In the wise words of Hannah Montana: “Everybody makes mistakes, everybody has those days.” Butttt, some people don’t just have a bad day — they create a Wikipedia page that no PR team can save… So when Redditor u/National-Tourist6879 asked, “Who ruined their entire career in the dumbest way possible?” people had plenty of painfully specific answers. Here are the wildest ones that made me pray I never experience this level of bag fumbling:
1.
“Jussie Smollett was already on a popular show, Empire, and had already made it as an actor. Faking a hate crime to try to increase his popularity and show salary? Just dumb. Other people have fallen harder and ended up worse for it, but no one has done it in such a spectacularly stupid way. The gall to stage a hate crime on yourself to get a raise when you already had a rising career is unbelievable.”
2.
“Anthony Weiner was an up-and-coming young Democrat married to Hillary Clinton’s right-hand woman. Then came the dumb, horny photos and sex scandals. The dumbest part was that he pretended to be trying to redeem himself, then did the exact same thing again. Someone even tried to make a movie about his ‘comeback’ and ended up documenting his second fall instead.”
3.
“Allison Mack from Smallville had a promising and active acting career, then threw it away by getting involved with a sex-crazed cult leader and helping bring women into that world. She’s a high-ranking member, maybe even second in command, and is accused of blackmailing, trafficking, branding, and treating women like slaves. She went from being a recognizable TV actress to serving prison time…”
4.
“Will Smith ruined his big Oscar win by slapping Chris Rock over a joke about his wife’s hair. Imagine working your whole career to earn an award that almost every actor dreams of getting, only to sabotage your reputation by assaulting the ceremony’s host. I literally forgot he won an Oscar that night because all anyone remembers is the slap. It’s one of the few moments where you see someone at the top and bottom at the exact same time.”
5.
“Gerald Irving Ratner was the chief executive of the British jewelry company Ratner Group. In 1991, he gave a speech in which he jokingly described his company’s products as ‘total crap,’ which led to the company’s near-collapse and his exit from the business in 1993. The speech was so notorious that it created the phrase ‘doing a Ratner,’ meaning to make ruinous comments about your own company or products.”
6.
“Justine Sacco was a PR executive who tweeted, ‘Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!’ before boarding a flight to South Africa. By the time she landed, her entire life was destroyed. People were watching it unfold in real time and counting down until her plane landed. She lost her job before she even got off the flight, and her reputation was in tatters.”
7.
“Ned Fulmer was a member of the Try Guys and marketed himself as this vanilla ‘wife guy.’ He even turned his kids’ births and his family life into videos and content. Then it turned out he’d been having an affair with one of his film editors, who also appeared in their videos. Fans saw them out together and outed him online. He put the entire business at risk by having an affair with a subordinate, and people also pointed out that he supposedly handled HR for the group.”
8.
“John Edwards was running for president when he had an affair and fathered a child out of wedlock while his wife was dying of cancer. It ruined his reputation and political career. In North Carolina, it was a huge deal, especially for Democrats. People felt personally betrayed by how awful it was, and his wife was widely seen as a good person who deserved better.”
9.
“Brian Williams was a major news anchor, back when being a news anchor came with trust and integrity. He lied about being shot down by an enemy rocket-propelled grenade in a US military helicopter in the Iraq War, but in reality, he was in a whole separate helicopter. He lost one of the biggest jobs in news. That’s what makes it so dumb: his whole job depended on credibility, and one story damaged the trust he had built.”
10.
“Colleen Ballinger, aka Miranda Sings, became the celebrity people think of when someone says, ‘You know what this situation needs? A ukulele apology video.’ The controversy was already serious, but that response made it even stranger. Instead of making things better, the ukulele apology became part of what people remember most.”
11.
“Jonathan Majors was the actor playing Kang in the Marvel movies, and he was about to become the next major villain for a whole set of films. He could’ve cemented himself in that role for a lifetime. People still call it a generational bag fumble because he managed to mess up a huge Marvel opportunity due to a domestic assault case.”
12.
“Lance Armstrong wasn’t just a serial cheater. He was in complete denial about it, ruined other people’s reputations when they tried to flag it, and kept punching down on other people suspected of cheating. The cheating was bad enough, but the way he kept attacking people while doing the same thing himself made it worse.”
13.
“William Kampiles had always wanted to be a spy, and he was lucky enough to end up working for the CIA after college. Unfortunately, his job was not being a spy — it turns out that takes training. His job was boring, so he hatched a plan to steal a spy satellite manual from the CIA, quit his job, fly to Greece, walk into the Soviet embassy, and sell the manual. Then, in what he apparently thought was the brilliant part, he would call the CIA and let them know what he had done so they would be impressed and give him a job as a double agent. For some reason, the US government was not impressed and sent him to prison instead.”
14.
“Justin Roiland was the voice of Rick and Morty, which makes it wild that he managed to fumble freaking Rick and Morty. One person said it wasn’t exactly surprising because no one in the studio liked being around him. He would allegedly get extremely messed up, harass people, play with toys and remote-control cars while everyone else worked, randomly stop showing up, and record from home instead of going into the booth.”
15.
“The actress and comedian, Roseanne Barr’s nosedive into crazy caught people off guard, though some people said it really shouldn’t have. She had been messy in the ’90s, too, and her drama with Tom Arnold was constantly in the tabloids. The difference is that the studio could keep more things under wraps back then. That doesn’t work in the age of social media when she posted that racially offensive tweet about Obama’s senior advisor that ended up getting her fired.”
16.
“Michael Richards was Kramer from Seinfeld, and then one terrible stand-up set became the thing people associated with him. It wasn’t like he needed that part of his career financially, because he had so much syndication money. But public-image-wise, that racist outburst became brutal and impossible to separate from him.”
18.
“Katherine Heigl was a star on a hit TV show and a rising actress on the big screen. She had Grey’s Anatomy, Knocked Up, and 27 Dresses, and then turned down an Emmy consideration because she felt the storyline her writers created was weak. Way to bite the hand that feeds you. Last seen promoting incontinence products.”
19.
“Michael Dukakis riding that tank. Poor guy. It became one of those campaign-image moments people never let go of. He was trying to look strong and presidential, but instead, the visual made him look ridiculous.”
20.
“Ashlee Simpson comes to mind. The SNL lip-syncing incident became one of those live TV embarrassments people never forgot. No one knows why she did that dance or why she threw her band under the bus before figuring out WTF happened. Plenty of other performers have encountered technical problems and handled them with class, or at least humor.”
21.
“Natalia Kills was a judge on X Factor NZ when she accused a contestant of copying her husband’s look. The look in question was a suit and a standard haircut. Getting booed by the audience is never a good sign, and the whole thing was so bizarre because the contestant was literally just wearing a normal suit. Also, her husband’s stage name was Willy Moon. No one was trying to copy a Willy Moon.”
22.
“Howard Dean, even though it wasn’t really deserved. This might be one of the best answers for the ‘dumbest way possible’ part. It didn’t really ruin his whole political career, but to have your presidential campaign damaged because you got excited and yelled at a rally in a weird way is absurd. People still remember the ‘BYAHHHH!'”
23.
Lastly, “Gary Hart was running for president when reporters asked him about rumors that he was having affairs with other women. He told them, ‘You go ahead and follow me and find out for yourself.’ So they followed him. And they caught him cheating. Career over.”
Suddenly, I feel so much better about even my worst mistakes… 😭 If you know of any other public figure who ruined their career in a truly baffling way, share it in the comments or submit it in the anonymous form below. Your submission may end up in a future BuzzFeed Community post!
