A movie quote that resonates with a lot of internet users is Harvey Dent’s line from 2008’s ‘The Dark Knight’ that, “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” The idea is that no matter how good of a person you might seem to be, eventually, you’ll fall from grace and end up going against your own supposed principles. The people you respect and adore one day might be whom you detest the next because you learn what they’ve done.
And though life’s certainly not a movie and the quote doesn’t hold true for everyone, it does highlight the fact that dramatic falls from grace really do happen, especially to stars. Suddenly, the scales fall from the adoring crowd’s eyes and they see the person for who they are now… or who they really were deep inside, all along. A villain, definitely not a hero.
The crowd over on r/AskReddit shared their thoughts about the very worst real-life examples of heroes turning out to be villains. Scroll down to read which celebrities and public figures they named and shamed, Pandas. And if you know of any similar examples, you can share them in the comments.
Entertainment and pop culture expert Mike Sington, aka Hollywood’s Ultimate Insider, shared his thoughts with Bored Panda about public figures and stars letting their fans down, as well as whether or not we can definitively tell if someone well-known is being genuine. “You can never tell that a celebrity or public figure is 100% genuine. You just can’t, because you don’t really know that celebrity or public figure. You think you do because they’re famous, but you don’t. In all likelihood, you’ve never even met the person,” he told us.
“In my experience, someone may be hiding who they are if you only see a glossy side of them.” Scroll down for our full interview with Mike.
#1
Dr. Oz is the perfect example. He started out a legitimate talented accomplished cardiac surgeon. Then he started with his snake-oil peddling on TV and has now completely devolved into a pandering narcissistic Trump-loving politician.
Image source: rockychunk, Dr. Oz
#2
Rudy Giuliani. Dude was “America’s mayor” just 20 years ago. A brilliant, ballsy prosecutor who took down the mob then shepherded NY through 9/11. Now he’s just thought of as the increasingly unhinged trump lackey that sweat hair dye in front of a landscaping company that shoulda been a hotel.
Image source: justbrowsing987654, Gage Skidmore
#3
Ellen Degeneres
It’s a shame it took so long. There were stories out there for years about what a horrible person she is. Just now coming main stream.
Image source: Not_a_local_wanderer, Ellen Degeneres
#4
Bill Cosby was once nominated for a Nobel peace prize.
EDIT: Also the EMMYs gave him a humanitarian award. Also the President medal of freedom.
Image source: shaka_sulu, NBC Television
#5
Baby boomers that used to be hippies but are now Capitalist thralls who can’t tell freedom from fascism.
Image source: EnshaednCosplay
#6
Conor McGregor. He had the whole country behind him here in Ireland at one point bar people who thought combat sport is grotesque. He was witty, original, backing himself up and having a Hollywood like rise to stardom. Now he’s some coke head who the whole country is ashamed of, goes punching old men, clearly sleeps around on his wife while she’s at home with the kids, numerous allegations against him for sexual assault, just a walking caricature of himself. He didn’t listen to his own advice. Get in. Get rich. Get out.
Image source: StephenPigot2020, Conor McGregor
#7
Probably Elon Musk. I used to think “Well, the government is doing f**k-all to advance manned space exploration, so if private investors have to do it, I guess that’s how it has to be.” He seemed like he was genuinely invested in that, too. There was a lot of good will toward him in the public eye.
Then he found Twitter, and everything went to s**t pretty quickly. Now he’s just that weirdo who pushes crypto scams and pays his employees to shut up about the kids he had with them.
Image source: SergeantChic
#8
Amazon, for sure. About 22 years ago, it was a little known place where you could buy books online for cheaper than brick-and-mortar retail. To watch it gradually grow and transform into an economic power that makes Omni Consumer Products seem less like satire and more like a prediction… It’s been interesting, to say the least. Can’t say I don’t love the convenience, though.
Image source: antipyretical
#9
Harry Harlow. He began his career as a young and unconventional scientist who wanted to prove that humans cannot survive without love and affection. To do so, he needed an animal that was sufficiently humanlike and easy to manage. He settled on rhesus monkeys.
Harlow’s research went in a really dark direction as scholar after scholar refused to acknowledge its validity. While his first wife died a slow, painful demise from cancer, he became depressed and an alcoholic. He decided to deliberately raise monkeys from birth with as little love and affection as possible to see if they could ever recover.
They could not. Clinging to towels with wooden faces (which served as surrogate mothers), the monkeys couldn’t learn about their culture or social skills. Some came out of their shells when introduced to new monkeys to befriend. To “fix” that, he invented the “pit of despair,” an inverted pyramid the monkeys could not climb out of. They were depressed and pretty much became empty shells of living animals.
There’s a lot of stuff I don’t cover here. Some of it I just don’t want to mention, but for a fairly clearheaded summary of Harlow’s work, [here is a link.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEEEu1HEtU0)
Image source: ugagradlady
#10
Erdogan is the perfect example. Believe it or not, when he was the mayor of Istanbul in the late 90s to early 2000s we was actually pretty progressive and had the general support of the people. Then his election to prime minister happened, he became power hungry, his policies became much more right wing and less secular and everyone hates him now.
Image source: TheBk_1er, President.gov.ua
#11
I’m a full-on atheist but: Protestantism. It was intended as a reaction to the Catholic Church’s excesses and corruption, contributed to people having access to their religion’s central text in a language they ubderstood and wrested power from the clergy.
Now there are American mega churches and rich televangelists making money hand over fist from the gullible masses, Amish and Jehovah’s Witnesses shielding sexual abusers among their ranks and blaming and shunning the victims much like paedophile catholic priests are shielded by the church.
This is in addition to the many attempts at theocratic states and horribly abusive societies birthed by the reformation. It was intended to be a cure for corruption and the gross accumulation of temporal power and ended up just as corrupted and power hungry.
To be clear, in my opinion, all religions are dangerous and an abuser’s wet dream but this is a very obvious example of a full-circle revolution.
Image source: JeSuisUnFennec
#12
Joe Paterno
JoePa was the shining beacon of what it meant to be a college coach when I was getting inducted into college football. And then…wow.
For those that don’t know.. he knowingly allowed and covered up for Jerry Sandusky. He saw with his owns eyes Sandusky molesting a 10 year old boy in the Penn State shower facilities and did nothing
Image source: 3lon_Mu5k, wikipedia
#13
Jim Jones. He originally stood up for civil rights when it was really unpopular. Was hospitalized and accidentally placed in the black ward. When the doctors found out, they tried to move him, but he refused. Then he became a cult leader and used his power and influence to end the lives of a thousand people.
Image source: Crvsby, Nancy Wong
#14
Facebook. Last 5 years it turned onto a boomer bigot wasteland
Image source: TrashSea1485
#15
Subway’s Jared Fogle. A formerly fat guy who lost weight by chasing kids. He started and ended his career the same way – getting into smaller pants.
Image source: JuliaTheInsaneKid
#16
My parents used to tell me about how I should be careful with strangers, and steer clear of anything on the net, because it’s ‘fake news and stuff designed to make you do bad things’.
In the last 1 2 years my mom has been sending me links about cancers, diseases, and all types of news coming from tabloid, and tells me that if it’s on the net it must be true.
Image source: TheTemplarr
#17
O.J. Simpson
Image source: ChickenTendy27, Peter K. Levy
#18
Henry Heimlich, inventor of the Heimlich Maneuver, made up a bunch of untested uses for it (treating people having asthma attacks, and drowning victims were the two I remember) that he publicly talked up. Later, he funded an experiment that involved injecting people with Malaria to see if it would treat other conditions. The experiment was found to be unethical by American review boards, so he conducted them in Ethiopia.
Image source: parlimentery, Unknown author
#19
The current mexican president. He ran for the presidency 3 straight times on a no-corruption, atheist, liberal, feminist, leftist platform, once he finally won the election and 4 years into his presidency it’s clear he’s not just an evangelical conservative but he may be the most corrupt mexican president ever (and that’s quite an accomplishment in Mexico!) openly working for the Sinaloa Cartel and turning his back on the minorities that got him elected and openly mocking the victims of Mexico’s rampant gender violence.
Image source: HyperAktiFF
#20
Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church started out as an attorney defending civil rights.
Image source: Pkrudeboy
#21
Philippe Petain. In WW1 he led the French to victory at Verdun, one of the worst battles in human history. In WW2, after France was beaten, Petain was the head of state of Vichy France. Guy went from the Lion of Verdun to the biggest Nazi collaborator in France.
Image source: arthuranymoredonuts, Public Domain
#22
Netflix was once THE streaming service. Always had something to watch and the price was worth it.
But now, most of those shows and movies are gone, some of them long before things like Disney+ and other network streaming services came about. It got to the point where it was a joke to say “you wanna watch it? Then it’s not on Netflix” or something along those lines.
Additionally, Netflix once put out a tweet about how “love is sharing your login” but is now charging extra for every additional party using an account. The price for a subscription has also gone up substantially, to the point where there were times my family considered dropping the subscription entirely.
Netflix, how far you’ve fallen…
Image source: Darth_Destructus, Stock Catalog
#23
Ghandi
Image source: Megademi4529
#24
Blizzard Entertainment (now Activision/Blizzard)
Used to be the darlings of the PC world with everything they creating being solid gold classics on launch
Now nothing but recycled trash, cash grabs, micro transactions, and sexual assault scandals
How the mighty have fallen
Image source: Action-a-go-go-baby
#25
R Kelly. Grew up with The Worlds Greatest, Ignition, Ignition (remix), plus other songs. We all voted for The Worlds Greatest to be our graduation song in ‘07. Then we find out he’s minor league Jeffery Epstein.
Image source: batmanstuff
#26
The company apple
Image source: swiggityswoogey
#27
Kevin Spacey
Image source: Patri100ia, Maryland GovPics
#28
[Specialist John “Stebby” Stebbins](http://www.crimemagazine.com/war-hero-who-became-child-rapist) portrayed in *Black Hawk Down* by Ewan MacGregor.
Dude was a desk jockey in the US Army Rangers, deployed to Mogadishu in an administrative capacity. For one reason or another was pulled from his cushy position to fight on the ground with infantry and became a total natural, going berserk on the enemy and receiving commendations from numerous squadmates. Dude was nothing short of heroic in a nightmare scenario.
Years later he was court marshalled and sentenced to several years in prison. He’d raped his daughter, a toddler. Total fall from grace if I ever saw one.
Image source: somabeach
#29
I had a longtime coworker that I earnestly thought was a great guy. Extremely funny, super charismatic, generally kind. Nice shoulder to lean on, exceptionally conversationalist. I absolutely thought he was one of the best people I had ever met, and did for several years.
At the start of a shift, I found out from a girl that had dated him that he was physically and verbally abusive. He had dated several coworkers and multiple coworkers came out and said that it was something that had happened with multiple women, all of whom were scared to speak up about it because they didn’t think anyone would believe that *he* of all people was a domestic abuser.
I spent the rest of the shift nauseous and sick, unable to focus on work at all. On one hand it felt like a betrayal, and on the other I felt selfish as f**k for putting myself in any sort of “victimhood” in such a situation when there were genuine victims of his assault. I didn’t really know what to do or say and at one point was walking by multiple coworkers, himself included. Just kept my head down and tried to walk by, but one of my coworkers called me back.
Turns out, they were roasting the f**k out of him because he had just admitted to being a flat earther. I absolutely deflated, because his intelligence had been one of the things I really admired about him. In the course of a single shift, I found out one of the smartest and kindest people I knew was a physically abusive flat earther.
He never faced any repercussions for his actions to my knowledge. I quit a couple weeks later, every shift was miserable after that.
Image source: NinnyBoggy
#30
Richard Nixon. Won the 1972 election by a landslide, with only Minnesota and DC voting for McGovern, on the back of a strong economy. Two years later resigns in disgrace over Watergate, in the midst of stagflation, and his reputation has never been rehabilitated.
Image source: nostrademons, Office of the Vice President
#31
I feel like mine has to be Elon Musk. He seemed like he was this good guy and now he is just an asshat
Image source: do_u_liek_ButtSchexx
#32
Every organ until it gets cancer
Image source: SuperBaconjam
#33
English engineer and writer [James P. Hogan.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_P._Hogan_(writer))
He wrote several really solid Sci-fi books that were hugely influential to me when I was growing up, and then towards the end of his life he became a Holocaust/AIDS/climate change denier.
Image source: ThadisJones
#34
Benedict Arnold. Almost died during the revolutionary war, if I recall correctly, and if he had he would have been remembered a huge hero, and a martyr. Instead he lived and changed sides, and is remembered only for his being a traitor.
Image source: uniqueperson22, Thomas Hart
#35
Neil Degrasse Tyson. Though he became less of a “villain” and more “buzzkill”. At first he seemed like the next Carl Sagan, celebrating the wonders of science and the universe. But somewhere along the line he turned into this smug, pseudo-nihilistic wet blanket who poo-pooed on anyone getting excited over solar eclipses and stuff. As someone who grew out of that mentality back in middle school, it’s honestly kind of embarrassing to witness the same attitude being showcased by an actual astrophysicist who’s old enough to be my dad.
Image source: Omny87
#36
My dad used to annoy me by calling my Pokemon cards “Pokey-Mans”. Now my kids have them and I do the same thing and it annoys the s**t out of them.
Image source: rumpel4skinOU, Minh Hoang
#37
Chris Benoit
This was terrible to see. I was a huge pro wrestling fan back in the day. To my knowledge, Benoit was actually a great person until he suddenly wasn’t. That ‘suddenly wasn’t,’ though, carried a hell of a consequence. It’s actually kind of amazing how people with severe CTE act very similarly. When your job is basically to pound your brain in every night, who knows what will happen? Just look at all the NFL guys who have similar issues, i.e. Steve McNair. I feel bad for everyone involved, which includes Benoit himself. I don’t think he even had the ability to reason anymore. Steroids didn’t help, but I think they only expedited things.
Image source: DegreeOffWhite
#38
Phoenix Jones, that superhero from Seattle. Saved some people over the years then eventually was caught by an undercover cop selling MDMA.
Image source: moist_kiwi53, Torrin Maynard
#39
Tony Blair. He was such a popular figure at one point. But it went so badly for him!
Image source: lofinobodyperson
#40
Linus Pauling is an intresting one. He was one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century – won the Nobel Prize twice. Later in life he went off the deep end and became convinced that Vitamin C could cure cancer and maje him immortal – an idea that lives on in various forms today.
Image source: thejrevanslowell
Follow Us
