So, I recently read an article about Jack Nicholson and some old case where he allegedly battered a prostitute and threw her down the stairs.

I was legitimately upset, because he is one of my favourite actors.

But then I got to thinking, about how so many famous people have done some pretty bad things and are widely admired, or at least their work is.

A few quick examples.

Mike Tyson - rape
Michael Jackson - alleged pedophile
Polanski - statutory rape
Woody Allen (all sorts - clearly a freak and a very weird dude)

How do you reconcile the two sides of this? Has the actions of a celebrity made you think less of them as a public figure? Admired their work less?

Any other notable ones I've missed?

ray lewis - murder
kobe bryant - rape

also polanksi analy raped a 13 year old, lets not call it anything other than child molestation. Statutory rape is for the 19 year old kid that ****s his 17 year old girlfriend

Robert Wagner - killed Natalie Wood

Kobe Bryant, rape? I'm going to google that, I'd never heard of it.

Regarding the Polanski case. Maybe I'm just falling for them muddying the water, but I thought it was (slightly) more complex than that?

he raped some girl in Colorado a number of years back. Part of the out of court settlement or whatever was he had to publically apologize. Theres was a pretty lol press conference with his wife sitting next to him (he bought her like a 10 million dollar diamond ring or some **** as his apology, lol) while he talks about how he thought it was consensual and realizes now that she didnt and that hes sorry.

edit: Just tried to find the press conference, and looks like im misremembering it. He had a press conference with his wife (and her new $4 mil ring) saying he was innocent and hes disgusted withimself for committing adultry (lol). The apology was issued via a statement later on

He drugged a 13 year old girl, then ****ed her in the ass against her will at a photo shoot alone in Jack Nicholson house. The only muddying was him saying it was consensual (lol, wtf?) and then fleeing the country when he found out he might face real jail time, while all his A list friends stuck up for him. To show how ****ed up these kinda things are to the victim, shes actually friends with polanski now and wants him to be able to come back to america and feels hes a victim of a flawed justice system. Even tho she still maintains he raped her.

Ben Roethlisberger - Alleged Rapes
Rae Carruth - hired hitman to kill woman 8 months pregnant with his child

Should "alleged" really count? I don't believe Jackson did it.

Chris Benoit- killed his wife and son
Mark Wahlberg- blinded a Vietnamese man in a racist attack

Micheal Jackson and Wody Allen didnt do ****

Loooool

Bill Cosby not being mentioned yet is a real shame. Dude isn't even a social pariah for everything that's come out.

Great actors dying from drug overdoses

PSH
Heath ledger

what did cosby do? Ive never even heard anything about it

What ever happened with Robert Downey Jr. allegedly outing Kirk Douglas and others as rapists on some message board?

You can't judge famous people based on normal standards, they inhabit a different world then us and adhere to varying social norms. It's like judging Genghis Khan for killing a couple million people - dude was just a product of his time.

Richard Pryor while freebasing coke and drinking 151 proof rum caught on fire and ran out of his house and down the street
.
Had a great joke about it
.
"When you are on fire people get out of our way"
.

Are you sure you don't mean Bing Crosby? What he did to his kids is unreal

I shudder to ask, because I love Bill Cosby.

I just googled it, apparently those chocolate pudding pops didnt start out chocolate. Jesus

oh yeah, and how can we forget R. Kelly

Rick James (bitch) - He and his then GF were accused of holding a 24-year-old woman hostage for up to six days, tying her up, forcing her to perform sexual acts, and burning her legs and abdomen with the hot end of a crack cocaine pipe during a weeklong cocaine binge.

Even worse than that was:

Ben Affleck - He made Gigli

Wow, don't recall ever hearing about the Bill Cosby scandal.

In answer to the OP, people have an irrational desire to lionize figures, and then go into anger and denial to protect their own inflated egos when those figures are exposed. See: every scandal or inconvenient truth and the minions of deluded supporters. Heck, a billion people think the Christian concept of god is great despite the entire Old Testament -- their own Bible -- showing just the opposite.

In the Dan Bilzerian containment thread, there were mentions of the good Dr MLK and his proclivity to beat up hookers. Apparently that's a thing some people know about. Anyone know anything else about it, or have any sources to corroborate?

Matthew Broderick veered into oncoming traffic, killed a woman and her daughter. He was fined $175 for careless driving.

fyp

http://www.snopes.com/history/american/mlking.asp