Living in the public eye can be a terrible thing, especially when media narratives don’t exactly line up with someone’s real life. Recently, Reddit user Zxqao took to the popular Ask Reddit page to ask, “What celebrity has had their reputation unfairly ruined and has never recovered from it till this day?” and the post got nearly 8,000 responses. I thought it was a pretty interesting conversation, so, I decided to share. Here are some of the best:1. “I never understood why Rosanna Arquette didn’t become a bigger star. She was everywhere in the ’80s and ’90s, was beautiful, a great actor, and had the Arquette name on top of it all. Then, when the #MeToo movement happened, she came forward about how Harvey Weinstein blacklisted her after she refused to comply with his disgusting ‘advances.’ Then it all made sense. He ruined her reputation in Hollywood, and it very much unfairly impacted her career. I’m glad to see her doing more acting these days, but I don’t think she ever fully recovered from that.”
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2. “Cliff Robertson (Uncle Ben in the Sam Raimi Spider-Man). He uncovered that David Begelman was embezzling money from actors working at Columbia Pictures. He was blacklisted for decades.”
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3. “Topher Grace had a bad reputation for being difficult and aloof on That ’70s Show. Turns out he was the only one who wasn’t a trash human.”
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4. “A lot of people still believe Macaulay Culkin was experiencing drug addiction and on the verge of death in his teens and 20s, but he says he never actually had a problem, and any drug use was regular recreational use (like any other teenager.) It was just tabloids creating a story based on pictures of him looking skinny and disheveled. He’s been in the public eye more lately, and you always see comments about how it’s ‘great to see him healthy and sober.’ It is great to see him showing up in movies and TV again, but that doesn’t mean he was ever actually addicted to drugs.”
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5. “Eartha Kitt was blacklisted for years for criticizing the Vietnam War and the Johnson administration at the White House. She did make a comeback years later, but she had to pursue a career in Europe, I think, while the government kept surveillance on her.”
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6. “Sarah Michelle Gellar got a reputation for being ‘difficult’ to work with, but it was actually because she was sticking up for the rest of her cast, making sure they didn’t have to work ridiculous hours. She used her star power for good and, of course, was punished for it.”
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7. “Definitely Brendan Fraser. He was blacklisted by Hollywood bigwigs for reporting ****** assault by the President of the HFPA in 2003. It wasn’t until The Whale (2022) that the tide turned and he was recognized for his work and for having been victimized twice.”
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8. “Mira Sorvino and Ashley Judd. Both were blacklisted after a smear campaign by Harvey Weinstein when they refused to sleep with him. Neither of their careers was ever able to recover from it.”
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—u/CaptainFartHole
“Sorvino won an Oscar for Best Actress, had a couple hits after that and then her career just abruptly cratered. It made no sense at the time, but makes complete sense with what we now know about Weinstein.”
—u/theguineapigssong
“[They were] blocked from receiving a role in The Lord of the Rings by Weinstein. Peter Jackson said that he’d been considering Judd for a role, but Weinstein intervened and told him that she was ‘a nightmare to work with.’ Being naive about Hollywood, Jackson believed him, and only realized what happened years later, after all the accusations came out.”
—u/geek_of_nature
“Peter Jackson hated Weinstein so much because he made production so frustrating that he based the ugliest Orc character in the series after him.”
—u/cornyhornblower
9. “Bobby Driscoll. Was once a rising child actor, and the voice of Peter Pan in the 1953 Disney movie. But when he started puberty, Disney dropped him, and he struggled to get any work in film and TV because of his acne. He ended up dying alone and penniless, and was buried in an unmarked grave.”
Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images, Lmpc / Getty Images
—u/transvalentine
10. “Janet Jackson. Timberlake’s career exploded after the ‘wardrobe malfunction.’ Janet Jackson’s tour got canceled.”
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11. “Monica Lewinsky. She admitted the affair with the president was a mistake and that she was young and naive. It seems she suffered more shame than Bill Clinton.”
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12. “The Chicks were politically canceled long before that became the term for it, and never fully recovered.”
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13. “I know she’s pretty much recovered career-wise, but for a while, Winona Ryder. Blacklisted for years for ******* shoplifting? Ridiculous. Love her, and whilst I wasn’t a big fan of Stranger Things, I thought she was great, and I was happy to see her acting again.”
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14. “Britney Spears. It’s wild how differently her story is viewed now compared to how it was framed at the time; it feels like a case study in media narratives.”
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15. “Amanda Bynes. She was truly beautiful, destined for success, and had the whole world at her fingertips.”
Jon Kopaloff / Getty Images
Related: These 13 Celebs Took Major Breaks From The Public Eye, And The Difference In Some Of These Before And After Pictures Is Truly Incredible
16. “I truly believe that Terry Crews could have been a hot **** leading man, not only in the action genre, but also comedy and even drama, and yet, he got essentially blacklisted because he stood up to [an executive] who sexually assaulted him.”
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17. And finally: “Marissa Tomei. Winning the Oscar weirdly tanked her career for over a decade, and it never really took back off again despite her talent and skill. She was plagued by rumors that the presenter read the wrong name or some other shenanigans happened for her to win an Academy Award for Best Actress in a comedic role in My Cousin Vinny over established actors in dramatic roles.”
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So, what do you think? Did these people deserve to have their reputations affected? Air your thoughts in the comments or the anonymous form!
Please note: some comments have been edited for length and/or clarity.
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