Prince Andrew. Born into one of the wealthiest and well known families in the world. Would never want for anything so long as he did his duty, opened a few hospitals every now and again and kept his head down.
Instead he partied with Epstein and other horrific people. Commited some crimes, became the centre of an international paedophilia scandal and was arrogant enough to think he could get away with it.
Honestly, I think that's part of the issue. You can get away with a lot of shit if you're at least charismatic. If people like you, they'll let you get away with murder--sometimes literally. People usually don't see what they don't want to see.
There is an excellent book called 'Entitled' about him and Sarah Ferguson which starts off with his early life. He was a massive prick from childhood. Arrogant, out of touch and very very entitled.
And he saw real combat action and was regarded then as the hero prince.
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Was nicknamed randy Andy because of his sexual appetite . But at that time it endeared him more to the British public. " Just being a lad, lives hard plays hard"
I love how he thought "I couldn't sweat at the time" was a case-closing defence. There's a level of astonishing arrogance and naivety to that excuse; it's the kind of thing a small child would come up with, but he was utterly confident that Maitliss had to swallow it, because he was a Prince, and people can't call out Princes. My now non-titled guy, the British press have been stalking your sweaty self for decades, there's visual proof your story is bollocks.
Side-note: I work with a lot of 16-18 year olds and the majority I've spoken to on the topic of the Royal Family are in favour of getting rid. They reckon they're all like Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor at worst, and a waste of money at best.
Maybe not the worst but a pretty bad one is former dodger pitcher Julio Urias, he was arrested for domestic violence in 2019 and basically got a slap on the wrist and suffered no major consequences, essentially getting a second chance. he returned to the dodgers and was having what had the potential to be a hall of fame career, until he got arrested for domestic violence again in 2023, was suspended, and no team wants to sign him now
Tagging onto this comment to mention Wander Franco. Had signed a $100 M contract, was a top shortstop prospect in all of baseball, and threw it all away to be a pedo creep
Ned Fulmer. Had a great career, great wiife, public seemed to think he was boring but safe. Come to find out he was fucking one of his employees for over a year before fans saw them out in public together and revealed the affair. His wife has effectively divorced him, mistress is nowhere to be seen, he lost a once-in-a-lifetime career, and a recent attempt at a comeback series went over like burning dogshit because it took him three years to learn basic empathy and he doesn't see the issue with that. And even if he *is* sincere, nobodys going to believe it.
He also got diagnosed with MS prior to the cheating starting. The man had a wife (and mother of his two kids) who was willing to stand by him in the face of his diagnosis and uncertain future and threw it away to cheat.
The guy's whole and only persona in The Try Guys was that he was "the wife guy." I always thought it was weird that he leaned into that so much when Keith (another Try Guy) was also married but never mentioned it half as much as Ned. Ned never shut up about Ariel and naturally, the fans bought into that illusion until it wasn't true. It sickens me to remember they did the whole video where they used makeup to age themselves. When they did the reveal to their respective family, he gives this whole spiel on growing old together with Ariel.
His Rock Bottom podcast was just painful. Even Smosh took swipe and laughed hard at it. He took no responsibility and couldn't answer why he did it. Ariel talks about humiliation that he put on her, but all he had to say was he blames societal expectations.
A lot of people said Ariel shouldn't have entertained doing that podcast, I think that was her final message to fans asking them to leave her alone. She has been humiliated enough without people constantly reminding her, asking and snooping in on her personal life now that she is divorced.
the guy who played Kang the conqueror. Dude was about to be THE face of marvel for the next 5 years. Millions of dollars, international fame. Just had to go and beat his wife. I'm shocked how hard it is for celebrities to just not beat their partners.
I’m always impressed by actors who can’t keep their shit together enough JUST as they are about to hit the jackpot. Like, dude, you were about to be in the life where 4 months of work on your part would generate more income than most see in their lives. And you risked it to be hateful.
I also have a theory that a certain personality is favored when crawling to the top of competitive, high stakes professions. That personality tends to blow itself up.
Thats made worse by having authoritarian personality types. Do what I say or I will destroy you type mentality along with training that encourages escalation of force. And lots of cops drink plus they know the DAs usually wont press charges.
Seriously. The same machine that took RDJ from a Hollywood washout to one of the highest earners out there, and he was like, “nah. The one way I could blow this is to do something so egregious no one will want to touch me. Imma be a wife beater.”
To be fair, RDJ was already rehabilitating his image and putting out good movies like "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang." Ironman just catapulted him into A-list stardom.
But your point still stands. Just wanted to mention that movie, because it's great and both he and Val Kilmer are amazing in it.
That certainly helped his case, BUT it was also Jon Favereau refusing to back down about having RDJ as Tony Stark that cemented his role as Iron Man. Without that backing he wouldn't of gotten past the producers.
They didn't even need to write it with him going forward, considering how they wrapped things up. HBO just shat the bed. They've been doing the same as Netflix, taking on really cool and high concept projects then killing them when the weird but beloved show isn't the next GoT.
On the note of that mess and HBO's other failures... GoT is another example of the OP, I think. D&D went from being in-demand showrunners to a kiss of death brand. The show was close to making media history and cementing a place in culture for rewatch value and the sheer arc and scope of the story. But they shat the bed. Totally understandable that the actors and all involved wanted to move on, but it is a shame. And it was prob the final nail in the coffin for GRRM's interest in writing the rest of the books.
Jonathan Majors. He had just received critical acclaim for playing the villain in Creed III. People were already predicting he'd end up one of the greatest actors in history. Womp womp, enjoy jail.
Alright, who the hell was predicting he’d be one of the greatest actors in history? That seems a bit much… He was acting for just a few years, with a handful of credits to his name.
Yes he was a good actor. But I mean that’s just a bit ridiculous if you ask me.
A few months ago, a trainee surgeon in our city was caught putting cameras in hospital staff toilets to capture videos for his personal 'collection'. He was found to have been doing this at several different hospitals, and had like 10000 recordings. Still awaiting trial.
One of my high school classmates got drafted by the NFL and within like 2 years dropped out bc of alcohol issues. TMZ even released footage of him being arrested for drunk driving
Even if you ignore the horrible moral implications of drunk driving, I can imagine driving at all if I had NFL money. I would have a fucking driver 100% of the time.
“I’m gonna be the next big thing! I should stage a politically motivated hate crime to make me the biggest thing and change the socio-political climate for decades to come”. In Chicago? Like, the most diverse and progressive city in the United States, Chicago?
So I can't imagine doing this. I'm not trying to minimize or ignore the facts. Because fuck Jussie, and I hope he's reading this.
Just want to highlight how hilariously badly he planned and executed the whole thing. If I ever did anything that fucking poorly; even if it was the most justified, pragmatic and morally virtuous thing ever that I fucked up; and the whole world read all about it, possibly watched me fuck it all up on camera...
I would die of shame and embarrassment. Outright, immediately - it would be like a first documented case of spontaneous combustion and it would mystify medical scientists.
Ugh I forgot about this one. I never watched Empire but I know it was a well-liked show and he probably had some decent career opportunities ahead of him. Not sure if he staged a hate crime for political reasons or just for public sympathy and attention, but yeah, what a shitty thing to do.
this is an underrated answer! A man who was “america’s mayor” turn into a vindictive evil pawn for a fascist president. He didn’t have a perfect record but he could have died relatively well respected if he didn’t join the dark side.
Jesy Nelson having nine successful years in one of the UK’s biggest pop groups Little Mix, a huge wave of goodwill and empathy from the public following her documentary regarding online trolling she recieved and then throwing it all away by ditching the group, releasing a song with Nicki Minaj and P Diddy and making the BBC evening news because she lost tens of thousands of followers on Instagram.
She basically threw away everything by allowing Nicki to attack Leigh Anne (bandmate who had just given birth) on Instagram. It was all quite sad to watch actually as they were one of the few groups who actually seemed to like eachother.
She alienated so much of the LM fanbase due to her behaviour after leaving the group.
This performance pretty much killed all momentum. Viral, for the wrong reasons, the crowd hated her.
Zachery Ty Bryan from Home Improvement. He was a teenage heart throb in the late 90s and could have made it as a successful actor, or at the very least live comfortably for the rest of his life. Instead he gets drunk and beats up his fiance and has been arrested multiple times over the last few years...
Holy shit, I just checked and he got arrested 2 days ago for the exact same reason...
His *fiancee was also recently arrested for trying to run him down in their truck while their three young kids were in it. Those two just need to leave each other alone.
Probably young NBA players who had generational wealth yet they didn't choose to spend them wisely. Then having no fall back after retirement or when NBA decides they are not worthy to be rostered.
Most of them come from families with no financial literacy. Of course you're bad with money when everyone you know is either trying to exploit your money, is bad with money themselves, or both.
Eveni if they came from amazingly financially literate families, if you give a 20ish year old in one year what it would take their parents or non athlete peers a lifetime to make, some questionable decisions and purchases will be made.
This. My neighbor is a football player. He has a financial planner handling his money. Giving advice. Even with professional advice, he massively overpaid for his house and drives an assortment of new hundred thousand dollar (plus) cars. Seemingly exclusively eats door dash or Uber eats deliveries.
Hopefully, he has a long career and it doesn't matter. But a lot of guys get the multi-millions for a few years and that's it.
I’m a pro musician. (Not a wealthy one, but have lived solely off of performing for years at a time.)
I think about this a lot; it’s SO rare for people to hit it big in the actual prime era of their lives; late 20s to probably late 40s. When you’ve got maturity and would be able to cool your jets and be smart with a sudden massive influx of money.
But nope, it’s either in childhood and your parents/guardians screw it all up, late teens to early 20s and you screw it all up, or past 50 when your options for really enjoying life may be somewhat limited due to time, responsibilities, and/or physical health.
I’ve seen so many young musicians blow everything. (Mostly up their nose. slaps knee)
Actually, that’s not necessarily true; what REALLY happens is they’re often too young to be smart about the process of signing a big label deal. Things like hiring a lawyer to look over contracts, hiring a financial/wealth management firm to deal with the money intelligently, etc, don’t come to mind, because of course they fucking don’t.
People in that prime window would do these things, but it used to be that nobody hit it big at those ages. If you were over maybe 25, you were too old to appeal to the moneymaking base and got passed over in favour of younger folks.
Thankfully, that’s changing; Jelly Roll is probably the most visible example, he was in his mid 30s when he finally got a label push for his own music. (Though he’d been a pro songwriter working behind the scenes for decades, he wasn’t just plucked off the street one day and made a star like he and others like to pretend. I’m still incredibly happy for him though.)
Little Big Town are another one. I’m pretty sure they were pushing 40 when they hit it big.
Point being, it’s unfortunate that the power brokers in big-money sports and entertainment intentionally eye out people likely to be irresponsible. (And then said power brokers have the nerve to bitch when their new star ends up blowing 500k at a casino or strung out and dropping thousands per day because the found a dealer with a Square card reader.
If anyone from Reprise Records happens to read this, I already have my financial firm picked out and am two years proudly sober. 😃
It's not just being bad with money, most NBA and NFL players have pretty short careers and don't make all that much to begin with. I just looked it up and the average for the NFL is 3.3 years. The Tom Bradys and LeBrons of the world would basically have to actively try to go broke at this point, but for every one of them there are a couple hundred guys who spent their entire lives working up to getting onto a practice squad, making a few hundred thousand dollars and then getting thrown out on their asses with no other real skills. The league minimums aren't nothing, but they're not enough to throw into a bank or an index fund and have your money work for you the rest of your life either.
It’s almost like even these sports enterprises are also built on the false promises of capitalism. They say come sacrifice your physical and mental health for us and you’ll be set for life but it’s a lie. Makes me think of how predatory car and jewelry dealers like to set up shop near military bases to take advantage of young, new recruits
Sports stars in general. There was an Aussie Footy star Ben Cousins who was super talented, had the looks and the personality. Then ego and coke got the best of him and it was all gone. (Later it became Meth). He even had people backing him to rebuild his life. But failed himself and them every time. Just ended up dealing drugs, jail etc.
damn sad to see.
Whitney Houston … so beautiful and such an amazing effortless talent. I was always in awe of her growing up. She really had it all. Was so saddened to watch her demise.
My mom used to talk about this constantly. The amount of hate she had for Bobby Brown was astounding. She blamed him for everything that happened to Whitney.
Please don't. Whitney was on drugs long before Bobby. She was not what Clive Davis' PR made her out to be. She was from the same rough background as Bobby. Bobbi Christina was the product of two very famous, wealthy parents, both with addiction issues. She was greatly love, with a supportive family, but got in with a rough crowd as an adult. Fame and wealth will always attract bad people. I miss both of them, but Bobby does not deserve all the blame here.
Exactly. If people watched the Whitney documentary that came out like almost 10 years ago they would see that. Even after they split Whitney still did her thing. Bobbi Christina got mixed up with that Nick Gordon guy and was abused and OD’d under suspicious circumstances.
When my mom and one of my uncles were young adults, living in Southern California, they attended a party where Whitney Houston was present. This was during a time in her early career, when she was still being seen as the "girl next door", so they were surprised that she was high as a kite and fucked up on drugs. My mom and uncle told their friends and family what they witnessed, but no one believed them, for a while anyway.
I'm mostly a metal head so you could say Whitney isnt really in my wheelhouse, but I had on a local oldies (we play everything) station the other day to listen to some Christmas tunes. They tossed a Whitney song into the mix and damn her talent just dwarfs all the current auto tuned pop stars.
I'm GenX so I actually grew up while she was in her prime, I just didn't appreciate it at the time. Such a loss.
Josh Duggar. Committed sexual assault against his own siblings, avoids criminal record. Gets fancy job in DC, all he's got to do is stay out of trouble. Does he? Nope, gets involved in Ashley Madison crap, loses job. Back to Arkansas, once again screw up with CP. Talk about more chances to straighten up and fly right than many ..... and still keep screwing up till he winds up in prison.
Anyone under the age of 35 may think this is a wild take, but he was extremely close to losing everything in the 90s including his life, due to drugs. He was given a chance to revive his career as a regular on Ally McBeal, but managed to mess that up by getting himself arrested.
Fortunately he turned his life around, which is incredibly rare.
One of the best hits from him was he had left rehab like AMA I’m pretty sure and he “broke into” like a neighborhood home and was found sleeping in the kid’s bed
TBF a lot of his experience getting clean and seeing the world from a whole new perspective and what that means going forward played a role in how he brought Tony Stark to the big screen.
RDJ without rehab is a possible universe without the MCU
Guy who works with a friend. Married, a young daughter. House and family, just what many men want in life. Threw it all way for an affair with a coworker. Lost everything.
Just read a story about a guy who was basically given a kitchen to run by his friends, then left a stock cooking overnight but got distracted and left it on high, got a call in the middle of the night that the place burned down. The reason he was distracted was that he ran off to fuck his friends/the owners wife.
This is the premise of the movie Locke. Takes place entirely within the car of a guy who is having his life fall down around him within several phone calls.
If I remember correctly, he was playing against high school seniors when he was 13. And when they studied his brain, it was one of the worst they’d seen.
I’m not saying that he ever would have turned out a good guy. But when you’re beaten as a child, start getting repeated head injuries when you’re 13-14 years old, are told by everyone that you’re now god’s gift to athletics, and are subsequently enabled to do whatever the fuck you want with zero consequences—it’s hard to know what’s nature or nurture with him. Especially because he was still so young when all of this went down. He was arrested for Lloyd’s murder when he was 23.
He threw a huge fucking opportunity away. He murdered in cold blood. But he basically had soup for brains when he died at 27, so my opinion is that it was more complex than he was just a POS. However, the complexity is probably irrelevant to the pain that his living victims or victims’ families feel.
And he was likely messed up before he got to the NFL. I'm not saying he would have been a saint had he not been in football - it's really impossible to know. But it's enough to wonder.
Azaelia Banks was hot after 212 and people were looking to her as the next female rap star. But she just couldn't stop running her mouth on social media. She tanked her career right when it was about to launch and she's still on X yapping from obscurity to this day.
Jussie Smollett. Dudes career is going well, he's on this crazy popular show, things are actually starting to kick off for him, and then his dumbass decides to fake a hate crime and ends up going to jail.
Congressman Anthony Weiner. He sent pictures of Anthony's weiner to women and underage girls, then resigned from the House. He did it again while running for re-election. Eventually he ended up spending like a year in federal prison and is now a registered sex offender.
Dude was a congressman. If you manage that, you're set for life by any reasonable metric. Maybe not ultra-wealthy, but the connections and prestige guarantee a good life.
Plus, a public figure with the last name Weiner really, really should know that there is exactly one class of crimes you are never allowed to commit, because the headline is just way too juicy to fly under the radar.
Ancient history now, but OJ Simpson. Football legend, film star and popular TV pitchman. The day of the famous police chase, I wondered if he’d been framed: I mean, who’d throw away a career like that?
Didn’t she die due to complications from an elective surgery he paid for? I don’t like the guy at all but I’d go completely off the rails too if I had that happen.
He also had a relatively unhinged marketing strategy of just going off the rails to sell an album under the any publicity is good publicity. Sure it worked… for a time but turned alot of people off him.
This makes a lot of sense. I’m not deep into Kanye lore or anything, so I didn’t even really know his mom is gone, but as a human this makes a lot of sense. I want to feel bad for him, but I can’t even tell what’s real and what’s not with him and he just gives me ick vibes all around.
It always bums me out when I see people talking about Kanye like he's just an OTT narcissistic bigot. The guy is really, really unwell. He's like any random lunatic who'd sit next to you on public transit and rant about how Jews are actually lizard people, except with infinity dollars and nobody telling him no. And so fucking talented, it's such a goddamned shame.
He was to be the next big bad MCU villain, with a contract for multiple movies and series, and poised to make hundreds of millions of dollars. Turns out he’s a huge piece of shit woman-beater.
One of my exs who is now just a friend got his heart broken by another young lady. She slept with his best friend. When him and I dated he had full ride scholarship offers, a big friend group, supportive family members, was very kind and had a good head on his shoulders. After the girl broke his heart he didn’t go to college, ended up doing drugs, going to jail, his parents no longer support him, he only hangs around felons and he just lost himself . Unfortunately I don’t know who he is anymore :( he had it all, but let someone hurt him so much he lost all sense in what he had.
Armie Hammer. Tall, blonde, handsome &...heir to the Arm & Hammer multi billion corporation. He started acting, & actually got some good reviews & the all important "buzz" around his name. He lost his mind (drugs/alcohol) & was accused of abuse & cannibalism fetish. Ok, he can just lick his wounds until the trust fund kicks in...nope he got DISINHERITED bc of the accusations & the $ skips him & goes to his first born now (family trusts originating from the 1900s are so much fun) So...back to Hollywood right? Nope, the entertainment complex that allowed Harvey Weinstein's shenanigans, gave Kevin Spacey 3 comebacks, & still can't openly name the assailant of Brendan Fraser; won't give him the time of day.
Edit: he even took a job selling timeshares/vacation homes in the Caribbean for a while after the initial blowout died down, in order to make money...also last year I think he did have a small part in a small movie, don't know if it was straight to streaming or theater release. He also did a tiktok or some social media post crying about having to either sell or return his big expensive high end brand SUV bc he couldn't afford to keep it fueled/maintained. So yeah, definitely lost everything he had earlier in his life, except being tall & blonde which in L.A is nothing special I guess lol.
If I had a nickle for every time a Governor of New York State had to resign from office because of a sex scandal, which led to their 2nd in command taking over and surprising everyone by doing a good job, I'd have two nickles.
Warning for disturbing. My ex had a full ride to a great school pursuing his dream career & life passion. He started saving csam to his phone a couple months before classes started. He was arrested later in the year.
Mason Greenwood. A young Manchester United academy player, one of the best we'd ever seen. Breaking our youth records left and right, starter for the team, whole future ahead. Turns out he is a girlfriend beating piece of shit. Got kicked out of the team and now plays in France but he had it all and lost it (deservedly so)
Can't say he's lost it all, since he's now a starter and one of the main guys in Marseille. It's weird he was able to salvage his football career, even though he will always be a wife beating POS
Maurice Clarett is the one who always sticks out in my mind. He was an Ohio State football player who was drafted by the Denver Broncos in 2005 and threw it all away. In 2006, cops attempted to pull him over after he made an illegal U-turn in Columbus. He led them on a high speed chase ending in him driving over a spike strip. His SUV contained an AK-47, two loaded handguns, and a set of fucking samurai swords, along with an open bottle of vodka. They wound up macing him to subdue him after their attempts to taser him were confounded by the kevlar body armor he was wearing. All of this was made worse by the fact that he was currently on bail for armed robbery charges.
He would serve 3-1/2 years after a guilty plea and never play in the NFL again.
As a kid he won first place in a national film festival, got famous, got offered a role on one of the most popular shows in my country.
Only to turn down every offer, got into Brazilian jujutsu instead, despite being the weediest weakling imaginable, got into drugs through his sparring buddies, had a drug-induced breakdown where he took off all his clothes in front of a group of kids, got arrested for it and branded a sex offender.
I've got mates who still can't see anything wrong with his behavior. "It's not like he raped anyone." My response is always "How would you feel if he did it with your sister/daughter?"
James Arthur won The X-Factor (Pop Idol UK) in 2012 and captured the hearts of the nation with his story as a struggling artist. He was charming, talented and seemed to deserve his win and everyone who watched celebrated for him.
Within a year, the same week his first album came out, he released a dreadful rap song with some pretty homophobic lyrics. one of his fellow contestants, Lucy Spraggan , messaged him telling him she, an open lesbian, was disappointed in him but thinks he should take it down and apologies. He egotistically accused her of being jealous of him and made some comment about how his album was outselling hers and proved himself look a right tit. He had a few singles a few years later that charted (i don't know how some people forget so quickly) but never hit the level of success he was guaranteed before the incident.
There was a point where Tesla owned the EV market.
And their CEO decided that denigrating their primary demographic (liberals who care about climate change) in favor of trying to capture market share of the people who refuse to buy his vehicles was a pretty bold play.
Kid from my town got a football scholarship to Nebraska. Was a Heisman Trophy candidate. Blew his knee out in his senior year. Made the NFL as a walk-on anyway, got suspended for drugs 3 times, and booted from the league. Last I knew, he was working as a janitor at a Planet Fitness.
Oooft good answer. I wasn't a reader of his really before everything came out about him, but from what I've since learned about him...yeh what a piece of shit. And it seems he had so many true fans of his writing who for good reason just turned on him instantly when it all came out.
Sherrone Moore went from a 5.5 Million dollar salary coaching the University of Michigan football program to fired and behind bars in about four hours. That’s got to be a world record self-destruct speed run.
The United States government from 1980 forward. Bruh, we act like we invented republics and then we went back to laissez faire media rules and then, get this, an allegedly conservative supreme court fully legalized unlimited hidden donor bribery and coercion. Literally king of the world and threw it away for zero gain. 99% of the country cant spell any word in campaign finance reform and would damn near fight you to the death if you tried to explain it. That was my experience as a lobbyist for it.
Had a 12 year career from campaigns to US Senate to federal lobbyist. Mostly homeland security and anti drug related due to my first real job offer coming 2-3 days before 9-11. What I've seen happen to this country in the last 10 years is the definition of disheartening.
We’ve watched the internet become a cheap casino. We messed up healthcare. Social security. We’re not really capable of dealing with AI, climate change, opioids, or mental health. We are the authors of a sad chapter of one of the most stunning achievements of human progress. That humans are worthy of dignity and should govern themselves. An aspiration that feels further away than at any point in my lifetime (1980+).
A dude I knew was pulling 200k a year, had an exceptionally attractive younger wife, and was a session drummer for some really cool bands as a side gig.
Within a year, he lost his job, wife, house, everything. He ended up moving to this tiny apartment and had a sugar baby move in. He gave her and her friends free drugs and they basically never left. He got in a fight with a guy that fucked up his teeth, and by the end of the year had someone set fire to his Mustang for the insurance money.
Huw Edwards, THE face of BBC news. The man who announced all the major news stories such as the death of the queen and the like. He was seen as respected and trustworthy.
He was at a stage in his life where he was only a few years away from retirement and probably a knighthood. His obituaries would have talked about how much of a respected and professional newscaster he was.
And then he made some incredibly poor decisions such as allegedly paying a 17-year-old for indecent images and then later being convicted of having CP on his phone.
Came here looking for this; young, in the nfl, enough money and the prospects of enough money to live comfortably the rest of his life… but his troubles were present throughout his youth and college careers, and he just couldn’t get away from them
My ex husband. I loved him so much. We had 3 great kids, a decent house and a job that he continued after he left. Just walked away from all of us. He left us for the daughter of the owner, and she left him 5 or so years later.
An old high school friend. 99.9 in her HSC. Had hiccups with substance abuse but sorted them out, found a really good partner, top of her class in uni. A bright future ahead of herself. Last semester of final year, uni accidentally sends her the wrong exam results, she thinks she failed the course and it was enough to send her over the edge and hang herself. If she'd waited a few hours she would've seen the apology e-mail with the correct results that showed she got a perfect score.
Something very similar happened to a young man in the UK recently. To anyone who needs to hear this, I know it can be hard to see a way out sometimes, but please remember that suicide is a permanent solution to temporary problems.
the podcast Crime in Sports is chock full of these people. It's by the same guys that do Small Town Murder if you like that sort of thing.
The one that always stuck with me was a guy named Brien Taylor. Had the potential to be the greatest baseball pitcher of all time..... but never even made it to the minors. Episode 128 of the podcast if you are curious.
Prince Andrew. Born into one of the wealthiest and well known families in the world. Would never want for anything so long as he did his duty, opened a few hospitals every now and again and kept his head down.
Instead he partied with Epstein and other horrific people. Commited some crimes, became the centre of an international paedophilia scandal and was arrogant enough to think he could get away with it.
As of a couple months ago, King Charles took away his titles so now he's just Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
The Andrew formerly known as Prince
It’s what he deserved. Downgraded.
A news bit on the radio described him as “the former Prince Andrew” and it was just such a funny turn of phrase
The guys that trained dad in the Navy knew Andrew from their time in the Falklands War. Everyone that met him thought he was a dick back then too.
Honestly, I think that's part of the issue. You can get away with a lot of shit if you're at least charismatic. If people like you, they'll let you get away with murder--sometimes literally. People usually don't see what they don't want to see.
There is an excellent book called 'Entitled' about him and Sarah Ferguson which starts off with his early life. He was a massive prick from childhood. Arrogant, out of touch and very very entitled.
And he saw real combat action and was regarded then as the hero prince. . Was nicknamed randy Andy because of his sexual appetite . But at that time it endeared him more to the British public. " Just being a lad, lives hard plays hard"
But now.....shall we say not so much ...
I love how he thought "I couldn't sweat at the time" was a case-closing defence. There's a level of astonishing arrogance and naivety to that excuse; it's the kind of thing a small child would come up with, but he was utterly confident that Maitliss had to swallow it, because he was a Prince, and people can't call out Princes. My now non-titled guy, the British press have been stalking your sweaty self for decades, there's visual proof your story is bollocks.
Side-note: I work with a lot of 16-18 year olds and the majority I've spoken to on the topic of the Royal Family are in favour of getting rid. They reckon they're all like Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor at worst, and a waste of money at best.
Maybe not the worst but a pretty bad one is former dodger pitcher Julio Urias, he was arrested for domestic violence in 2019 and basically got a slap on the wrist and suffered no major consequences, essentially getting a second chance. he returned to the dodgers and was having what had the potential to be a hall of fame career, until he got arrested for domestic violence again in 2023, was suspended, and no team wants to sign him now
Tagging onto this comment to mention Wander Franco. Had signed a $100 M contract, was a top shortstop prospect in all of baseball, and threw it all away to be a pedo creep
Yeah for baseball wander is actually the more textbook example for this question. Urias also very valid tho
emmanuel clasé comes to mind too. betting on games isn’t even in the same realm of what urias and franco did, but alas, he’s banned for life at 27.
And this is from a league that salivates over hard-throwing lefties in their 20s. Says a lot about Urias.
Ned Fulmer. Had a great career, great wiife, public seemed to think he was boring but safe. Come to find out he was fucking one of his employees for over a year before fans saw them out in public together and revealed the affair. His wife has effectively divorced him, mistress is nowhere to be seen, he lost a once-in-a-lifetime career, and a recent attempt at a comeback series went over like burning dogshit because it took him three years to learn basic empathy and he doesn't see the issue with that. And even if he *is* sincere, nobodys going to believe it.
He also got diagnosed with MS prior to the cheating starting. The man had a wife (and mother of his two kids) who was willing to stand by him in the face of his diagnosis and uncertain future and threw it away to cheat.
The guy's whole and only persona in The Try Guys was that he was "the wife guy." I always thought it was weird that he leaned into that so much when Keith (another Try Guy) was also married but never mentioned it half as much as Ned. Ned never shut up about Ariel and naturally, the fans bought into that illusion until it wasn't true. It sickens me to remember they did the whole video where they used makeup to age themselves. When they did the reveal to their respective family, he gives this whole spiel on growing old together with Ariel.
His Rock Bottom podcast was just painful. Even Smosh took swipe and laughed hard at it. He took no responsibility and couldn't answer why he did it. Ariel talks about humiliation that he put on her, but all he had to say was he blames societal expectations.
A lot of people said Ariel shouldn't have entertained doing that podcast, I think that was her final message to fans asking them to leave her alone. She has been humiliated enough without people constantly reminding her, asking and snooping in on her personal life now that she is divorced.
the guy who played Kang the conqueror. Dude was about to be THE face of marvel for the next 5 years. Millions of dollars, international fame. Just had to go and beat his wife. I'm shocked how hard it is for celebrities to just not beat their partners.
I’m always impressed by actors who can’t keep their shit together enough JUST as they are about to hit the jackpot. Like, dude, you were about to be in the life where 4 months of work on your part would generate more income than most see in their lives. And you risked it to be hateful.
Ego is a helluva drug. Plus drugs and drinking make it worse.
I also have a theory that a certain personality is favored when crawling to the top of competitive, high stakes professions. That personality tends to blow itself up.
Narcissistic rage is a very real thing.
You’ve got to believe in yourself an unhealthy amount in order to sell yourself the way lots of celebrities need to to get ahead.
I call it Pete Rose disease as he is the purest version I know of of “What made him destroyed him with an almost Shakespearean inevitability.”
A certain type of narcissistic personality is good at acting AND feels entitled to treat people as NPCs to be used
Which is the same reason police and military officers have such a huge problem with intimate partner violence
Thats made worse by having authoritarian personality types. Do what I say or I will destroy you type mentality along with training that encourages escalation of force. And lots of cops drink plus they know the DAs usually wont press charges.
Coupled with the easy access to weapons, as a DV survivor there are just certain types of people I will never get into relationships with again
like dude… the entire next MCU arc was built around your dumbass. who throws that away? go to anger management! go to therapy!!
Seriously. The same machine that took RDJ from a Hollywood washout to one of the highest earners out there, and he was like, “nah. The one way I could blow this is to do something so egregious no one will want to touch me. Imma be a wife beater.”
To be fair, RDJ was already rehabilitating his image and putting out good movies like "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang." Ironman just catapulted him into A-list stardom.
But your point still stands. Just wanted to mention that movie, because it's great and both he and Val Kilmer are amazing in it.
That certainly helped his case, BUT it was also Jon Favereau refusing to back down about having RDJ as Tony Stark that cemented his role as Iron Man. Without that backing he wouldn't of gotten past the producers.
Doing that would be an admission that he was in the wrong. Never was going to happen.
Made Lovecraft Country’s cancellation sting a whole lot less
They didn't even need to write it with him going forward, considering how they wrapped things up. HBO just shat the bed. They've been doing the same as Netflix, taking on really cool and high concept projects then killing them when the weird but beloved show isn't the next GoT.
On the note of that mess and HBO's other failures... GoT is another example of the OP, I think. D&D went from being in-demand showrunners to a kiss of death brand. The show was close to making media history and cementing a place in culture for rewatch value and the sheer arc and scope of the story. But they shat the bed. Totally understandable that the actors and all involved wanted to move on, but it is a shame. And it was prob the final nail in the coffin for GRRM's interest in writing the rest of the books.
I drew him once for a video game for marvel and then they cut my part with kang in it lmaooo
Jonathan Majors. He had just received critical acclaim for playing the villain in Creed III. People were already predicting he'd end up one of the greatest actors in history. Womp womp, enjoy jail.
Alright, who the hell was predicting he’d be one of the greatest actors in history? That seems a bit much… He was acting for just a few years, with a handful of credits to his name.
Yes he was a good actor. But I mean that’s just a bit ridiculous if you ask me.
He got probation, not jail.
A few months ago, a trainee surgeon in our city was caught putting cameras in hospital staff toilets to capture videos for his personal 'collection'. He was found to have been doing this at several different hospitals, and had like 10000 recordings. Still awaiting trial.
One of my high school classmates got drafted by the NFL and within like 2 years dropped out bc of alcohol issues. TMZ even released footage of him being arrested for drunk driving
Even if you ignore the horrible moral implications of drunk driving, I can imagine driving at all if I had NFL money. I would have a fucking driver 100% of the time.
That’s if you’re a star. Standard linebackers are making good money, but not enough to hire a chauffeur.
John Edwards, remember him?
Could have possibly been president of the US, but ended up cheating on his wife who was fighting cancer and ended up having a kid with his side piece.
Schwarzenegger did it with his housekeeper while married to the gorgeous Maria Shriver (a Kennedy)
If that happened today and he was republican it would get him more votes.
It happened to Newt Gingrich and you were right.
Jussie Smollett
He tried to start a race war to negotiate a salary bump. That is a level of narcissism that deserves its own textbook.
“I’m gonna be the next big thing! I should stage a politically motivated hate crime to make me the biggest thing and change the socio-political climate for decades to come”. In Chicago? Like, the most diverse and progressive city in the United States, Chicago?
So I can't imagine doing this. I'm not trying to minimize or ignore the facts. Because fuck Jussie, and I hope he's reading this.
Just want to highlight how hilariously badly he planned and executed the whole thing. If I ever did anything that fucking poorly; even if it was the most justified, pragmatic and morally virtuous thing ever that I fucked up; and the whole world read all about it, possibly watched me fuck it all up on camera...
I would die of shame and embarrassment. Outright, immediately - it would be like a first documented case of spontaneous combustion and it would mystify medical scientists.
Ugh I forgot about this one. I never watched Empire but I know it was a well-liked show and he probably had some decent career opportunities ahead of him. Not sure if he staged a hate crime for political reasons or just for public sympathy and attention, but yeah, what a shitty thing to do.
This is a really good pick
Subway? SANDWICHES??
Where was Kanye West?
the fact that he kept a firm grip on his Subway sandwich during a life-or-death struggle remains the funniest detail in true crime history.
The French actor?
JUSTICE FOR JUICY ✊🏽
He paid his "attackers" with a personal check. He literally created a paper trail for his own felony.
🤔 I thought he did his weird thing partly because he had been sidelined in the show?
Someone correct me if I’m wrong.
Rudy Giuliani
this is an underrated answer! A man who was “america’s mayor” turn into a vindictive evil pawn for a fascist president. He didn’t have a perfect record but he could have died relatively well respected if he didn’t join the dark side.
He was always on the dark side. People just ignored it for a decade because of 9/11.
On a day that it would have been perfectly acceptable to shit your pants, Rudy did not shit his pants.
That's the extent of his talent.
University of Michigan coach Sherrone Moore jailed for threatening his mistress- subordinate and himself.
This one is definitely top of mind. Just a terrible situation all around
Technically former coach, he was fired before he finished throwing his reputation away.
Then he gets out and instead of trying to make sure his family is okay, he immediately starts DMing an onlyfans girl about risking it all.
Jesy Nelson having nine successful years in one of the UK’s biggest pop groups Little Mix, a huge wave of goodwill and empathy from the public following her documentary regarding online trolling she recieved and then throwing it all away by ditching the group, releasing a song with Nicki Minaj and P Diddy and making the BBC evening news because she lost tens of thousands of followers on Instagram.
She basically threw away everything by allowing Nicki to attack Leigh Anne (bandmate who had just given birth) on Instagram. It was all quite sad to watch actually as they were one of the few groups who actually seemed to like eachother.
She alienated so much of the LM fanbase due to her behaviour after leaving the group. This performance pretty much killed all momentum. Viral, for the wrong reasons, the crowd hated her.
Ick :/ thanks for sharing the link to the boyz thing.
That’s quite sad
Jade, on the other hand, is fucking awesome
Zachery Ty Bryan from Home Improvement. He was a teenage heart throb in the late 90s and could have made it as a successful actor, or at the very least live comfortably for the rest of his life. Instead he gets drunk and beats up his fiance and has been arrested multiple times over the last few years...
Holy shit, I just checked and he got arrested 2 days ago for the exact same reason...
His *fiancee was also recently arrested for trying to run him down in their truck while their three young kids were in it. Those two just need to leave each other alone.
Edit: Fixed typo
Probably young NBA players who had generational wealth yet they didn't choose to spend them wisely. Then having no fall back after retirement or when NBA decides they are not worthy to be rostered.
Something like 70% of NBA and NFL players completely mismanage their money and end up broke
Most of them come from families with no financial literacy. Of course you're bad with money when everyone you know is either trying to exploit your money, is bad with money themselves, or both.
Eveni if they came from amazingly financially literate families, if you give a 20ish year old in one year what it would take their parents or non athlete peers a lifetime to make, some questionable decisions and purchases will be made.
Edit. Spelling of small words
This. My neighbor is a football player. He has a financial planner handling his money. Giving advice. Even with professional advice, he massively overpaid for his house and drives an assortment of new hundred thousand dollar (plus) cars. Seemingly exclusively eats door dash or Uber eats deliveries.
Hopefully, he has a long career and it doesn't matter. But a lot of guys get the multi-millions for a few years and that's it.
I’m a pro musician. (Not a wealthy one, but have lived solely off of performing for years at a time.)
I think about this a lot; it’s SO rare for people to hit it big in the actual prime era of their lives; late 20s to probably late 40s. When you’ve got maturity and would be able to cool your jets and be smart with a sudden massive influx of money.
But nope, it’s either in childhood and your parents/guardians screw it all up, late teens to early 20s and you screw it all up, or past 50 when your options for really enjoying life may be somewhat limited due to time, responsibilities, and/or physical health.
I’ve seen so many young musicians blow everything. (Mostly up their nose. slaps knee)
Actually, that’s not necessarily true; what REALLY happens is they’re often too young to be smart about the process of signing a big label deal. Things like hiring a lawyer to look over contracts, hiring a financial/wealth management firm to deal with the money intelligently, etc, don’t come to mind, because of course they fucking don’t.
People in that prime window would do these things, but it used to be that nobody hit it big at those ages. If you were over maybe 25, you were too old to appeal to the moneymaking base and got passed over in favour of younger folks.
Thankfully, that’s changing; Jelly Roll is probably the most visible example, he was in his mid 30s when he finally got a label push for his own music. (Though he’d been a pro songwriter working behind the scenes for decades, he wasn’t just plucked off the street one day and made a star like he and others like to pretend. I’m still incredibly happy for him though.)
Little Big Town are another one. I’m pretty sure they were pushing 40 when they hit it big.
Point being, it’s unfortunate that the power brokers in big-money sports and entertainment intentionally eye out people likely to be irresponsible. (And then said power brokers have the nerve to bitch when their new star ends up blowing 500k at a casino or strung out and dropping thousands per day because the found a dealer with a Square card reader.
If anyone from Reprise Records happens to read this, I already have my financial firm picked out and am two years proudly sober. 😃
It's not just being bad with money, most NBA and NFL players have pretty short careers and don't make all that much to begin with. I just looked it up and the average for the NFL is 3.3 years. The Tom Bradys and LeBrons of the world would basically have to actively try to go broke at this point, but for every one of them there are a couple hundred guys who spent their entire lives working up to getting onto a practice squad, making a few hundred thousand dollars and then getting thrown out on their asses with no other real skills. The league minimums aren't nothing, but they're not enough to throw into a bank or an index fund and have your money work for you the rest of your life either.
It’s almost like even these sports enterprises are also built on the false promises of capitalism. They say come sacrifice your physical and mental health for us and you’ll be set for life but it’s a lie. Makes me think of how predatory car and jewelry dealers like to set up shop near military bases to take advantage of young, new recruits
Sports stars in general. There was an Aussie Footy star Ben Cousins who was super talented, had the looks and the personality. Then ego and coke got the best of him and it was all gone. (Later it became Meth). He even had people backing him to rebuild his life. But failed himself and them every time. Just ended up dealing drugs, jail etc. damn sad to see.
Sports is hard. A lot of athletes might earn millions between like 23-33 but then they burnout with no real career option.
OJ
Simpson could outrun everything except his own ego.
Whitney Houston … so beautiful and such an amazing effortless talent. I was always in awe of her growing up. She really had it all. Was so saddened to watch her demise.
My mom used to talk about this constantly. The amount of hate she had for Bobby Brown was astounding. She blamed him for everything that happened to Whitney.
I'm wondering if your Mum and I are around the same age, I hate this man. I blame him for Whitney and I blame him for Bobbi Christina.
Whitney was already on drugs before she met Bobby. Her brother admitted to getting her started.
Please don't. Whitney was on drugs long before Bobby. She was not what Clive Davis' PR made her out to be. She was from the same rough background as Bobby. Bobbi Christina was the product of two very famous, wealthy parents, both with addiction issues. She was greatly love, with a supportive family, but got in with a rough crowd as an adult. Fame and wealth will always attract bad people. I miss both of them, but Bobby does not deserve all the blame here.
Exactly. If people watched the Whitney documentary that came out like almost 10 years ago they would see that. Even after they split Whitney still did her thing. Bobbi Christina got mixed up with that Nick Gordon guy and was abused and OD’d under suspicious circumstances.
When my mom and one of my uncles were young adults, living in Southern California, they attended a party where Whitney Houston was present. This was during a time in her early career, when she was still being seen as the "girl next door", so they were surprised that she was high as a kite and fucked up on drugs. My mom and uncle told their friends and family what they witnessed, but no one believed them, for a while anyway.
Yeah idk why everyone blames Bobby. Whitney was doing drugs before they got together.
I'm mostly a metal head so you could say Whitney isnt really in my wheelhouse, but I had on a local oldies (we play everything) station the other day to listen to some Christmas tunes. They tossed a Whitney song into the mix and damn her talent just dwarfs all the current auto tuned pop stars.
I'm GenX so I actually grew up while she was in her prime, I just didn't appreciate it at the time. Such a loss.
Every so often I’ll go watch her sing the national anthem at the 1991 Superbowl just to marvel at how flawless it is and how she makes it seem so easy. No one will ever do it better
I do this too! And I'm Canadian. It's just pure.
Agree. Proves that addiction knows no bounds.
Len Bias. Drafted by the Celtics in the mid 80s and overdosed 2 days later.
Brian Johnson was set to be a star Yankee pitcher. Then a bar fight ruined it all
Brien Taylor?
Josh Duggar. Committed sexual assault against his own siblings, avoids criminal record. Gets fancy job in DC, all he's got to do is stay out of trouble. Does he? Nope, gets involved in Ashley Madison crap, loses job. Back to Arkansas, once again screw up with CP. Talk about more chances to straighten up and fly right than many ..... and still keep screwing up till he winds up in prison.
After all that his wife is still with him…
Robert Downey Jr.
Anyone under the age of 35 may think this is a wild take, but he was extremely close to losing everything in the 90s including his life, due to drugs. He was given a chance to revive his career as a regular on Ally McBeal, but managed to mess that up by getting himself arrested.
Fortunately he turned his life around, which is incredibly rare.
Agree with this. His comeback was unexpected, but very welcome. He's become a great person in spite of his past.
One of the best hits from him was he had left rehab like AMA I’m pretty sure and he “broke into” like a neighborhood home and was found sleeping in the kid’s bed
TBF a lot of his experience getting clean and seeing the world from a whole new perspective and what that means going forward played a role in how he brought Tony Stark to the big screen.
RDJ without rehab is a possible universe without the MCU
Guy who works with a friend. Married, a young daughter. House and family, just what many men want in life. Threw it all way for an affair with a coworker. Lost everything.
No sympathy for him. Dumb asshole.
I believe this is relatively common.
It must be, because it exactly describes some unfortunate drama in my circle of friends.
Just read a story about a guy who was basically given a kitchen to run by his friends, then left a stock cooking overnight but got distracted and left it on high, got a call in the middle of the night that the place burned down. The reason he was distracted was that he ran off to fuck his friends/the owners wife.
This is the premise of the movie Locke. Takes place entirely within the car of a guy who is having his life fall down around him within several phone calls.
That was a surprisingly good movie.
Coldplay couple
And now that dude has the nerve to want to sue Coldplay for ruining HIS marriage. Jesus, wtf. How narcissistic and deluded can you be?
Yep
Dude ruined his own marriage.
We now have a phrase for when a person could have skated by playing it cool, but instead freaked out.
"He coldplayed himself."
Aaron Hernandez
He's somewhat a victim as well. His brain was scrambled by so many hits and the post autopsy of the CTE was really bad.
EDIT: I am informed that he was also beaten severely as a child and forced to perform oral sex acts starting when he was 6
He was a POS in college as well.
If I remember correctly, he was playing against high school seniors when he was 13. And when they studied his brain, it was one of the worst they’d seen.
I’m not saying that he ever would have turned out a good guy. But when you’re beaten as a child, start getting repeated head injuries when you’re 13-14 years old, are told by everyone that you’re now god’s gift to athletics, and are subsequently enabled to do whatever the fuck you want with zero consequences—it’s hard to know what’s nature or nurture with him. Especially because he was still so young when all of this went down. He was arrested for Lloyd’s murder when he was 23.
He threw a huge fucking opportunity away. He murdered in cold blood. But he basically had soup for brains when he died at 27, so my opinion is that it was more complex than he was just a POS. However, the complexity is probably irrelevant to the pain that his living victims or victims’ families feel.
And he was likely messed up before he got to the NFL. I'm not saying he would have been a saint had he not been in football - it's really impossible to know. But it's enough to wonder.
And he was beaten quite severely as a child. And his babysitter's son forced him to blow him regularly for years starting when he was 6.
Azaelia Banks was hot after 212 and people were looking to her as the next female rap star. But she just couldn't stop running her mouth on social media. She tanked her career right when it was about to launch and she's still on X yapping from obscurity to this day.
Jussie Smollett. Dudes career is going well, he's on this crazy popular show, things are actually starting to kick off for him, and then his dumbass decides to fake a hate crime and ends up going to jail.
Congressman Anthony Weiner. He sent pictures of Anthony's weiner to women and underage girls, then resigned from the House. He did it again while running for re-election. Eventually he ended up spending like a year in federal prison and is now a registered sex offender.
Dude was a congressman. If you manage that, you're set for life by any reasonable metric. Maybe not ultra-wealthy, but the connections and prestige guarantee a good life.
Plus, a public figure with the last name Weiner really, really should know that there is exactly one class of crimes you are never allowed to commit, because the headline is just way too juicy to fly under the radar.
Oscar Pistorious
That’s such a sad case. RIP Reeva
The no legged runner became the toilet door gunner
Ancient history now, but OJ Simpson. Football legend, film star and popular TV pitchman. The day of the famous police chase, I wondered if he’d been framed: I mean, who’d throw away a career like that?
Kanye West! Such an incredibly talented artist that couldn’t or wouldn’t get a handle on his mental illness.
From what I heard, his mom was the only person who could rein him in at all, and after she passed away unexpectedly, he kinda lost it
Didn’t she die due to complications from an elective surgery he paid for? I don’t like the guy at all but I’d go completely off the rails too if I had that happen.
I believe so, yes. Extremely tragic series of events that snowballed into something really nasty on his part.
He also had a relatively unhinged marketing strategy of just going off the rails to sell an album under the any publicity is good publicity. Sure it worked… for a time but turned alot of people off him.
This makes a lot of sense. I’m not deep into Kanye lore or anything, so I didn’t even really know his mom is gone, but as a human this makes a lot of sense. I want to feel bad for him, but I can’t even tell what’s real and what’s not with him and he just gives me ick vibes all around.
It always bums me out when I see people talking about Kanye like he's just an OTT narcissistic bigot. The guy is really, really unwell. He's like any random lunatic who'd sit next to you on public transit and rant about how Jews are actually lizard people, except with infinity dollars and nobody telling him no. And so fucking talented, it's such a goddamned shame.
Similarly, Azealia Banks.
Jonathan Majors
He was to be the next big bad MCU villain, with a contract for multiple movies and series, and poised to make hundreds of millions of dollars. Turns out he’s a huge piece of shit woman-beater.
Glad I voted for kodos
One of my exs who is now just a friend got his heart broken by another young lady. She slept with his best friend. When him and I dated he had full ride scholarship offers, a big friend group, supportive family members, was very kind and had a good head on his shoulders. After the girl broke his heart he didn’t go to college, ended up doing drugs, going to jail, his parents no longer support him, he only hangs around felons and he just lost himself . Unfortunately I don’t know who he is anymore :( he had it all, but let someone hurt him so much he lost all sense in what he had.
Pete Rose.
Johnny Manziel
Armie Hammer. Tall, blonde, handsome &...heir to the Arm & Hammer multi billion corporation. He started acting, & actually got some good reviews & the all important "buzz" around his name. He lost his mind (drugs/alcohol) & was accused of abuse & cannibalism fetish. Ok, he can just lick his wounds until the trust fund kicks in...nope he got DISINHERITED bc of the accusations & the $ skips him & goes to his first born now (family trusts originating from the 1900s are so much fun) So...back to Hollywood right? Nope, the entertainment complex that allowed Harvey Weinstein's shenanigans, gave Kevin Spacey 3 comebacks, & still can't openly name the assailant of Brendan Fraser; won't give him the time of day.
Edit: he even took a job selling timeshares/vacation homes in the Caribbean for a while after the initial blowout died down, in order to make money...also last year I think he did have a small part in a small movie, don't know if it was straight to streaming or theater release. He also did a tiktok or some social media post crying about having to either sell or return his big expensive high end brand SUV bc he couldn't afford to keep it fueled/maintained. So yeah, definitely lost everything he had earlier in his life, except being tall & blonde which in L.A is nothing special I guess lol.
Eliot Spitzer and Andrew Cuomo.
If I had a nickle for every time a Governor of New York State had to resign from office because of a sex scandal, which led to their 2nd in command taking over and surprising everyone by doing a good job, I'd have two nickles.
Warning for disturbing. My ex had a full ride to a great school pursuing his dream career & life passion. He started saving csam to his phone a couple months before classes started. He was arrested later in the year.
Good
Mason Greenwood. A young Manchester United academy player, one of the best we'd ever seen. Breaking our youth records left and right, starter for the team, whole future ahead. Turns out he is a girlfriend beating piece of shit. Got kicked out of the team and now plays in France but he had it all and lost it (deservedly so)
Can't say he's lost it all, since he's now a starter and one of the main guys in Marseille. It's weird he was able to salvage his football career, even though he will always be a wife beating POS
Yep and a rapist to boot. Huge POS
He's got off very lightly in my opinion
Bill Cosby
Mmmh it’s not like he threw it all away on one go… this piece of shit’s own personal life was based on abuse
Maurice Clarett is the one who always sticks out in my mind. He was an Ohio State football player who was drafted by the Denver Broncos in 2005 and threw it all away. In 2006, cops attempted to pull him over after he made an illegal U-turn in Columbus. He led them on a high speed chase ending in him driving over a spike strip. His SUV contained an AK-47, two loaded handguns, and a set of fucking samurai swords, along with an open bottle of vodka. They wound up macing him to subdue him after their attempts to taser him were confounded by the kevlar body armor he was wearing. All of this was made worse by the fact that he was currently on bail for armed robbery charges.
He would serve 3-1/2 years after a guilty plea and never play in the NFL again.
He's done a pretty amazing job of turning his life around since his release from prison.
Probably my cousin...
As a kid he won first place in a national film festival, got famous, got offered a role on one of the most popular shows in my country.
Only to turn down every offer, got into Brazilian jujutsu instead, despite being the weediest weakling imaginable, got into drugs through his sparring buddies, had a drug-induced breakdown where he took off all his clothes in front of a group of kids, got arrested for it and branded a sex offender.
Dumb as fuck, that cousin.
Louis CK. All he had to do was not wag his dick at his coworkers but nooooope
I've got mates who still can't see anything wrong with his behavior. "It's not like he raped anyone." My response is always "How would you feel if he did it with your sister/daughter?"
Yeah he was funny, but a fuckin gross creep too.
Howard Dean. One weird little shriek and his entire political career was over in 5 seconds.
James Arthur won The X-Factor (Pop Idol UK) in 2012 and captured the hearts of the nation with his story as a struggling artist. He was charming, talented and seemed to deserve his win and everyone who watched celebrated for him.
Within a year, the same week his first album came out, he released a dreadful rap song with some pretty homophobic lyrics. one of his fellow contestants, Lucy Spraggan , messaged him telling him she, an open lesbian, was disappointed in him but thinks he should take it down and apologies. He egotistically accused her of being jealous of him and made some comment about how his album was outselling hers and proved himself look a right tit. He had a few singles a few years later that charted (i don't know how some people forget so quickly) but never hit the level of success he was guaranteed before the incident.
There was a point where Tesla owned the EV market.
And their CEO decided that denigrating their primary demographic (liberals who care about climate change) in favor of trying to capture market share of the people who refuse to buy his vehicles was a pretty bold play.
It has not worked well so far.
That singer/artist guy who ended up killing his UNDERAGE girlfriend
Kid from my town got a football scholarship to Nebraska. Was a Heisman Trophy candidate. Blew his knee out in his senior year. Made the NFL as a walk-on anyway, got suspended for drugs 3 times, and booted from the league. Last I knew, he was working as a janitor at a Planet Fitness.
Is his name Anatoly? Carries a heavy-ass mop around?
Michael Richards is still pretty well-off, I'm sure, but career-wise he essentially destroyed himself with that rant at that comedy club.
You'd think he would be better at dealing with hecklers. Dude was a career comedian, ffs.
Neil Gaiman.
Oooft good answer. I wasn't a reader of his really before everything came out about him, but from what I've since learned about him...yeh what a piece of shit. And it seems he had so many true fans of his writing who for good reason just turned on him instantly when it all came out.
That recent piece of shit Michigan coach.
I knew a guy with the richest, most beautiful and caring girlfriend who was beyond devoted to him piss it all away for a stripper/escort.
Sherrone Moore went from a 5.5 Million dollar salary coaching the University of Michigan football program to fired and behind bars in about four hours. That’s got to be a world record self-destruct speed run.
The United States government from 1980 forward. Bruh, we act like we invented republics and then we went back to laissez faire media rules and then, get this, an allegedly conservative supreme court fully legalized unlimited hidden donor bribery and coercion. Literally king of the world and threw it away for zero gain. 99% of the country cant spell any word in campaign finance reform and would damn near fight you to the death if you tried to explain it. That was my experience as a lobbyist for it.
Had a 12 year career from campaigns to US Senate to federal lobbyist. Mostly homeland security and anti drug related due to my first real job offer coming 2-3 days before 9-11. What I've seen happen to this country in the last 10 years is the definition of disheartening.
The advent of tv politics really had an impact. And we're suckers for morality kabuki theater. Identity and politics is a powerful, and deceitful, mix
We’ve watched the internet become a cheap casino. We messed up healthcare. Social security. We’re not really capable of dealing with AI, climate change, opioids, or mental health. We are the authors of a sad chapter of one of the most stunning achievements of human progress. That humans are worthy of dignity and should govern themselves. An aspiration that feels further away than at any point in my lifetime (1980+).
I often feel this was the experiment and then other western countries slowly followed suit so now it's a global issue.
Tom Sizemore. Wonderful actor. He just could not overcome his addictions.
A dude I knew was pulling 200k a year, had an exceptionally attractive younger wife, and was a session drummer for some really cool bands as a side gig.
Within a year, he lost his job, wife, house, everything. He ended up moving to this tiny apartment and had a sugar baby move in. He gave her and her friends free drugs and they basically never left. He got in a fight with a guy that fucked up his teeth, and by the end of the year had someone set fire to his Mustang for the insurance money.
One of the fastest, hardest drops I’ve ever seen.
Huw Edwards, THE face of BBC news. The man who announced all the major news stories such as the death of the queen and the like. He was seen as respected and trustworthy.
He was at a stage in his life where he was only a few years away from retirement and probably a knighthood. His obituaries would have talked about how much of a respected and professional newscaster he was.
And then he made some incredibly poor decisions such as allegedly paying a 17-year-old for indecent images and then later being convicted of having CP on his phone.
Aaron Hernandez
Came here looking for this; young, in the nfl, enough money and the prospects of enough money to live comfortably the rest of his life… but his troubles were present throughout his youth and college careers, and he just couldn’t get away from them
Jared from subway.
Nah that dude didn't just "took one bad decision" he was a dangerous individual... I'm being charitable
No. Fuck him.
You don't fuck with kids
He deserves way worse than what he got.
Aaron Hernandez, the raiders guy who killed someone while speeding, tons and tons of NFL players. There's almost one per season.
My ex husband. I loved him so much. We had 3 great kids, a decent house and a job that he continued after he left. Just walked away from all of us. He left us for the daughter of the owner, and she left him 5 or so years later.
An old high school friend. 99.9 in her HSC. Had hiccups with substance abuse but sorted them out, found a really good partner, top of her class in uni. A bright future ahead of herself. Last semester of final year, uni accidentally sends her the wrong exam results, she thinks she failed the course and it was enough to send her over the edge and hang herself. If she'd waited a few hours she would've seen the apology e-mail with the correct results that showed she got a perfect score.
Something very similar happened to a young man in the UK recently. To anyone who needs to hear this, I know it can be hard to see a way out sometimes, but please remember that suicide is a permanent solution to temporary problems.
Len Bias - Henry Ruggs
the podcast Crime in Sports is chock full of these people. It's by the same guys that do Small Town Murder if you like that sort of thing.
The one that always stuck with me was a guy named Brien Taylor. Had the potential to be the greatest baseball pitcher of all time..... but never even made it to the minors. Episode 128 of the podcast if you are curious.
Tiger Woods.
He’s certainly not held in high regard like he used to be, but he’s probably still pretty fucking wealthy.
He was my first thought. He was ADORED, and blew it.
Will Smith
Will Smith is classic example of when keeping it real goes wrong:
https://youtu.be/pfz0tDQZhqs?si=mt7m7_eTrgXcgrkX
Whitney Houston
Roy Munson
Everyone who watched the U.S. Capitol get vandalized and then willingly walked into a voting booth and voted for the convicted felon responsible.
Attempted overthrow of the government. Please don’t soft sell it.