# 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:** 11
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/202 "2015-01-02T13:54:47Z")
Dunno if it’s been mentioned, but Sean Penn. ---
**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 2, 2015, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/203 "2015-01-02T15:44:02Z")
> [@Spoke](#): > > 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. But you’re still misrepresenting the situation. As the more complete quote I provided demonstrates, it was not simply any random white man that he was talking about. He was talking about racist white men, the type who discriminated against him. To be honest, I think his comment is probably also hyperbole, something that Davis was well known for in his interviews and his public pronouncements. I would have to see a lot more than that single quotation in order to nominate him for this thread. How would you like to be judged by a single statement, especially if it were the dumbest or most offensive thing you’ve ever said? ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/204 "2015-01-02T16:08:53Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > Alton Brown is reportedly a massive jerk and there are reports of him being [a racist and homophone](https://cleanplatter.wordpress.com/2011/09/18/the-taste-of-disillusionment/) as well. I clicked this just to make sure you meant “homophobe”, but the second part of the article about pork tenderloin sandwiches is a great read, and makes a great point about how restaurants will give you an absurd excess of one thing (the mean in said sandwich) and an absurdly paltry serving of something else (cole slaw). ---
**Author:** ![KRC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/45deac/32.png) [@KRC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KRC)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/205 "2015-01-02T16:25:34Z")
Forget Eminem or whoever he claims to be. Us artists remember Ol’ Peggy Guggenheim, Ms. lead wallet cos it never came out of her pocket. She saved modern art from Hitler, and when asked how many husbands she’d had, she said “Mine, or someone else’s?” ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/206 "2015-01-02T17:07:19Z")
> [@Lemmytheseal2](#): > > He (Michael Jackson) actually didn’t fit the profile of a sex offender. Actually he did fit the profile of a certain kind of child molestor - > [@](#): > > According to Holmes and Holmes (2002), the offender has not fully developed and shows characteristics of a child . In particular, fixated offenders do not develop past the point where they find children attractive and desirable . The fixated offender’s actions are typically premeditated in nature and do not result from any perceived stress . > > In addition, this type of offender is often unable to attain any degree of psychosexual maturity and, 174 during adulthood, has had virtually no age-appropriate sexual relationships. The fixated offender is more likely to choose victims who are male and not related to him (Abel and Rouleau, 1990; Simon et al., 1992 ; West, 1987). > > It is the fixated offenders who are most dangerous to society, constituting “a public health problem” (Abel, Lawry, Kalstrom et al ., 1994) as well as a “criminal problem” (Freeman-Longo, 1996) . These offenders develop relationships with vulnerable children (vulnerable in either an emotional or situational sense), and they typically recruit, groom and maintain the children for a continuing sexual relationship (Conte, 1991) . The offenders delude themselves into believing they have established a caring, supportive role with the child and that the child is > able to derive pleasure and educational experience from the interaction (Abel and Rouleau, 1995 ; Marshall and Barbaree, 1990b) . [Cite](http://www.bishop-accountability.org/reports/2004_02_27_JohnJay/LitReview/1_4_JJ_TypologiesOf.pdf) - pdf. Regards, Shodan ---
**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, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/207 "2015-01-02T17:11:41Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > But you’re still misrepresenting the situation. As the more complete quote I provided demonstrates, it was not simply any random white man that he was talking about. He was talking about racist white men, the type who discriminated against him. I don’t think that’s what’s going on in that quote. I think he let his guard down and expressed his genuine sentiment, then realized it would look bad in print and made an attempt to amend it on the fly. …Oh, but I would only choke a racist white man to death! Yeah, that’s the ticket. ---
**Author:** ![Lemmytheseal2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/82dd89/32.png) [@Lemmytheseal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemmytheseal2)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/208 "2015-01-02T17:17:26Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Actually he did fit the profile of a certain kind of child molestor - > [Cite](http://www.bishop-accountability.org/reports/2004_02_27_JohnJay/LitReview/1_4_JJ_TypologiesOf.pdf) - pdf. > > Regards, > Shodan I remember reading that he didn’t fit the profile because such offenders usually try to keep a very low profile, and/or seem completely inconspicuous. The latter seems to be possible in cases where someone is prominent in their community or otherwise well-known. Some very famous people have managed to live far quieter lives than Jackson ever did. He always made headlines, and his increasingly strange persona was both obviously suspicious and totally conspicuous, especially _after_ the first set of allegations in the 1990s. ---
**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, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/209 "2015-01-02T17:28:14Z")
Here’s a [Rolling Stone interview with Miles Davis](http://www.forghieri.net/jazz/MilesDavisRSInterview.html). He comes across as pretty surly and race-obsessed. > [@](#): > > White groups don’t reach me. I can tell a white group just from the sound, don’t have to see them…All the white groups have got a lot of hair and funny clothes – they got to have on that shit to get it across…See, white guys can only play a certain tempo. [Taps fingers at a medium tempo on the bus’dashboard.] They can play here, but they can’t play here [slightly faster tapping] or here [fast tapping]. When you got a fast tempo, you gotta have some shit going on – keep it running under. The average rock group can play at a medium tempo [tap, tap, tap, tap], but a little more [taptaptaptap], they can’t play it. For me, if I listen to a white group, they got to have some spades in there for me to like them in more than one tempo… There’s a lot more similarly race-obsessed sentiment in the interview. Sorry, but to me he just comes across as an asshole. Now you could say his experiences drove him to be an asshole, and maybe you’re right. But he was still an asshole. ---
**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, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/210 "2015-01-02T17:41:27Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > 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) Upon further investigation, it looks like the Jet author may have been trying to mitigate Miles Davis’s racist comments by splicing two different interviews together. The choking a white man to death part of the quote is from a 1985 USA Today interview, but it looks like the second quote was taken from a [Playboy interview](http://www.erenkrantz.com/Music/MilesDavisInterview.shtml) from 1962. ---
**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 2, 2015, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/211 "2015-01-02T21:07:54Z")
> [@Spoke](#): > > There’s a lot more similarly race-obsessed sentiment in the interview. Sorry, but to me he just comes across as an asshole. Now you could say his experiences drove him to be an asshole, and maybe you’re right. But he was still an asshole. It sounds to me like he’s talking about what it’s like to be a black artist in a country where whites still run things. He doesn’t sound especially obsessed to me, and if he was actually an asshole, i don’t think that interview constitutes very good evidence. Quite a few of the questions he was answering were specifically about race. If talking about race in the late 1960s (or at any other time, for that matter) makes a black guy an asshole in your book, you must live a pretty bitter existence. ---
**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, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/212 "2015-01-02T22:02:13Z")
He is not just “talking about race.” He is making blatantly racist statements. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/213 "2015-01-02T22:38:32Z")
Unless I’ve missed it, no one has mentioned Ritchie Blackmore yet. Other than to praise his guitar mastery, it seems no one has a good thing to say about him. Ian Gillan: [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QF3wM-SGcs) Ronnie James Dio: Without much digging I could come up with many more examples. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/214 "2015-01-02T22:48:19Z")
> [@Spoke](#): > > Here’s a [Rolling Stone interview with Miles Davis](http://www.forghieri.net/jazz/MilesDavisRSInterview.html). He comes across as pretty surly and race-obsessed. > > There’s a lot more similarly race-obsessed sentiment in the interview. Sorry, but to me he just comes across as an asshole. Now you could say his experiences drove him to be an asshole, and maybe you’re right. But he was still an asshole. Because the brutal racism and anti-black violence of the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s, in both the the North and South, was all in his imagination. And it wasn’t the result of policies advocated and supported by the great majority of white Americans. ---
**Author:** ![A\_Dodgy\_Dude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a87d85/32.png) [@A\_Dodgy\_Dude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_Dodgy_Dude)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/215 "2015-01-02T23:14:54Z")
I don’t know if she’s horrible or not, but everything I’ve heard about Julia Roberts says she’s a genuinely unpleasant person in real life. ---
**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, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/216 "2015-01-02T23:34:43Z")
> [@Belowjob2.0](#): > > Because the brutal racism and anti-black violence of the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s, in both the the North and South, was all in his imagination. And it wasn’t the result of policies advocated and supported by the great majority of white Americans. And that justifies Miles Davis’s racist sentiments (including violently racist sentiments)? Not when so many others made it through the same era without giving themselves over to that mode of thought. Nope. Still an asshole. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/217 "2015-01-03T00:21:28Z")
Here’s a way that Miles Davis was definitely an asshole: he beat his wife, Cicely Tyson. He mentioned in his autobiography that he “slapped the shit” out of her when they were having a disagreement. He didn’t express remorse at all. As far as I could tell, he didn’t see anything wrong with it. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/218 "2015-01-03T00:33:56Z")
> [@dalej42](#): > > …Ronald Reagan… Ronald Reagan wasn’t a particularly good actor or a particularly bad politician. As has been mentioned before, disagreeing with someone’s political viewpoints doesn’t make them a “horrible” person. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/219 "2015-01-03T02:08:00Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > Ronald Reagan wasn’t a particularly good actor or a particularly bad politician. As has been mentioned before, disagreeing with someone’s political viewpoints doesn’t make them a “horrible” person. Depends on how you feel about war criminals. I personally think they are scum. ---
**Author:** ![Lemmytheseal2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/82dd89/32.png) [@Lemmytheseal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemmytheseal2)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/220 "2015-01-03T03:30:49Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > Ronald Reagan wasn’t a particularly good actor or a particularly bad politician. As has been mentioned before, disagreeing with someone’s political viewpoints doesn’t make them a “horrible” person. As I’ve mentioned before, this isn’t a case of disagreeing with someone’s politics. The Nicaraguan Contras and the death squads of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras were basically indistinguishable from the Einsatzgruppen, and yes, I deliberately made that comparison. When people flee from these destroyed countries, they are demonized/scapegoated as illegal immigrants, curiously unlike what happens when Cubans flee from a leftist dictator. I could go on, all around the world, but you get the point, right? Oh, suppose Bill Clinton had been an accomplished saxophonist or something like that. He would go on this list also, for similar reasons (Iraq, Serbia, Sudan…). ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283/221 "2015-01-03T03:49:22Z")
That’s some very loose definition of the term “war criminal.” You cheapen the word by your use of it to the point where it’s meaningless and every world leader who ever committed troops to a military venture is now a war criminal. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/undeniably-talented-artists-performers-who-are-also-undeniably-horrible-people/708283.md?page=12)