There was Tom Cruise with the couch on Oprah.
There was Mel Gibson with the tequila and the Jews.
Both these guys were regarded as big-time stars - now they’re punch lines to jokes.
I know there are others - can you think of any?
Jimmy Carter–“I have sinned in my heart.” That, and getting attacked by a rabbit.
Hugh Grant getting caught with a less-than-VIP-quality hooker. He’s doing OK now, but he would’ve been a top draw if that hadn’t happened.
Well… I don’t really think that your two examples are “jokes” just yet. Gibson is set to come with a new film that looks to be a huge, based on preliminary buzz, and Cruise is still a major box office player. Eccentric, non-mainstream religious beliefs (Cruise), and obnoxious when intoxicated behavior (Gibson) aren’t killers in Hollywood. I don’t really think they’re in the “lost all credibility” stage just yet.
When your movies and projects fail is when you start becoming a joke. By that measure these guys are still huge and successful players.
Pee Wee Herman’s incident in the porno house turned him back into Paul Reubens.
Well, when Michael Jackson got all that plastic surgery, and started hanging around with little boys, and dangled his baby off a balcony, and bought the Elephant Man’s skeleton, and built an amusement park in his back yard, and bought a monkey… okay, fine. He’s always been a joke.
OTOH, he bounced back from that and has since won a Nobel Peace Prize, setting a pretty high standard for behavior for ex-Presidents.
The owner of Ratners, a successful jewellery corporation, became a celebrity and lost all credibility simultaneously after this little hiccup:
Gerald Ratner, formerly the chief executive of the jewellery firm once called Ratners, made a fatal career move in 1991 when he said his shops sold “total crap”. Was he insane? No, deluded. You can’t sell reasonably priced items of a semi-precious nature to people who can just about afford them, then tell them they’ve bought rubbish.
Ratner’s chain of stores eventually closed down: not because of product quality, but because consumers felt they had been taken for granted. :eek:
What was his name – the rapper with the urine fetish?
Heh - rapper? Why do you think he’s a rapper (BTW FOXNews makes the same mistake, but what a surprise)?
R Kelly - and boy did Dave Chappelle grind that one down on that video spoof on his show…
2 words–Milli Vanilli
Eddie Fisher was a nice, wholesome singer in the 1950s who lost most of his credibility when he dumped that nice, wholesome Debbie Reynolds and ran off with the hussy Elizabeth Taylor. Fisher lost whatever credibility he had after that when Taylor dumped him and ran off with Richard Burton.
George Romney, front runner for the Republican nomination for President in 1964 unfortunately said he had been “brainwashed” about Vietnam.
Fatty Arbuckle , his scandal basically ruined his life.
Woody Allen came close, but at least he married the girl.
That hardly caused him to lose credibility, since the interview containing that remark was published immediately before he was elected president. Yes, that line became fodder for jokes at his expense, but in that respect it merely joined the peanut farm, the big teeth, the regrettable sibling, and so on.
I think we have a winner.
Mr. Orenthal James Simpson’s credibility was last seen speeding away in a white Ford Bronco.
And who can forget Roman Polanski?
If you’re bringing sports celebs into it, what about Hannibal…whoops, Mike Tyson?