12 Celebrities Who Actually Faced Lasting Consequences For Their Bad Behavior, And 12 Who Got Backlash They Either Didn't Deserve Or Grew From

Backlash against a celebrity who gets called out for bad behavior doesn't always have a lasting impact on their career, but sometimes, they actually face lasting consequences. On the other hand, however, some celebs are treated horribly by the public and the media, only for those same people to later realize the backlash was unfair.

Here are 12 celebrities who rightfully had their careers ended for bad and criminal behavior:

Warning: mentions of sexual assault.

1.Following multiple allegations of sexual assault and the leaking of several alleged DMs where he said he was "100% a cannibal," Armie Hammer was dropped by his publicist, dropped by his agent, and dropped out of multiple projects. As of 2022, he was reportedly working as a timeshare salesperson in the Cayman Islands.

Discovery+ made a documentary about Hammer and his family called House of Hammer.

2.Throughout his YouTube career, Shane Dawson has apologized for jokes he made about animal abuse, pedophilia, and race. However, after he released an apology video for several resurfaced videos in 2020, YouTube demonetized all three of his channels.

3.After Roseanne Barr posted a racist tweet about former presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett, ABC canceled the successful Roseanne reboot, killed off her character, then retooled the show into a spin-off so the rest of the cast and crew could keep their jobs.

4.Director David O. Russell has a history of alleged verbally and physically abusive behavior toward actors on set and admitted to sexually harassing his own niece. The star-studded cast of Amsterdam — his first film in several years — drew online backlash for their involvement, and the movie absolutely tanked at the box office, losing nearly $100 million.

5.In response to the many allegations of sexual abuse women have made against R. Kelly, Time's Up called for a boycott of his music in 2018. Soon after, Spotify, Apple Music, and Pandora all stopped promoting his music, and his record label reportedly dropped him within a year. In 2022, he was convicted of federal sex crimes and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

6.Following many allegations of sexual assault, Bill Cosby was stripped of his honorary Navy title, had an endowed professorship he funded at Spelman College suspended, and resigned from the Temple University Board of Trustees.

Though his criminal conviction was overturned due to an agreement he made with a previous prosecutor to prevent them from filing charges, he was found guilty and sued in his first civil trial.

7.After Chris Noth was accused of sexual assault, his Peloton ad was taken down, his cameo was cut from the And Just Like That... finale, and he was fired from The Equalizer.

8.After Jussie Smollett was accused of staging a hate crime against himself, he was written off of Empire. He was later found guilty and sentenced to five months in jail, but he was released pending his appeal.

9.Following reports that her "be kind" mantra was a facade to cover a toxic workplace (including allegations of sexual assault and harassment made against executive producers), Ellen DeGeneres's talk show ratings declined. Within a year, she announced her decision to end the show.

10.In 2017, Kevin Spacey was accused of sexually assaulting actor Anthony Rapp when he was 14. More allegations followed, and Netflix suspended production on House of Cards, then later filmed the final season without Spacey.

Rapp lost his civil suit against Spacey, but Spacey is still set to be tried in London on five other counts.

11.Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte and several of his teammates alleged they were robbed at gunpoint during the 2016 Rio Olympics. However, after Brazilian police proved their story to be false, Lochte received a 10-month suspension from national and international swimming competitions, which included a withholding of his monthly stipend from USA Swimming. He was also dropped by all four of his sponsors.

12.And finally, cyclist Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France every year from 1999 to 2005, but in 2012, he was stripped of all seven titles and banned for life after the US Anti-Doping Agency found evidence that he'd used performance-enhancing drugs.

And now, here are 12 celebrities who faced backlash they either didn't deserve or actually changed from:

13.In 2018, Brendan Fraser faced backlash (and believes he was blacklisted) within the entertainment industry after alleging that Philip Berk, the former president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, sexually assaulted him in 2003. However, his fans stayed by his side, getting his name trending on Twitter in 2021 simply by praising him for being wonderful. At the 2022 Venice Film Festival, he received a standing ovation for The Whale, which brought him to tears.

14.In 2017, Terry Crews alleged that he'd been sexually assaulted by Hollywood agent Adam Venit a year prior. He was mocked by rapper 50 Cent. A producer from The Expendables franchise pressured him to drop the allegations, but he refused and dropped out of the films instead. TIME named Crews one of its Silence Breakers, the group that became the 2017 Person of the Year.

15.In 1983, Vanessa Williams became the first Black woman to be crowned Miss America, but she was forced to resign after Penthouse magazine published nude photos of her without her permission. However, she pivoted to music and acting, earning multiple nominations from prestigious awards shows, including the Grammys, the Emmys, and the Tonys. In 2015, the Miss America organization officially apologized to her.

16.In 2003, The Chicks faced intense backlash after addressing the Iraq War onstage. Natalie Maines told a London audience, "Just so you know, we're ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas." The band was banned from many country music radio stations, and the members received death threats. In response, they posed nude for an Entertainment Weekly cover with the cruel messages people had sent them written on their skin. They continued to stand their ground, helping open the door for other women in music to speak up about what they believe in.

17.In 2016, Taylor Swift faced intense backlash after Kim Kardashian leaked an edited version of a recorded phone call as "proof" that the singer had given Kanye West permission to use an offensive lyric about her, which she denied. Taylor took a break from public life before returning with her album Reputation, then, the full version of the call leaked in 2020, revealing she'd been telling the truth all along.

Taylor used the attention from the leak to direct her followers toward "what really matters," encouraging them to donate to the World Health Organization and Feeding America.

18.In 2008, then-15-year-old Miley Cyrus faced backlash from the public and Disney for posing backless for Vanity Fair. At the time, she released an apology statement, but 10 years later, she took it back, tweeting, "I'M NOT SORRY. Fuck YOU."

19.After Justin Timberlake ripped fabric from Janet Jackson's outfit and exposed her breast during their 2004 Super Bowl performance, his career remained virtually unscathed while hers suffered greatly due to the scandal. She was banned from the Grammys, MTV stopped promoting her music, and she was forced to apologize publicly. However, the situation was widely reexamined following the release of a New York Times documentary in 2021 and Jackson's own documentary in 2022.

Her fans rallied around her in support.

20.After Laura Dern played a lesbian character who helped Ellen come out on Ellen, she wasn't able to get any work for a year. She also had to have a full security detail for the first time in her life. However, the following year, she made her return with a Golden Globe-nominated performance in The Baby Dance.

21.In 2009, Megan Fox was fired from the Transformers franchise after a Wonderland interview in which she called director Michael Bay "a nightmare to work for." She was also heavily criticized for speaking out against him. Discussing the way her career was reexamined by the public in 2020, she told Refinery29, "Of course, I look back and think — it would have been nice if any of you had seen this at that time that there was a bandwagon of absolute toxicity being spewed at me for years. But, I appreciate the reversal of it."

22.In 2008, Britney Spears faced intense media scrutiny while she was experiencing a mental health crisis in the public eye. She was placed under a conservatorship with her father as guardian until 2021, when the court granted her freedom to make her own decisions about work, money, and communication. Fans who were part of the #FreeBritney movement celebrated with her.

23.In 2001, Winona Ryder was caught shoplifting from the Beverly Hills Saks Fifth Avenue. In the aftermath, she lost out on a role because the director couldn't get insurance on her for the film. She took a hiatus from acting before returning to independent films in 2006.

In 2007, she revealed that, at the time of her arrest, she'd been in a bad place and had been taking painkillers that left her in a state of "confusion."

24.And finally, following a series of arrests on drug-related charges in the late '90s and early '00s, Robert Downey Jr. lost several roles. After he completed rehab, some studios were still hesitant to cast him, including Marvel Studios — but director Jon Favreau fought to cast him in Iron Man. After Downey's screen test, the studio relented, and the movie launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

In 2015, the California governor granted him a full pardon. On the governor's website, it said, "He has lived an honest and upright life, exhibited good moral character, and conducted himself as a law-abiding citizen."