We’re all guilty of overstepping the mark now and then. It’s human nature to make mistakes and suffer the consequences. Celebrities are no different. In fact, they dig their own graves regularly and in spectacular fashion.
Some of the celebrities who have had their careers ruined overnight include Wesley Snipes, Lindsay Lohan, Charlie Sheen and Armie Hammer. They are living proof that money can’t buy you out of anything if the accusation is strong enough. Here are 20 celebrities whose career bit the dust following poor, and often appalling, personal choices.
Randy Quaid
For some thirty-odd years, Randy Quaid enjoyed a successful career in Hollywood dipping his toe in light comedies, blockbusters and dramas, excelling every time, from National Lampoon’s Vacation films and Independence Day to Brokeback Mountain.
Since 2009, he hasn’t starred in much at all, after fleeing to Canada with his wife after two arrests and failure to pay bills. Quaid then made headlines for claiming there was a conspiracy out to “whack” him and other celebrities for their millions.
Wesley Snipes
Wesley Snipes first came to the public’s attention in 1989 with the release of Major League. Throughout the 90s, Snipes ascended higher and higher with the likes of White Men Can’t Jump, Jungle Fever and The Waterdance. It was the Blade trilogy, however, that truly cemented Snipes firmly among Hollywood’s A-list.
Following the commercial success of the Blade films, Snipes’ career flopped. He became more known for his lawsuits than any acting work, suing not just New Line Cinema, but New York City itself. He was later arrested for evading taxes for three years between 1999 and 2001.
Michael Richards
Between 1989 and 1998, Michael Richards blossomed into a beloved household name playing the erratic Cosmo Kramer on Seinfeld. After the sitcom’s finale, Richards returned to stand-up comedy. During a now infamous 2006 set at the Laugh Factory, Richards lost his temper with a group of black hecklers in the audience, calling them the N-word several times.
Richards made a public apology on David Letterman’s Late Show, saying: “For me to be at a comedy club and to flip out and say this crap, I’m deeply, deeply sorry. I’m not a racist, that’s what’s so insane about this.” Needless to say, Richards hasn’t acted or performed stand-up since.
Amanda Bynes
Amanda Bynes, a name once synonymous with The Amanda Show and She’s The Man, now sadly synonymous with spiralling out of control on drugs and booze.
In a 2012 Twitter rant, Bynes claimed she wanted Drake to “murder her vagina”. She tweeted Rihanna saying “Chris Brown beat you because you’re not pretty enough.” Not quite done with the barbs, she called Miley Cyrus and Jay-Z “ugly”. Bynes was subsequently placed in a psychiatric facility.
Paula Deen
Paula Deen’s career was brought to a halt in 2012 when she was sued by a general manager of one of her restaurants after it was alleged she had been throwing the N-word around for fun.
When pressed about the accusations of whether she had used the slur, Deen replied, “Yes, of course.” She also admitted to wanting to host a Southern-style wedding with black people as ‘servants.’ She claimed she got the idea from another restaurant, finding the idea “beautiful” and “really impressive.”
Kathy Griffin
Kathy Griffin has also courted controversy, but one joke went too far in May 2017 when she posted a picture of herself holding a bloodied Donald Trump mannequin head.
The FBI eventually investigated Griffin who later apologised and said the joke was way over the mark. “I don’t think I’m going to have a career after this. I’m going to be honest, [Trump] broke me.”
Paz de la Huerta
Fans immediately took to Paz de la Huerta when she became Nucky’s mistress on Boardwalk Empire. Hollywood, too, became enamoured thanks to her party girl lifestyle. Although that would eventually become her undoing. Huerta began arriving at work under the influence of drugs, often in tears. She was promptly sacked in 2013.
She made a few films away from Boardwalk Empire but nothing much. The critically panned Nurse 3D was so badly received, Huerta demanded $55 million in compensation for it “ruining her career”.
Tila Tequila
If there’s one golden rule when it becomes to making it big in Hollywood, it’s this: don’t be a Nazi. People don’t like Nazis. Nazis are horrible people. To be a Nazi is to be a horrible person. This is a memo Tila Tequila never got when she was relevant for a while in the mid-aughts.
Tequila teased controversy here and there but it wasn’t until 2013 that she put all her cards on the table by writing a post about her sympathy for Adolf Hitler. In 2016, she tweeted: “There are only two things in this world, for which I would gladly sacrifice my own life; the destruction of all Jews and preservation of the white race.” What a lovely woman!
Jeffrey Jones
If you’ve seen either Ed Wood, Amadeus or Ferris Buller’s Day Off, you probably know who Jeffrey Jones is. Throughout the 80s and 90s, he was one of the most sought-after actors in the game.
In 2003, that all came to end when he pleaded no contest to soliciting a 14-year-old boy to pose for nude photos and was ordered to register as a sex offender. Jones has worked since the charge but made nothing of note.
Louis CK
Louis CK was one the most cutting-edge comedians for a good couple of years in the 2010s, drawing bigger and bigger crowds. He eventually landed a sitcom based around his life which was met with critical acclaim. It all seemed too good to be true. And it turns out it was.
In the wake of the 2017 Me Too phenomenon, CK was accused of sexual harassment and masturbating in front of several female colleagues without their consent. As a result, he lost his show and was pretty much shunned from stand-up. He quietly returned to the stage a year later, but in terms of what he was on the cusp of, with TV and film roles, CK’s career is nowhere near as exciting as it once was.
Mark Salling
Mark Salling found fame on the wildly popular musical TV show Glee in which he played the school jock, Puck. In 2017 his career was ruined after he pleaded guilty to possessing thousands of images of child pornography.
Salling was set to spend four years at minimum behind bars as part of a plea deal. He killed himself before he could be sentenced. Coming back from such a crime was nigh on impossible.
Cee Lo Green
At one time, you couldn’t escape Cee Lo Green’s infectious “Forget You” on the radio. The success of the song took him far and wide, performing with Madonna at the Super Bowl halftime show as well as a role as a judge on NBC’s The Voice.
Over on Twitter, however, his career and reputation went to tatters after revealing his insane thoughts on what constituted rape after a woman accused him of drugging her. He was subsequently dumped from the Hotel Transylvania movie series and a TBS reality show concerning his life. In the end, it was Green himself whom we Forgot.
Freddie Prinze Jr.
Cutting his teeth in Hollywood with the cult likes of I Know What You Did Last Summer and She’s All That, Freddie Prinze Jr. seized the 1990s by the privates and didn’t let go until the release of the live-action adaptation of Scooby Doo in 2002.
Freddie, who played Fred funnily enough, later revealed he “didn’t have fun” making the Scooby Doo movies. He ditched Hollywood before they ditched him and started writing for the WWE, making a few appearances in storylines. Mostly, he just enjoys married life with wife Sarah Michelle Gellar.
Charlie Sheen
Charlie Sheen, prior to being the highest-paid man on television thanks to Two And a Half Men, was known for being in some pretty serious films. Starting off in Platoon in 1986, he then became known worldwide for his role in Wall Street.
In 2011, after decades of allegations and rumours, Sheen had a public meltdown after being sacked from Two And a Half Men for his substance abuse problems, which he denied in a series of viral interviews. Sheen later revealed he was HIV positive and blamed the behaviour on his response to the diagnosis.
Elizabeth Berkley
Given how audiences were so used to seeing Elizabeth Berkley as the brainy outlier Jessie on Saved By The Bell from 1989 to 1993, her performance in Showgirls pulled the rug out from under their feet.
Berkley’s performance in the controversial NC-17 film was obliterated by the critics. She ended up taking home Razzies for Worst Actress and Worst New Star to go with the film winning Worst Picture, and later Worst Picture of the Decade. Showgirls director Paul Verhoeven said Hollywood unfairly “turned its back” on Berkley, who never got a role so high-profile ever again.
Lindsay Lohan
Lindsay Lohan, the classic case. Hollywood’s punchline now for close to two decades.
But at one time, Lohan had a glistening career ahead of her after making a mark in teen comedies at the turn of the century. Unfortunately, Lohan fell deep into the socialite scene, becoming more famous for getting tanked than for starring in movies. And those she did star in failed miserably. She hasn’t yet fully bounced back, in spite of attempts at a pop career.
Roseanne Barr
The Emmy award-winning Roseanne Barr was a staple of American comedy in the 1990s with her eponymous sitcom. In 2018, it was brought back to screens thanks to ABC, promising the comedienne a second wind of success. But things went sour, and fast.
Barr put out a tweet comparing former President Obama aide Valerie Jarrett to an ape, which Barr alleged was an innocent mistake. She was quickly axed by ABC and has not worked since.
Jeffrey Tambor
Jeffrey Tambor is a veteran actor mostly known for playing Hank Kingsley on The Larry Sanders Show and Oscar Bluth on Arrested Development. In 2017, he starred in the hilarious Armando Ianucci send-up of the Soviet Union, The Death of Stalin. It would prove (at least for now) to be his last major role.
Shortly after the release, a former assistant accused Tambor of sexual misconduct. In 2018, his Arrested Development co-star Jessica Walter revealed he had mistreated her in a non-sexual way, often screaming at her on set. Besides a TV movie for the Disney Channel, Tambor is yet to work to any serious degree again.
Jamie Kennedy
If anyone enjoyed every single minute of 1996, it was probably Jamie Kennedy. Playing big roles in both Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet and Wes Craven’s Scream, the actor had secured himself a slice of film immortality.
Unfortunately, the gigs were to get dryer and poorer. By the mid-2000s, Kennedy’s career as a leading man was toast thanks to a performance in the woefully bad Son of the Mask (the sequel to the Jim Carrey classic).
Armie Hammer
When Armie Hammer played both of the Winkelvoss twins in David Fincher’s The Social Network, audiences were instantly impressed. Over the next decade, he would star in such films as The Lone Ranger and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. In 2017, he was lauded for his performance in the drama Call Me By Your Name, opposite Timothee Chalamet.
In 2021, everything hit the fan. Hammer was accused of sexual abuse and attempted cannibalism by an ex-lover. He denied the allegations, with that didn’t stop his acting agency and publicist from dropping him.
