when he made racist and misogynistic comments about a women's basketball team.
09:30Racially insensitive comments about the Rutgers University women's basketball team.
09:34The backlash went as high up as presidential candidate Barack Obama.
09:37Despite making two formal apologies, Imus lost his national broadcasting contracts with MSNBC and CBS radio.
09:44At this point, as we sit here today, is there anything he can do?
09:48Yeah, he could resign.
09:49Imus in the morning was able to secure a successful run in New York City, but spent its last decade
09:54in obscurity relative to its earlier status.
09:56In his final sign-off in 2018, Imus acknowledged those disgraceful remarks as his greatest regret.
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10:21The world was stunned when actor Jesse Smollett went to Good Morning America's Robin Roberts with a harrowing story in
10:272019.
10:44He had reported to the Chicago police that he was viciously assaulted by a pair of white men for being
10:51black and gay.
10:52Then I look down and I see that there's a rope around my neck, which I hadn't...
10:56You hadn't noticed it before?
10:58No, because it was so fast, you know what I'm saying? It was so fast.
11:00How long did this all take...
11:02It felt like minutes, but it probably was like 30 seconds.
11:05As it turns out, though, Smollett staged the hate crime by hiring two Nigerian-Americans to attack him.
11:10The ensuing public and legal fallout led to the actor being fired from the show Empire, then blacklisted from the
11:16industry.
11:17GMA was itself criticized for breaking the story without rigorous fact-checking.
11:21ABC never apologized for platforming this exploitation of social tensions, but was ultimately just the site of Smollett's career-killing
11:28mistake.
11:28What are some other talk show appearances that changed your feelings about a celebrity?
11:32Chat it up in the comments.
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