Oh yeah, good one Sublight. They were a great, diverse rock band, going as far as even flaunting that they didn’t use synthesizers. And then suddenly they started being a very cheesy 80s synthesizer band. Is it really the same band who made The Prophet Song and Heaven for Everyone?
Another example is Presidents of the United States of America. In the beginning they were a fun band, with the hit song “Peaches” for instance. But then with Freaked Out and Small they took a totally different direction and made a pop-rock song about Jupiter. Needless to say the audience was not amused.
Not that she had much of a fanbase to begin with but Anita Bryant seriously upset a lot of folks when in the mid 1970’s she was politically involved in working against gay rights, repealing pro-gay legislation etc. In 1980, she divorced her husband who actually got her involved in that political activism in the first place.
As if that wasn’t enough career destruction,
From Wikipedia:
Later in the 1980’s she stated
With all the varying anti-gay, pro-gay attitudes she has shown over the decades does she have any fans that she didn’t alienate?
Traci Lords
When William Shatner went on Saturday Night Live and told all of the Trekies (at the time his only fans) to “Get a life”, he really upset a lot of people. But since then he has achieve demi-god status and most have overlooked his stumble.
Linda Lovelace. When she spoke out against the porn industry, she lost her entire fanbase.
My take on it was that the writers glommed on to some fanboy website that had a detailed timeline and decided to use the final episode to explain to themselves what had gone on before.
However, my wife was completely alienated a few episodes before when Scully gave up the baby (William). Being a new mother at the time, it just broke her heart to see that (my wife also will go through the rest of her life never seeing A. I. again for the same reason).
So…um…never? 
My timeline might be wrong, but wasn’t he doing quite well with T.J. Hooker at the time? And I don’t think there was anyone who didn’t see that sketch as a friendly poke…but then, I wasn’t a hardcore Trekker (to use the correct term! 
)
Back when she had her own talk show, people used to call her “The Queen of Nice,” which kind of illustrates how her public persona has changed. Don’t think anyone would give her that nickname these days.
Most Star Trek fans loved the skit. They weren’t getalifes – it was some other Trek fans.
You hit the nail on the head. This was my post about Weezer, right down to the slow burn of Pinkerton. They were one of my favourite bands based on the Blue Album and Pinkerton and ever since I keep waiting for them to find “it” again.
I’m hoping for positive things out of the new album. My sister has completely given up on them but old habits die hard.
Mel Gibson.
Ezra Pound.
Both for similar reasons – turning toward the right-wing end of the political spectrum (or maybe by publicizing views they always had had.)
I believe, IIRC, that started changing about the time she had Tom Selleck on her show and hammered him over his membership in the NRA. Again, this is from a distant memory, but Tom was upset because she basically ambushed him when he thought he was there to do a movie/TV promo and talk about the basic afternoon fluff and it turned into an argument on air. People tuned in to watch Magnum and Rosie do some friendly banter and ended up feeling uncomfortable, no matter if you agreed with her or not.
I think this was her beginning of “screw it I’m not that nice and going to say what I think” slide that took her from nice to opinionated to mouthy and argumentative.
You are right…I’d totally forgotten about that Tom Selleck incident. I think a lot of people thought it was a really unfair blindside, since he seems like such a nice person, and not pro-gun because he’s on the side of the criminals, you know?
Woody Allen.
Getting drunk and calling a police officer “sugar tits” is a not a political statement.
Good call. I used to look forward to her books. Then I found myself skimming over the sex bits. And I like sex bits. Now I won’t even pick up one of her books. She is only plying to the “I wish I had a vampire boyfriend” crowd. No thanks.
What? No one’s said Britney Spears?
Her last album still sold out the wazoo didn’t it? Even after that “performance” at the MTV award show?
And apparently I’m the only one who doesn’t know all these stories already, because no one else is asking for explainations of these two word answers. 
What did Traci Lords do? I assume Woody Allen is the whole step-daughter fiasco (hey I knew one after all).
How about Paul Weller?
Granted, he’s still pretty popular over there, but when he broke up The Jam and formed the (ptooey!) Style Council, he pretty much gave the finger to Jam fans, IMHO. He hasn’t written a single interesting thing since about halfway through The Gift.