Celebs Who Tanked Their Careers In The Blink Of An Eye With Reckless Decisions
Celebrities exist in a strange world where it seems like they can get away with everything and nothing at the same time. The public's adoration is fickle and sometimes irrational, which means that an incident that can destroy one celebrity's career forever can be treated as an unfortunate blip in another's venerable legacy.
It's hard to predict what can destroy a career but the incidents that do it work quickly. Some celebrities are so used to getting away with things that they're blindsided when public opinion suddenly turns on them and never resets. And sometimes, it all happens fast enough to surprise anyone.
Roseanne Barr
Although she was the main creative force behind one of the most popular sitcoms of the '90s, Barr's career became significantly less prominent throughout the decades that followed. However, she was in the midst of a reboot of her signature sitcom when she released a series of tweets aimed at former White House adviser Valerie Jarrett.
According to PBS, Barr characterized Jarrett — who is Black — as a cross between a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and a character from Planet Of The Apes. Although Barr maintained that she wasn't aware Jarrett was Black, the fallout saw her show cancelled and replaced by The Conners.
Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey's alleged violating misconduct had been characterized as going on for years by the time actor Anthony Rapp spoke out about his experience with Spacey — which occurred when Rapp was just 14 years old — in 2017. Although that could be career-killing in and of itself, Spacey's response only compacted its ruination.
According to ABC News, he apparently decided that the wake of these accusations was the best time to become public as a gay man, which only disgusted both the LGBTQ+ community and those outside of it further. His character was killed off on House Of Cards and he was replaced on the movie All The Money In The World soon after.
Danny Masterson
After first rising to prominence as Steven Hyde in That '70s Show, Danny Masterson found renewed success alongside his friend and former castmate Ashton Kutcher on the Netflix series The Ranch. However, Entertainment Weekly reported that this door closed in 2018 after multiple women came forward to allege that Masterson had violated them, which led to his firing from the show.
However, a ruined career is now the least of the disgraced actor's problems, as ABC News reported that his crimes were so clearly evident that he has since been sentenced to a minimum of 30 years in prison in connection with two felonious incidents in 2001 and 2003.
Felicity Huffman
Although it may be a little inaccurate to call actress Felicity Huffman's career destroyed, it is nonetheless accurate to say that she's been acting far less since 2019. Before then, she had secured fairly steady work after Desperate Housewives ended in 2012.
What changed that year? Well, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Huffman was implicated in a college admissions scandal that saw her pay $15,000 to give her oldest daughter a fraudulent SAT score. She served 11 days in prison, was fined $30,000, and completed 250 hours of community service. Still, she only started getting occasional TV roles back in 2023.
Mel Gibson
Although Gibson had already attracted some criticism for how The Passion Of The Christ depicted Jewish people, those criticisms were confirmed during a 2006 traffic stop on a Los Angeles highway. Although The Guardian reported that he was arrested for driving under the influence, that wasn't what truly ruined his career.
Right or wrong, so many celebrities have had their careers survive similar incidents. Yet, people never truly saw Gibson the same after he went on an anti-Semitic rant holding Jewish people responsible for "all the wars in the world." Although he's been an occasional presence in Hollywood since then, his days of being a full-fledged movie star are over.
Paula Deen
For over a decade, Georgia chef Paul Deen was the smiling face of Paula's Home Cooking, a show on the Food Network that was both a vehicle for Deen's decadent take on Southern cuisine and her warm, grandmotherly image. However, a 2013 lawsuit showed a dark side to that image that soon cost Deen her Food Network contract.
According to NPR, a former employee filed a race and gender discrimination lawsuit against Deen and her brother, Earl "Bubba" Hiers. During the deposition, Deen admitted to using racial slurs in the past and admitted to planning a Southern Plantation style wedding for her brother in 2007 with servant-like Black employees. These revelations convinced the Food Network not to renew her contract.
Charlie Sheen
It's fair to say that the destruction of once-respected actor Charlie Sheen's career was a long-slow process but the last straw seemed to fall in an instant. After decades of reported alcoholism, narcotics addiction, and allegations of domestic violence, Sheen sat down for an interview with ABC's Andrea Canning in 2011.
By that point, Sheen had found long-term success on Two And a Half Men after his movie roles dried up and Spin City ended. However, a manic and confusing rant laden with odd catchphrases and boasts about his drug use eventually led him to disparage Two And A Half Men creator Chuck Lorre, leading to his firing. He's had only intermittent prominence since.
Mila Kunis
Although it's likely premature to call Kunis's career completely ruined — especially since she's still cast in the popular cartoon Family Guy — it's also unlikely that she'll have the same movie star prominence she oncer enjoyed after September of 2023.
As Business Insider reported, that's because it was revealed that she wrote a letter pleading for leniency in Danny Masterson's sentencing after he was convicted of two counts of violating women. Although she released a video apology for this letter, the common online response was that the apology seemed insincere and a case of Kunis being sorry she was caught.
Ashton Kutcher
In addition to being a successful movie and TV star, the former That '70s Show star was also known for his philanthropy, as he co-founded an anti-child trafficking organization called Thorn. However, the status of his career has been uncertain after CNN reported he resigned from Thorn's board in disgrace in September 2023.
That's because — like his wife and former co-star Mila Kunis — he was revealed to have written a letter pleading for leniency in the sentencing of Danny Masterson after he was convicted for similar activity to what Thorn stands against. After a video apology with Kunis that the public largely rejected, he opted to step down from Thorn.
Michael Richards
Best-known as Kramer in Seinfeld, Richards was renowned as a consummately professional actor and a gifted physical comedian. Yet, while his career had long flagged after the '90s due to the fact that network executives failed to properly capitalize on the successful character, one incident finished it once and for all.
During a 2006 appearance at the Laugh Factory, Richards was heckled by a group of Black audience members, which prompted him to go on an out-of-control rant in which he repeatedly screamed racial slurs at them. Richards apologized soon after and has since spent years of self-reflection in the wake of the incident, telling People, "The man who told me I wasn't funny had just said what I’d been saying to myself for a while. I felt put down. I wanted to put him down."
Ashlee Simpson
When she appeared on Saturday Night Live in 2004, Ashlee Simpson had a top-ten Billboard hit with "Pieces Of Me," from her debut album Autobiography. Yet, while she would go on to have some minor hits in the following year, there's a chance those hits could have been bigger and her career could have gone longer if the night had gone differently.
As Simpson told Entertainment Weekly, her nodules were scraping together and she could hardly speak on the day she was supposed to perform. Rather than cancel, as she wanted, her label pressured her to perform to a pre-recorded track. This ended disastrously with the wrong pre-recorded song playing and her futilely trying to dance the lip-syncing fiasco off.
Gary Glitter
Although Glitter's glam rock heyday was over 20 years in the past by the time of an incident that forever changed how the world looked at him, he was nonetheless about to embark on a 25th anniversary tour by the time one disturbing discovery ensured there would be no career revival.
According to The Guardian, Glitter had brought his computer in to a PC World location in Bristol, England to be fixed. However, he was eventually jailed after explicit material involving children was discovered on his PC, which began a long tale of arrests in multiple countries for similar crimes. At last report, he's currerntly incarcerated in the U.K. for violating two young girls during the 1970s.
OJ Simpson
Since Simpson spent the last decades of his life in infamy, it's easy to forget how beloved he once was. In addition to being a Hall Of Fame-caliber running back for the Buffalo Bills, Simpson was a household name due to high-profile roles in The Naked Gun film series and the legendary Roots mini-series.
However, he destroyed the public's perception of him forever after his wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman were found dead and mutilated in his California home. Although People reported that he fled police on June 17, 1994 and was eventually acquitted for the murders, the verdict remains controversial and Simpson spent the rest of his life in disgrace.
Ezra Miller
Although they had initially received their big break from We Need To Talk About Kevin and The Perks Of Being A Wallflower during the early 2010s, Ezra Miller's career was more prominent than every in the early 2020s, when it was clear they'd be playing The Flash in a stand-alone movie.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, however, Miller proceeded to destroy their goodwill with an erratic rampage of behavior throughout Hawaii that led at least four people in the state to summon police or seek restraining and protective orders against Miller for harassment and assault. They were further charged with felony burglary upon returning home to Vermont and subject to another protective order request regarding a 12-year-old child in Massachusetts.
Diddy
Although Mark Curry's 2009 book Dance With The Devil: How Puff Burned The Bad Boys Of Hip-Hop established Sean "Diddy" Combs as an deeply exploitative and malign figure in the rap industry who is suspected of ordering Tupac Shakur's assassination, these weren't the allegations that would end up bringing him down.
Instead, a lawsuit by singer and Diddy's former partner Cassie Ventura opened the floodgates for others to come forward and affirm that the rap mogul had used his famously lavish parties as a means to violate people of all genders. According to Forbes, a leaked video depicting Diddy assaulting Ventura has since provided the most concrete evidence of his alleged misconduct, which he has since been charged for and denied bail.
R. Kelly
R&B singer Robert Kelly's career is a special case in that it should have ended when — according to The Guardian — he was recorded engaging in explicit acts with a 14-year-old girl in 2002. Although he was somehow acquitted for this and remained active in the music industry for decades beyond that point, his judgment day finally came in 2022.
Although some of his charges dealt with similar crimes, others indicated that he had also been involved in a cultish human trafficking ring. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison for these crimes in 2022 and his conviction was upheld in April 2024.
Bill Cosby
Cosby is an unusual case in that while the behavior he engaged in hardly happened overnight, the actual consequences for it came from an unexpected source. During a 2014 set where he balked at Cosby's criticisms of Black culture, comedian Hannibal Buress brought to light decades of misconduct lawsuits and accusations against Cosby.
According to the CBC, the ensuing backlash emboldened over 60 women to come forward and allege that Cosby had surreptitiously plied them with various substances before taking advantage of their bodies. Although he was eventually released early due to procedural issues with his prosecution, Cosby was sentenced to three to ten years in prison in 2018.
John Schnatter
In the midst of former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick being allegedly blackballed from the NFL for kneeling during the national anthem in protest of systemic racism, former and founding Papa Johns CEO John Schnatter experienced some backlash after wading into the discourse.
According to Forbes, Schnatter's statements blaming these protests and the NFL for declining pizza sales prompted a conference call with a marketing agency called Laundry Service. Rather than give Schnatter the tools to clean up his image, however, this call only saw Schnatter pound the final nail into his career's coffin, as he used a racial slur and described lynching in Indiana while on it. By July of 2018, he resigned from Papa Johns.
Jennifer Grey
Although most stars who see their careers plummet in an instant usually seal their fates with some form of misconduct, Grey's case makes it clear how fragile a celebrity's image can be. Rather than hurt anybody or say anything offensive, all she did was undergo rhinoplasty.
As Grey told People, she was against the procedure but underwent two surgeries at her mother's behest, who believed she would secure more roles that way. Unfortunately, the opposite happened because Grey lost her most recognizable feature. As she said, "And it became the thing, the idea of being completely invisible, from one day to the next. In the world's eyes, I was no longer me."
Will Smith
For decades, Smith carefully cultivated a squeaky-clean, family-friendly image in both his music and his public persona. While he rose to prominence from big, cool action movies, he also proved himself as a talented and emotionally complex actor who seemed primed for an Oscar win.
Although that win finally occurred in 2022, it was a moment Smith had already ruined less than an hour earlier. After Chris Rock made a joke at Jada Pinkett Smith's expense, Smith took the stage to deliver what was since been called "the slap heard around the world" before launching into a profanity-laced tirade. Although he has since apologized multiple times for the incident, none of those apologies have convinced the public at large and certainly haven't convinced Rock.
Armie Hammer
Although Hammer was a prominent and celebrated actor throughout the 2010s, stories about his alleged misconduct when multiple women came forward in 2021 to detail multiple violating acts he had allegedly subjected them to. In one case, he was even accused of harboring cannibalism fantasies.
According to Vulture, both Hammer's ex-wife and the Los Angeles Police Department later made respective statements about taking the matter seriously and investigating Hammer's actions, while his talent agency WME dropped him. Although he was never charged, Hammer hasn't appeared in any movies or TV shows since 2022 and likely remains an industry pariah.
Cee-Lo Green
Although Green still has a career and often appears at gala events, it's also fair to say that both his attempt to reform Goodie Mob in the early 2010s and his solo career that produced an enduring hit — the radio version of which was edited to "Forget You" — aren't likely to ever go the way he planned.
As The Guardian reported, that's because he was charged and convicted of supplying a mind-altering substance a woman who took it unknowingly before waking up in his bed with no memory of how she got there. Although he was able to avoid being charged with anything to suggest he violated her, later tweets he subsequently deleted made his views on the matter disturbingly clear.
T.J. Miller
As easy as this is to forget now, T.J. Miller was once a seriously up-and-coming comedic actor. In addition to enjoying a prominent role in the hit HBO series Silicon Valley, Miller was also a major character in the first Deadpool movie. Yet, while misconduct allegations from his past put his career in jeopardy, he sealed his fate with an ill-fated phone call in 2018.
According to Deadline, he was riding an Amtrak train from Washington D.C. to New York when he made a 911 call accusing a female passenger of having an explosive device in her bag. This turned out not to be true, but Miller has since said this was the result of complications from a brain condition that needed surgery. His charges were dropped after he agreed to pay restitution and undergo a cognitive remediation program.
Justin Roiland
Best known for being one of Rick And Morty's co-creators — as well as the voice of Rick and Morty — NBC News reported that Roiland was the subject of multiple allegations from women indicating that he took advantage of their bodies without their consent. Further allegations suggested that he sent explicit messages to underage fans.
Although Roiland wasn't convicted in the wake of any of these accusations, the evidence was troubling enough that Adult Swim and Disney's 20th Television Animation cut ties with him before recasting his roles. He also stepped down from his video game studio, Squanch Games.
Randy Quaid
Although it's unclear exactly when Quaid went from being a capable character actor and comedic presence in films to someone on the outs with Hollywood, it was clear how it happened. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Quaid and his wife Evi faced legal issues for acts such as trying to squat in their former California home and immigration issues the actor faced after fleeing to Vancouver, Canada.
As for why he fled, the couple apparently became convinced that estate planners were hiring operatives to stalk them, hack their electronic devices, and eventually kill them so they could profit off their estate. Although they haven't produced any evidence of the existence of these "star whackers," their ranting on the subject in 2010 likely contributed to Hollywood's distance from Quaid.
Aaron Hernandez
While The Guardian noted that the former New England Patriots tight-end had the worst recorded case of CTE of anyone his age, he was nonetheless found criminally responsible for the murder of Odin Lloyd in 2015. Although this wasn't the only murder Hernandez was being investigated for by the time of his sudden death on April 14, 2017, it was the easiest to convict him on.
Even if Hernandez's case had somehow ended differently, it would have nonetheless meant the end of his football career. Hours after his arrest regarding the Lloyd murder charge, the Patriots released him from their roster.
Jerry Lee Lewis
Although the ruination of Jerry Lee Lewis's career didn't turn out to be permanent, it necessitated a genre switch and sidelined him for about 12 years. According to the BBC, the early rock and roll star was in London's Heathrow Airport in 1958 when a reporter named Ray Berry shared some suspicions about his wife, Myra Gale Brown (pictured).
As it turned out, he was right to be suspicious because Brown was both Lewis's first cousin and 13 years old — ten years Lewis's junior. The backlash resulted in both British and American audiences shunning Lewis until he rebounded in Nashville's country music scene by 1970.
Mo'Nique
Although Mo'Nique didn't face any public downfall that made her a PR nightmare for movie studios, she nonetheless found that a seemingly inconsequential decision led to an industry blacklisting right as she was reaching a career high point. As she told The Hollywood Reporter, she wouldn't discover this until she won an Oscar for her role in the movie Precious.
That's because she refused to campaign for the award, which didn't stop her from winning it anyway. Nonetheless, the powers that be didn't like her defiance, and her reputation as being difficult to work with — including by networks she had no involvement with — soon followed. As Precious director Lee Daniels told her, "Mo'Nique, you’ve been blackballed."
Lance Armstrong
Throughout the 2000s, Lance Armstrong was a success story that was equal parts aspirational and inspirational for Americans nationwide. He beat cancer and started the famous Livestrong foundation before going on to win seven consecutive Tour De France titles between 1999 and 2005, as well as a bronze medal in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.
However, modern observers will notice that his legacy no longer includes those honors. According to CNN, that's because a 1,000 page report by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency made it clear that he used multiple performance-enhancing substances to achieve his record-breaking wins. As a result, he was stripped of those seven Tour De France titles and of his bronze medal before publically admitting to his misdeeds to Oprah Winfrey.
Louis C.K.
After working behind the scenes in the '90s and building some serious buzz in the 2000s, Louis C.K. became one of the world's biggest comics in the 2010s. At the same time, he was making enough moves in Hollywood to become a prominent comedic actor.
Yet, when the #MeToo movement loomed and figures like Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey were seeing their misdeeds come back to haunt them, it was revealed that Louis C.K. had some skeletons in his own closet. According to AP News, he had a habit of pleasuring himself in front of women without their consent. Although he eventually returned to comedy, his movie I Love You Daddy didn't see the light of day at its planned Toronto Film Festival premiere.
Milli Vanilli
According to MentalFloss, Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan had intended to sing their genuine vocals when they initially signed their contract as Milli Vanilli, but were locked in a contract with producer and executive Frank Farian, who only hired them to lip-sync. Although this part of their story is contested, what happened next was too public to attract much dispute.
During a Club MTV tour stop in Bristol, Connecticut in 1989, Milli Vanilli were performing when the recording of their hit "Girl You Know It's True" skipped, leading the tape to repeat "girl you know it's" over and over again. Although their careers initially survived this humiliation, the death knell came when Farian revealed in 1990 that they hadn't sung at all on their mega-successful 1989 record.
Billy Squier
Although many stars who ruin their careers overnight did something to deserve their downfalls, others are just victims of bad luck. This is definitely the case for arena rocker Billy Squier, whose career came to a grinding halt after the public feasted their eyes on just one goofy music video.
In the video for "Rock Me Tonite," Squier dances around a pastel bedroom in a pink tank top. Although it sounds simple enough, Rolling Stone Australia noted that the execution was so awkward that even Squier himself was horrified by it. Sadly, the public agreed and Squier found himself becoming passé in an instant.
Oscar Pistorius
Although Oscar Pistorius was born without fibular bones, this did not stop him from excelling at sports throughout his life. He gained prominence throughout the Paralympics of the 2000s for his impressive sprint on two sleek, metal prosthetic feet, which earned him the nickname "Blade Runner."
After the IOC let him use his prosthetics in the Olympics, he represented South Africa during the 2012 Summer Games in London. However, People reported that just a year after this triumph, it all came crashing down when Pistorius shot and killed his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. Although he was released from prison in January 2024, he remains on parole until 2029.
Katherine Heigl
During the late 2000s, Katherine Heigl was a prominent, bankable actress who was just as famous for her work on the unstoppable TV show Grey's Anatomy as she was in unconventional romantic comedies like Knocked Up, 27 Dresses, and The Ugly Truth.
However, CNN reported that as the 2010s loomed, Heigl attracted a reputation as someone biting the hand that feeds her after publicly criticizing Knocked Up as mildly sexist and Grey's Anatomy as poorly written and punishing in its working conditions. Although modern perspectives are often apt to see Heigl as a victim of the "difficult" label actresses get unfairly tarred with, the narrative was easy to buy into at the time.
Jonathan Majors
As far back as the world-conquering Avengers: Endgame, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was hyping up Kang The Conqueror as the next big villain to pose an intergalactic threat to Marvel's greatest heroes. Since Majors embodied that role in multiple properties, this was sure to be a big boost for an already promising career.
However, Majors ended up throwing this opportunity away in a flash. As Forbes reported, he was arrested and convicted on domestic violence charges after harassing and assaulting an ex-girlfriend. Although he was able to avoid jail time, Disney fired him as soon as his conviction was announced.
Gina Carano
Although Carano first rose to prominence as a mixed martial artist, she's best known for playing the popular character Cara Dune in the immensely successful Disney+ series The Mandalorian. However, viewers who tuned into the show's third season would be quick to notice her absence.
As People reported, this was because Disney had fired her for a series of inflammatory social media posts that spread misinformation about COVID-19 and the 2020 Presidential Election, as well as attacked transgender rights. However, the nail in the coffin that confirmed the decision in Disney executives' minds was a post that compared criticism of conservatives to the Holocaust, which the company described as trivializing the atrocity.
Kanye West
Although West has stirred up controversy for most of his prominent career in the hip-hop and fashion industries, his fame and dedicated fanbase seemed prepared to carry him through anything. Yet, while his right-wing turn and ignorant statements like "slavery was a choice" harmed his reputation, it wasn't until 2022 that he blew everything up.
According to the BBC, a series of blatantly anti-Semitic social media posts led Adidas to cancel a long-standing and lucrative partnership with his Yeezy brand. Although West is still making music, even die-hard fans are noticing its decline in quality and Forbes reported that the Adidas cancellation cost him a potential $1.5 billion.
Robin Thicke
Throughout the 2000s, Thicke cut a gentlemanly persona as a smooth, romantic R&B singer whose career was inextricably linked with his marriage to his childhood sweetheart, actress Paula Patton. However, he reached the zenith of his career right before it came crashing down.
The backlash began with his number-one hit "Blurred Lines," which was criticized for delivering some worrying messages about consent and the subject of a copyright lawsuit that still affects the music industry today. Soon after a lascivious performance with Miley Cyrus at the 2013 MTV VMAs and photos surfacing of him touching other women inappropriately, he also separated from Patton. Although he tried to regain hers and the public's good graces with the album Paula, it turned out to be one of the most embarrassing flops in music history.
Pete Rose
As a baseball player, Pete Rose was a legend with a staggering record of hits that puts him as one of Major League Baseball's all-time batting greats. However, that does not mean he's enshrined in the Baseball Hall Of Fame and it's unclear whether it will happen in the wake of his passing on September 30, 2024.
According to USA Today, the reason for this is that he brought a lifetime ban from professional baseball on himself while managing the Cincinnati Reds throughout the 1980s. This was because he was found to be betting on games, including those involving his own team. Although he later maintained he didn't bet against his team, he was still seen as compromising the integrity of the game.
Elizabeth Berkeley
While it's sadly not uncommon for actresses to find their careers suddenly come to a halt through no real fault of their own, Saved By The Bell star Elizabeth Berkeley's case was particularly egregious in this respect. After all, all she did was star in the infamous NC-17 flop Showgirls.
She neither wrote nor directed the movie, but The Los Angeles Times reported that it nonetheless led her agent to drop her as a client and stalled her up-and-coming acting career. As the film's director Paul Verhoeven told the newspaper, "I never accounted that she would be put in such a bad position and I feel terrible about it."
