Edgar Allan Poe - married his 13-year-old cousin,* drank himself to death,** and wrote stories inspired by drug use and mental illness.*
True, although this was not considered as bizarre in 1829 as it would be today. There is much debate about when, if ever, the Poes consummated the marriage.
** Poe died in a confused and incoherent state, but the cause is unknown. It may have been a natural illness.
*** This notion was part of a deliberate, malicious attempt by a biographer with a personal grudge to destroy Poe’s reputation.
William Shakespeare did not actually write any of his plays* and was a homosexual.**
Revisionist nonsense largely motivated by snobbishness (the “real” playwright is almost always thought to be university educated and/or a born aristrocrat).
** Is the poet’s love for the fair young man of the sonnets strictly platonic? Shakespeare’s not telling.
On top of that, he also put legal pressure on John David Carson to go by his entire name including the middle name, rather than simply “John Carson” as he originally intended upon making his debut in film at age 19, even though Johnny Carson himself obviously went by “Johnny Carson” and not “John Carson.” What kind of egomaniacal lunatic would be THAT hell-bent on making someone else’s life difficult?
John David Carson himself was a notorious womanizer - actor Jim Stacy’s wife apparently cheated on her husband (while he was recovering from a motorcycle accident which cost him an arm and a leg, literally) with Carson. And he dated other women while he was still married. He was also a degenerate gambler and supposedly lost all of his money, and is now either homeless or living in a “flophouse,” depending on whose story you believe.
And, he’s not so much a “celebrity” as a well-known political figure, but I distinctly remember hearing somewhere, around the time of his death, that Yasser Arafat was a closet homosexual and that his actual cause of death was AIDS. Supposedly they were very hush-hush about his illness, and I think that led to rampant speculation. Whether or not it’s true, I always have a (not particularly pretty) mental picture of Arafat getting it on with another man whenever I hear his name.
I’m always reminded of this old “let’s make up the worst possible remakes” thread on the Razzies forum, where someone came up with the following gem:
Citizen Kane starring Keanu Reeves. Whoa…Rosebud.