# Undeniably talented artists/performers who are also, undeniably, horrible people. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 27, 2014, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283 "2014-12-27T16:09:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/181 "2015-01-01T11:15:33Z")
Sylvester Stallone is a major asshole in various ways, but may not qualify as “Undeniability talented.” I Googled for corroboration and got [the SDMB thread “What celebrities are complete bastards?”](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=502333) ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/182 "2015-01-01T11:44:43Z")
> [@Lemmytheseal2](#): > > I wish Iron Maiden wouldn’t wave the Union Jack, but their lyrics and other statements make it clear that they are not jingoists. They only wave it for one song AFAI’m aware (i.e. The Trooper, which is about the Charge of the Light Brigade and how daft it was, so putting on the jingo for that one is contextually and ironically appropriate). Besides, it’s kind of like skulls and norse imagery and inverted crosses and that - few metal bands take this stuff seriously but they \*look \*hella cool, so. I’m more leery about Lemmy’s apparent Nazi enthusiasm, on and off stage. I’m sure he’s no fascist himself, but he’s still creepy about it sometimes IMO. Anyway, if he hasn’t been mentioned yet : Louis-Ferdinand Céline. Great writer. Very shitty person, especially when it came to the Jews. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/183 "2015-01-01T12:32:27Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Sylvester Stallone is a major asshole in various ways, but may not qualify as “Undeniability talented.” > > I Googled for corroboration and got [the SDMB thread “What celebrities are complete bastards?”](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=502333) Wow. This post from **corkboard** from nearly six years ago is kind of eerie, and consistent with what we’ve heard about the Cos lately: > [@What celebrities are complete bastards?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-celebrities-are-complete-bastards/481827/118): > > I’ve never heard anything good or bad about Bill Cosby, but I worked backstage at an event he hosted once (maybe '91-92) and he was a complete prick to everyone on the crew, except the one attractive girl we worked with. She was about 25 at the time and adorable, and he not only spoke only to her and no one else, **but it was sort of embarrassing how thick he was laying it on with her.** He was rude and dismissive of everyone else. ---
**Author:** ![Idilia\_Dubb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c2a13f/32.png) [@Idilia\_Dubb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idilia_Dubb)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/184 "2015-01-01T12:41:30Z")
Then there’s Lassie. What a bitch! ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/185 "2015-01-01T15:48:16Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > OH, but c’mon. You and your kid got a great story out of it! > > “And thissss…is my combo Bonilla-Bonds autograph. You can see where Bonds intentionally signed over it.” Wasn’t my kid, but the son of a coworker this happened to. > [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Then there’s Barry… possibly one of the most gifted players to ever don spikes, and a complete, thorough, unpleasant, demanding, egotistical asshole I wouldn’t ask for an autograph if he knocked on my door. The coworker lives in St. Louis, and it happened when Bonds was with the Pirates (therefore, before 1993). Bonds was a prima donna back then, maybe even a royal dickhead, but he probably only recently started juicing and wasn’t yet suspected of being the cheater, Mr. Asterisk, who stole Aaron’s record. > [@pulykamell](#): > > Love that Bonilla/Bonds story. Hell, to me it makes it all the more valuable in my eyes with the story that goes with it. It’s not just another run-of-the-mill autograph. True enough, it’s a unique story, but imagine an 11-year old boy, proud of his glove and his autograph collection - when he first sees what Bonds did, he may have thought (and, I wasn’t there when it happened): Now, why did he do that? That, and maybe also Hey, both autographs are ruined! But into his adult years he does have a good story and physical evidence of how much a royal dickhead Bonds is. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/186 "2015-01-01T17:42:42Z")
> [@Spoke](#): > > **Miles Davis** , maybe. I don’t know enough to know if he was an asshole generally, but he sure did harbor a lot of racial hostility: > > “If somebody told me I had only one hour to live, I’d spend it choking a white man. I’d do it nice and slow.” _Miles Davis Can’t Shake Boyhood Racial Abuse_, Jet March 25, 1985. A black man who lived through the 1930s and 1940s and 1950s and 1960s in America harbored some “racial hostility”? Well, you could have knocked me down with a feather. How unreasonable of him! Also, your quotation was incomplete and therefore somewhat misleading. You can see the article [here](http://books.google.com/books?id=FbEDAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA1&pg=PA61#v=onepage&q&f=false): > [@](#): > > “If somebody told me I had only one hour to live, I’d spend it choking a white man. I’d do it nice and slow.” But the veteran musician added, “The only White people I don’t like are the prejudiced White people. Those the shoe don’t fit, well, they don’t wear it.” Davis had white musicians in his various groups throughout his career. Early on, in the 1940s, he even got some criticism from black musicians for it. From his autobiography: > [@](#): > > Then a lot of black musicians came down on my case about their not having work, and here I was hiring white guys in my band. So I just told them that if a guy could play as good as Lee Konitz played—that’s who they were mad about most, because there were a lot of black alto players around—I would hire him very time, and I wouldn’t give a damn if he was green with red breath. I’m hiring a motherfucker to play, not for what color he is. When I told them that, a lot of them got off my case. But a few of them stayed mad with me. > > [Miles: The Autobiography](http://www.amazon.com/Miles-The-Autobiography-Davis/dp/0671725823), p. 117 ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/187 "2015-01-01T18:18:19Z")
> [@Idilia\_Dubb](#): > > Then there’s Lassie. What a bitch! With a dong. All the “Lassies” were Laddies, because female collies are apparently so stupid you have to lead them to the feed bowl every day. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/188 "2015-01-01T18:20:53Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > Wow. This post from **corkboard** from nearly six years ago is kind of eerie, and consistent with what we’ve heard about the Cos lately: Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Applies here. ---
**Author:** ![Lemmytheseal2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/82dd89/32.png) [@Lemmytheseal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemmytheseal2)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/189 "2015-01-01T18:33:25Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > As noted earlier, H.P. Lovecraft was a racist and anti-Semite, and Richard Wagner hated Jews, too. Though with Lovecraft, that moderated over time, and he married a Jewish woman, right? Didn’t Wagner make exceptions for the Jews he knew personally, explaining that he didn’t hate, but he thought that Jews just would never fit in with European Christian civilization? Still vile, but hardly Nazi-caliber. > [@](#): > > Michael Jackson, 'nuff said. Weird and creepy, but his life was turned inside-out, without producing anything that would prove he harmed any children. He actually didn’t fit the profile of a sex offender. > [@](#): > > None of this stops me from appreciating their work. I think you have to be able to separate artists’ personal failings, no matter how awful, from the merits of what they produce. I always take it case-by-case. ---
**Author:** ![Idilia\_Dubb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c2a13f/32.png) [@Idilia\_Dubb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idilia_Dubb)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/190 "2015-01-01T19:52:07Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > With a dong. All the “Lassies” were Laddies, because female collies are apparently so stupid you have to lead them to the feed bowl every day. And didja hear? Tomatoes are _fruit_. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/191 "2015-01-01T19:57:34Z")
> [@Idilia\_Dubb](#): > > And didja hear? Tomatoes are _fruit_. [Chico Escuela]Tomatoes been berry, berry good to me. [/CH] ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/192 "2015-01-01T21:26:35Z")
> [@Superdude](#): > > How can we have made it this far without mentioning Ty Cobb? > [@running\_coach](#): > > Because he makes everyone mentioned look like a saint in comparison. This concludes the baseball portion of the thread. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/193 "2015-01-02T01:20:42Z")
> [@Lemmytheseal2](#): > > Didn’t Wagner make exceptions for the Jews he knew personally, explaining that he didn’t hate, but he thought that Jews just would never fit in with European Christian civilization? Still vile, but hardly Nazi-caliber. What I know about Wagner I only know through my study of Nietzsche’s life. Nietzsche was at one point obsessed with Wagner and believed him to be Europe’s salvation - his first book, _The Birth of Tragedy_ is basically a giant love letter to Wagner. He was really into the aesthetic of the Dionysian impulse that he thought Wagner’s music represented, blah blah. Wagner was an extreme anti-Semite and a debaucher in the very least, and it was his anti-Semitism in part that drove a wedge between the men. It was a very public falling out, and at one point, Wagner accused Nietzsche of being too heavily influenced by Jewish thinkers. Nietzsche later published _Nietzsche Contra Wagner_ which painted Wagner as a sad, sad little Christian anti-Semite. I’m certainly not implying Nietzsche was unbiased - indeed, his entire philosophy throughout the course of his life was profoundly and obviously biased - nonetheless, his philosophical differences with Wagner were a profound driving force in his life. Wagner may not have been running concentration camps but he was actively, publicly anti-Semitic. Nietzsche’s anti-Semitic SIL Elizabeth Forster-Nietzsche later went out of her way to draw a connection between Hitler, Nietzsche and Wagner, and to co-opt Nietzsche’s works for Nazi propaganda during a time when Nietzsche was syphilitic and catatonic. Wagner’s music is ‘‘unofficially’’ banned in Israel. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/194 "2015-01-02T01:27:15Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > …Wagner’s music is ‘‘unofficially’’ banned in Israel. More on that: [Are public performances of Wagner still rare in Israel? - Cafe Society - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=630666) ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/195 "2015-01-02T06:57:31Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > A black man who lived through the 1930s and 1940s and 1950s and 1960s in America harbored some “racial hostility”? Well, you could have knocked me down with a feather. How unreasonable of him! I think most black people who made it through the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s, and then made it to 1985 (the date of Davis’s quote) did not harbor a desire to spend their last hour on Earth slowly choking a random white man to death. You can argue about whether he was justified in becoming an asshole, I guess, but that quote makes him an asshole. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/197 "2015-01-02T10:28:34Z")
> [@xenaj](#): > > this isn’t spam: :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/198 "2015-01-02T11:14:05Z")
reported ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/199 "2015-01-02T11:14:17Z")
I actually clicked on those links. I’m not saying it was smart. Both pages seemed like a hodgepodge of images. Maybe trying to plant spyware? ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/200 "2015-01-02T12:08:52Z")
> [@Lemmytheseal2](#): > > Reagan was a war criminal … Maybe, or maybe not. Leaving political opinion aside, does anyone class Reagan as an \*undeniably \*talented actor? ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/201 "2015-01-02T12:37:57Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > I’m more leery about Lemmy’s apparent Nazi enthusiasm, on and off stage. I’m sure he’s no fascist himself, but he’s still creepy about it sometimes IMO. I’m not a huge Motorhead fan but I like them well enough. I don’t know anything about the subject but I do have a little anecdote. Back in my active duty Army days I was stationed in Germany a few of us went to see Motorhead at the Frankfurt Festhalle. The crowd had a very enthusiastic mosh pit going on which probably couldn’t be seen from the stage. The crowd area was very dark. Because they were going crazy during the songs, in between it was pretty quiet while everyone tried to catch their breath. Lemmy obviously could not tell that was what was going on from the stage. He was getting frustrated until he yelled at the crowd, “What the fuck is wrong with you people? Did Hitler turn you all into morons?” So from that one instance it did not seem like he thought Hitler was a good influence. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283.md?page=11)