# What performers (movie, TV, sports) are forever ruined for you by their later actions? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 25, 2021, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-performers-movie-tv-sports-are-forever-ruined-for-you-by-their-later-actions/954909 "2021-11-25T03:30:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2021, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-performers-movie-tv-sports-are-forever-ruined-for-you-by-their-later-actions/954909/21 "2021-11-25T16:07:05Z")
Lavrenty Beria was one of my favorite Bolsheviks until I found out about him being a serial rapist. Mass murder is OK, but not serial rape. On a more serious (?) note, I’ve added the Green Bay Packers to the list of teams I don’t exactly root against, but kind of enjoy see losing, ever since Aaron Rodgers turned out to be a lying sack of antivax nuttery. Mostly I can separate performers from their private bad acts. It doesn’t mean I’d pay money to see anything Mel Gibson acted in or directed. Or go to a Fatty Arbuckle restrospective.\* 🤔 \*yeah, I know he probably was a victim of the Morals Police. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2021, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-performers-movie-tv-sports-are-forever-ruined-for-you-by-their-later-actions/954909/22 "2021-11-25T16:27:47Z")
Wanted to include a side-jack, if the OP will forgive me. I was talking about how Mario Batali’s actions IRL ruined my appreciation of individual episodes of shows in which he appeared, but mentioned that it came to mind as I was reviewing Anthony Bourdain’s works. I loved his (Tony’s) writing, attitude, snark and insight, but as I was re-watching, I found everything I watched dyed with a certain level of emotional distress knowing that after all of these experiences and joy, he still felt compelled to take his own life. A similar issue happens with any rewatch of Robin William’s works. Neither of them were perfect people of course, and we knew them from their roles rather than personally, but I suspect many of us have felt some degree of a connection with our favorite performers. It’s not nearly at the level of ruining their body of work, but it can similarly taint them all with a melancholy hue. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2021, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-performers-movie-tv-sports-are-forever-ruined-for-you-by-their-later-actions/954909/23 "2021-11-25T16:27:49Z")
> [@veryfrank](#): > > James Woods….a creepy personal encounter with him (I think I’ve told that story here) I don’t recall seeing your story. Please share again if you feel like it! Amen to most of these. Van Morrison I can separate the man from his music still. I hadn’t heard about his anti-vax stance, but I’ve heard for years what an obnoxious asshole he is, so I’ve been kind of ‘inoculated’ to it, hehe. I remember years ago reading the story of a reporter who got to interview him, and was really excited because he was a big fan of his music, but Morrison spent the entire interview complaining bitterly about how he was just as much of a genius as Dylan but he only got a fraction of the recognition for it. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2021, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-performers-movie-tv-sports-are-forever-ruined-for-you-by-their-later-actions/954909/24 "2021-11-25T16:33:24Z")
> [@Seanette](#): > > After hearing about the time Lin-Manuel Miranda stopped a live theatre performance (thus cheating his paying audience) to abuse an audience member who happened to be a politician he apparently dislikes so much that he cannot conduct himself as an adult professional and give the performance his audience paid to see, I refuse to partake in anything he’s involved in. What are you on about? That never happened. ---
**Author:** ![veryfrank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/87869e/32.png) [@veryfrank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/veryfrank)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2021, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-performers-movie-tv-sports-are-forever-ruined-for-you-by-their-later-actions/954909/25 "2021-11-25T16:37:07Z")
> [@solost](#): > > > [@veryfrank](#): > > > > James Woods….a creepy personal encounter with him (I think I’ve told that story here) > > I don’t recall seeing your story. Please share again if you feel like it! I ran into him at a film festival in L.A. at a screening afterparty. He was very friendly in the moment. As a Canadian former film student, I had to go on about Videodrome, how it’s really the seminal Canadian film text. He was intrigued when I told him about a TV cut I’d seen with a completely different opening as he’d never heard of it, and he told me that he and Cronenberg had actually been talking about collaborating again, but he couldn’t tell me what the project was (I suspected it was the biography of Ferrari that Cronenberg had as an unrealized passion project). He posed for a photo with me, big happy smile on his face. His date for the evening was a young and nubile blonde, probably much younger than me. I did know that about him at the time, that he liked his ladies young (I didn’t know until much later about accusations of harassment of underage actresses on sets), and that he’d dated Heather Graham by that time. When Woods turned away momentarily to speak to someone else, the girl told me “I like your tie.” And it was like a door slamming shut. His face went dark, he grabbed her elbow, and without a word steered her away from me. Creepy, weird and controlling. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2021, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-performers-movie-tv-sports-are-forever-ruined-for-you-by-their-later-actions/954909/26 "2021-11-25T16:43:47Z")
> [@ParallelLines](#): > > A similar issue happens with any rewatch of Robin William’s works. Not the same as Bourdain. Williams was afflicted with a crippling neurological condition that he knew was going to kill him anyway. Yes, he did suffer from depression during his life, but he ended it himself rather than go through the agony of letting the disease kill him. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2021, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-performers-movie-tv-sports-are-forever-ruined-for-you-by-their-later-actions/954909/27 "2021-11-25T16:51:31Z")
Leonard Cohen. I met a woman about 25 years ago (a senior citizen then and now deceased) who told me she had had a two-week fling with Cohen in New York City a few decades prior. (I’m being intentionally vague on the timing.) She got pregnant, and when she told him, he said he wasn’t interested, and in fact had quite a few such offspring scattered around and didn’t care about any of them either. She went to a home for unwed mothers,\* as girls did then, and gave the baby up for adoption. Many years later, she tracked down the now-grown child and they connected and then later had a falling-out. Yeah, this is apocryphal, and I’m sure the story, if true, isn’t unique – but I have had a hard time appreciating his music as much as I did before I knew this story. * * * \*I understand Texas evangelicals are re-instituting these facilities now that abortions will be harder to obtain – let’s _turn back_ the clock! ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2021, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-performers-movie-tv-sports-are-forever-ruined-for-you-by-their-later-actions/954909/28 "2021-11-25T16:51:58Z")
Liberal Catholicism is long gone, but it’s where I was raised. It held that sanctimony is a cardinal sin: immoral in itself; and stupid as well, since it’s often committed in reaction to much lesser venial sins. But drugging and anal rape of a 13 year old is not just a venial sin Nonetheless, I let the artwork stand for itself. My only criticism on that level is when Roman Polanski mades films like _Death and the Maiden_ or 2019’s Alfred Dreyfus movie as if to say “poor me, oppressed by a corrupt and brutal police state!” I only separate the art from the artist when he does too. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2021, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-performers-movie-tv-sports-are-forever-ruined-for-you-by-their-later-actions/954909/29 "2021-11-25T16:55:43Z")
Pee-wee Herman (aka Paul Reubens). Not so much for the indecent exposure arrest (not really all that bad), but that his TV and movies were geared toward kids, and he exuded an air of child-like innocence. ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2021, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-performers-movie-tv-sports-are-forever-ruined-for-you-by-their-later-actions/954909/30 "2021-11-25T16:58:52Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > His music touches my soul like nobody else’s. He’s a goddamn genius, Perhaps I did overstate things. Though I don’t think he’s done much of interest since about 1976. ---
**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:** [November 25, 2021, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-performers-movie-tv-sports-are-forever-ruined-for-you-by-their-later-actions/954909/31 "2021-11-25T16:59:09Z")
Chris Hardwick was my favorite celebrity ever, and I listened to his podcast daily. He is the best interviewer I’ve ever heard. He is open about personal details of his life, which has a disarming effect on his subjects, and on me. I had the sense “this is one of the good ones.” It sounds silly, but it was kind of a safe place for me. Then he was accused of abuse and sexual assault by a former girlfriend. I don’t know if she is telling the truth. I just know that I can’t go back and enjoy his work anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2021, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-performers-movie-tv-sports-are-forever-ruined-for-you-by-their-later-actions/954909/32 "2021-11-25T17:20:17Z")
> [@ParallelLines](#): > > Mario came readily to mind because I’ve been re-watching Anthony Bourdain’s shows (damn I miss him), and his NJ show with MB was one of my favorites (past tense). > [@ParallelLines](#): > > I was talking about how Mario Batali’s actions IRL ruined my appreciation of individual episodes of shows in which he appeared, Adam Ragusea did an excellent video on Mario with the premise: Hate the guy but love his show. Of course I have to include Kevin Spacey. Not only what he did but his rationalization for it and those creepy “House of Card” videos he did afterwards… To be fair, he was on a downhill slide for me after he found out all of those old actors in the Hollywood actor’s retirement home had Academy votes so he shows them some love, wins his Oscar for American Beauty then blows them off. And I’ll add Paula Poundstone to the mix. She made a plea deal that dropped the child molestation charges and pled guilty to child endangerment (DUI with her kids in the car). I used to watch her growing up but stopped when I found out what she had (allegedly) done. I tried listening to her podcast recently and her adventures in worm farming. She is so not funny anymore. It’s like listening to Grandma stories. ---
**Author:** ![racer72](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/racer72/32/3075_2.png) [@racer72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racer72)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2021, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-performers-movie-tv-sports-are-forever-ruined-for-you-by-their-later-actions/954909/33 "2021-11-25T17:21:41Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > On a serious note, I can’t stand to listen to Ted Nugent anymore due to his turning into (or maybe having been all along) a racist shithead, You can throw Kid Rock in the same pile of shit. Never cared for his music so this means nothing to me. Both he and Nugent spent some time at the White House with their noses firmly up Trump’s ass. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2021, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-performers-movie-tv-sports-are-forever-ruined-for-you-by-their-later-actions/954909/34 "2021-11-25T20:49:35Z")
Used to love Alice Cooper until I learned he plays golf now. ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2021, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-performers-movie-tv-sports-are-forever-ruined-for-you-by-their-later-actions/954909/35 "2021-11-25T21:07:41Z")
I use to love Ozzy Osbourne until he did that stupid reality show with his family. I think with both Cooper and Osbourne learning they are regular people kind of kills the mystique of the stage characters they play as musicians. Same for The Undertaker and pro wrestling as well. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2021, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-performers-movie-tv-sports-are-forever-ruined-for-you-by-their-later-actions/954909/36 "2021-11-25T21:09:40Z")
Charlton Heston. Whenever I watch one of his old movies I see his cold dead hands clutching a rifle. Spoils even the planet of the apes. ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2021, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-performers-movie-tv-sports-are-forever-ruined-for-you-by-their-later-actions/954909/37 "2021-11-25T21:16:39Z")
I have hard time watching any movie with Harvey Weinstein as an executive producer because it makes think about which actresses in the film he may have sexually harassed and raped. ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2021, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-performers-movie-tv-sports-are-forever-ruined-for-you-by-their-later-actions/954909/38 "2021-11-25T22:00:14Z")
_Seinfeld_ hasn’t aged well and seems far less amusing than it did thirty years ago, but it’s impossible for me to enjoy Kramer’s goofy exploits at all. Screaming racial slurs during his very public meltdown was bad enough, but maybe even worse was: > “Fifty years ago we’d have you upside down with a fucking fork up your ass.” That man bared his soul. Ugh. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2021, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-performers-movie-tv-sports-are-forever-ruined-for-you-by-their-later-actions/954909/39 "2021-11-25T23:29:13Z")
> [@Seanette](#): > > After hearing about the time Lin-Manuel Miranda stopped a live theatre performance (thus cheating his paying audience) to abuse an audience member who happened to be a politician he apparently dislikes so much that he cannot conduct himself as an adult professional and give the performance his audience paid to see, I refuse to partake in anything he’s involved in. > [@Pitchmeister](#): > > Are you talking about the time Mike Pence went to see Hamilton? Because 1) the speech was given after the play was over and 2) Lin-Manuel Miranda wasn’t even in the theater. > > Maybe you’re talking about a different situation, but I have a hard time believing Miranda actually interrupted a show to „abuse“ someone. This may be a possible conflation of the Pence incident and a show where Miranda - in mid-flow - chastised an audience member for filming the performance. That he managed to literally work this into the rap he was performing was, frankly, awesome, and the audience member took it in good grace and apologized afterward. Miranda has taken some flak for his perceived exclusion of darker-skinned Latinos in the casting of _In The Heights_ (for which he himself has apologized) but I’m not aware of him stopping a show to “abuse an audience member” of any kind. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2021, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-performers-movie-tv-sports-are-forever-ruined-for-you-by-their-later-actions/954909/40 "2021-11-25T23:33:37Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Lavrenty Beria was one of my favorite Bolsheviks until I found out about him being a serial rapist. One frickin’ scary dude. From wiki: > [@](#): > > According to official testimony, in Soviet archives, by Colonel Rafael Semyonovich Sarkisov and Colonel Sardion Nikolaevich Nadaraia – two of Beria’s bodyguards – on warm nights during the war, Beria was often driven around Moscow in his limousine. He would point out young women that he wanted to be taken to his mansion, where wine and a feast awaited them. After dining, Beria would take the women into his soundproofed office and rape them. Beria’s bodyguards reported that their duties included handing each victim a flower bouquet as she left the house. Accepting it implied that the sex had been consensual; refusal would mean arrest. Sarkisov reported that after one woman rejected Beria’s advances and ran out of his office, Sarkisov mistakenly handed her the flowers anyway. The enraged Beria declared, “Now it’s not a bouquet, it’s a wreath! May it rot on your grave!” The NKVD arrested the woman the next day > [@](#): > > The testimony of Sarkisov and Nadaraia has been partially corroborated by Edward Ellis Smith, an American who served in the [US embassy in Moscow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embassy_of_the_United_States,_Moscow) after the war. According to historian [Amy Knight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Knight), “Smith noted that Beria’s escapades were common knowledge among embassy personnel because his house was on the same street as a residence for Americans, and those who lived there saw girls brought to Beria’s house late at night in a limousine.” > [@](#): > > Vladimir Zharov, Head of the Department of Forensic Medicine at Moscow’s State University of Medicine and Dentistry and then the head of the criminal forensics bureau, said a torture chamber existed in the basement of Beria’s Moscow home and that there probably was an underground passage to burial sites. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-performers-movie-tv-sports-are-forever-ruined-for-you-by-their-later-actions/954909.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-performers-movie-tv-sports-are-forever-ruined-for-you-by-their-later-actions/954909.md?page=3)