43 Alleged Reputation-Ruining Stories About Famous People Everyone Loves

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Redditors share deplorable stories that will make you think twice about these people and their esteemed statuses. We can’t confirm their veracity, but you can join the conversation over on Reddit.

1. foxymcfox

Ivan Pavlov wasn’t the friendly, bell-ringing dog-lover we all think he was.

He surgically implanted spigots in the dogs’ jaws to measure their saliva and fed them under VERY restrictive conditions. (Strapping them down, etc.)

THEN he did the same thing on human children. Believed to be street urchins, these children had spigots surgically added to their cheeks and were strapped down with a chute leading directly to their mouth. Pavlov would ring a bell and drop a cookie/biscuit down the chute into the child’s mouth.

…OH! And there’s film footage of these experiments on children and it is terrible.

2. patricksly

Gandhi refused to let doctors administer penicillin to his wife, which led to her death, yet accepted quinine to save his life.

3. raptors35

Sean Penn beat Madonna with a baseball bat.

4. LordOfDemise

Lyndon Johnson, former US president, nicknamed his penis “Jumbo” and was known to display it in public.
One of the things he’d do was use the urinal, and if another guy walked into the bathroom, he’d turn around and shake his dick at them, asking “HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ANYTHING AS BIG AS THIS?” Source.

5. Dedratermai

On August 5, 1987, actor Matthew Broderick was driving on a country road in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland with then-girlfriend (and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off co-star) Jennifer Grey when his car veered into the wrong lane, colliding with an oncoming vehicle. The two passengers of the other car—30-year-old Anna Gallagher and her 63-year-old mother Margaret Doherty—were killed instantly. Broderick spent a month in the hospital but because of memory loss, he was unable to explain what happened. It was determined that the actor wasn’t drunk at the time of the accident, and he was charged with causing death by dangerous driving, although he was eventually convicted only of careless driving, escaping with a $175 fine. Initially upset at the ruling, the victims’ family has since come to terms with it and met with Broderick in 2003 to gain a sense of closure.

6. tigerswim1

Eddie Murphy got Scary Spice pregnant and refused to believe it was his. Then he took a blood test which proved he WAS the father after all and he still wants nothing to do with the kid.

In total he has 8 kids with 4 different women.

7. LittleMissIrony

Dr. Seuss had an affair while his wife suffered from cancer and depression. She killed herself and he married his mistress a few months later.

8. dilbert9000

Grover Cleveland sexually assaulted a girl, threatened her if she went to the authorities, then had her publicly shamed when she had his illegitimate rape baby.

9. jamesfd94

Henry Ford admired Hitler, and loathed the new (at the time) Hollywood cinema business because it was “run by Jews and increasing their influence.”

10. myparentsarerussian

Mark Wahlberg only served 45 days in jail for an unprovoked, racially motivated attack in 1988 that left one of two victims blind. He was initially charged with attempted murder.

11. xtacox

Tim Allen was caught smuggling a good quantity of cocaine onto a commercial airplane in the 1970’s.

12. Original_Mechgeek

Pablo Picasso had several mistresses, one of which killed herself, two of which became emotionally traumatized/insane and he was horrid to his wife.

Vincent Van Gogh didn’t give his cut off ear to his girlfriend, he gave it to a prostitute who he became infatuated with after being a customer for a very long time.

Phil Lewis aka Hooch/Mr. Mosbey was drunk driving and killed someone in the process.

Thomas Edison invented very few of the things people think he did, he had a small team of people he would pay next to nothing to come up with ideas which he would then patent and take credit for.

13. newaccount

Bill Murray’s ex-wife claimed he beat her, and he has never denied it.

14. Mojammer

I didn’t see Ted Kennedy mentioned anywhere – he drove a car with a passenger off of a bridge into a channel, got out and left the scene and went back to his hotel room, fell asleep, was awoken by a party somewhere in the building, complained to the hotel manager, and didn’t report the accident for 9 hours. The passenger drowned. He got a 2-month sentence and even that was suspended.

15. drpeppermanyay

Charles Dickens separated from his wife after 22 years of marriage after he fell in love with an 18-year-old actress, then went on to have a letter published in numerous newspapers in which he accused his wife of being responsible for the separation, and calling her stupid, morbidly depressed and a bad mother.

16. s3rr00

Coco Chanel was a Nazi spy and Hugo Boss manufactured the SS Uniforms.

Sources: Coco Chanel, Hugo Boss

17. 102564

Karl Malone impregnated a 13-year-old when he was a sophomore in college, and refused to be a father to the child (who is now an NFL player).

18. gntc

Shaun White is a total douche. Source: I went to high school with this giant douche.

19. radii314

Rock-n-roll pioneer Chuck Berry hid cameras in bathrooms in a restaurant he owned to film women going to the bathroom for his sexual fetish. Source.

20. stanfan114

Beethoven is a personal hero to me, but he was not a very nice person. He had a terrible relationship with his sister in law, calling her “The Queen of the Night” and spent ten years of his life trying to take her son Karl away from her. Eventually he was able to tarnish her reputation to the point where he got custody of Karl, and was a terrible and abusive father to the kid. Karl had to wear a truss for a testicular hernia and Beethoven would pull him by it when he was mad. Also, those ten years where Beethoven was fighting for custody, he wrote almost no music, and this was between his middle and late period. Mankind lost of a lot of immortal masterpieces during that time.

21. InitechConsultant

John Lennon beat his wife.

22. orangep

Miles Davis was a woman-beater and kind of a crazy fucker in general. As it happens, he also made very beautiful music.

23. [deleted]

Laura Bush ran a stop sign and killed someone as a teenager.

24. moose3600

I heard Rob Schneider goes down to home depot and pays migrant workers to go to his house and choke him in the shower.

25. blackredbluegold

Arthur Miller had a son with Down syndrome. Miller immediately institutionalized his son, did not visit him, and never mentioned him in his memoirs. Source

26. StewGillGriffin

Michael Jordan is/was a degenerate gambler. He’s also rumored to be quite a dick.

27. TamingShrewsbury

Bill Cosby is believed to be quite a philanderer and has been accused of sexual harassment. I worked at one of the newspapers at Temple University and the editors were a virtual treasure trove of stories in which Cosby was either a class A jerk or trying to get zippidy zab in some coeds flappity flip.

28. FlimFlamStan

While he was in Nevada Johnny Cash murdered a man for no particular reason.

29. chieflbm

Halle Berry was involved in more than one felony hit and runs. Let off with a slap on the wrist. Bitch can’t drive.

30. PigeonDrivingBus

Abraham Lincoln probably gave his wife syphilis. (Her symptoms later in life are consistent with tertiary syphilis.)

31. FunkyDuck10

Dr. Dre beat the shit out of a lady for talking smack about NWA!

32. IHaveARagingClue

My great grandmother was Martin Luther King Jr.’s personal secretary. They were having an affair.

33. SPEECHLESSaphasic

Both Ted Nugent and Steven Tyler became the legal guardians of teenagers they were fucking.

34. jfranz

All four of the presidents on Mt. Rushmore were in favor of Native American ethnic cleansing. Then as an ultimate slap in the face to the Native Americans they enshrined them on Native American sacred land.

35. wsr3ster

O.J. Simpson, famous actor, Heisman Trophy winner, and all around likable guy, does not floss regularly.

36. LifeIsSufferingCunt

Frankie Muniz from Malcolm in the Middle is a tattooed, drunk degenerate that pulled a gun on his girlfriend and then threatened to kill himself in front of her. He speeds down a very residential neighborhood dense with small children and thinks he is a badass because he crashes cars on racetracks for fun. He has also hit neighborhood kids.

Source: I can see his house from my house.

36. Lawtonfogle

Christopher Columbus engaged in child sex trafficking, and I’ve read one report indicating he trafficked girls as young as 6-years-old.

37. anaconda1189

Steve Jobs was a terrible person that disowned his daughter and frequently told his employees to kill themselves. He was actually fired from apple for his conduct but brought back for his ideas.

38. Thee_Zohan

Oprah is a very rude person. I met her at a dinner once, and she seemed nice at first… until I asked to take a picture with her. She explained how she “can’t do that, because she wants to enjoy her dinner without drawing extra attention,” which I completely understand. However, I looked over at her from my table five minutes later, and she was taking pictures with literally every black person who approached her. She saw me and made eye contact with me, which made her turn slightly red, and get this nervous look on her face before turning her back to me completely.

39. [deleted]

Andrew Zimmern of Bizarre Foods was a homeless heroin addict.

40. weliveamidst

Shania Twain came to my hometown for a concert and decided to stay for a couple days to ride a horse in one of our national parks. My dad was her bodyguard, to which he was told by her that he was not allowed to look at her or talk to her at all. Anyway, while she was riding around, this elderly woman came up to her and begged her for an autograph for her granddaughter and without looking at the woman or in her general direction at all, she told my dad to “get her away from me” and just kept riding.

41. Throwthatshitawaybi

Jamie Foxx, was sexually abusive to female crew at In Living Color. He would “mock choke” them and whisper sick shit in their ears, like, “I’m gonna fuck you and kill you, and chop up your body.” I expect he’s been up to way sicker shit than that since, the fucking asshole.

42. classi5ed

Benjamin Franklin was a member of a sex club called the hellfire club. Also, there were multiple human skeletons found under his home during a renovation of the home. Hard to say if he killed the people or if someone that lived there after him did.

43. Boognish42069

Ayn Rand wrote most of her most famous works on speed. She had a prescription. Also, she wrote admiringly of the kidnapper and child killer William Edward Hickman. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

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