From Cheating On Their Spouses To Stealing Ideas, These 18 Historical Figures Were Actually Pretty Problematic
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Recently over on r/AskReddit, u/TGYHJDFGH asked "What beloved person in history should actually be hated?"
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As someone who can't resist a historical fact, I was immediately intrigued.
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Here are 18 historical figures who have actually done some pretty horrible things:
1."Steve Jobs. The way he treated his family is horrible." —u/iameshwar_raj
In the memoir Small Fry, Steve Jobs' daughter Lisa Brennan-Jobs writes that the Apple founder was incredibly cruel.
Jobs initially denied paternity and refused to pay child support. Once the courts ruled that he had to pay, Jobs ensured all of the paperwork went through before Apple went public so that it appeared he was worth far less than he actually was. When Lisa was a teenager, she moved in with Jobs and his second wife, Laurene. After asking her father and step-mother to say goodnight to her, Jobs refused, replying, "We're just cold people." Jobs also failed to support Lisa through her extracurricular activities in school, telling her she had to quit so she could be available to babysit.
Jobs was apparently no kinder in the business world. He was known for firing employees for no reason, asking people invasive and inappropriate questions during job interviews, and refusing to offer his closest employees fair compensation and stock options in Apple.
2."P.T. Barnum. Due to the romanticization in The Greatest Showman, people should know that he was a maniac that did ungodly experiments on living beings, locked people in cages, abused and mocked them, all whilst earning pocket from them." —u/RogueVogueDino
While The Greatest Showman depicted P.T. Barnum as a leader who gave outsiders a home, in real life, Barnum was actually incredibly cruel to the people in his circus. He exploited Black people and people with disabilities, even holding a public autopsy for Joice Heth, a blind and partially paralyzed slave who Barnum claimed was 161 years old.
Barnum also mistreated animals, and often acquired animals for his circus in suspicious ways. Barnum bought two beluga whales and kept them in a tank in a New York basement. Both whales died within two days. He chartered a ship in Sri Lanka that he used to capture nine wild elephants. The elephants were kept on the ship for four months. Barnum's mistreatment of animals didn't end there. He introduced the bullhook, a sharp metal baton that handlers use as punishment for elephants, and was known for sticking hot pokers up their trunks if they misbehaved.
3."Coco Chanel used her Nazi lovers to win favor and ensure that her fashion house would thrive throughout the war." —u/Extraportion
When the Nazis took over Paris in 1940, Coco Chanel began dating Baron Hans Günther von Dincklage, who was a German military officer. She moved into Dincklage's hotel, which was a Nazi headquarters, and used the relationship to ensure her business would continue to thrive during World War II.
Chanel agreed to be an undercover agent for the Nazis in order to earn back the profits of her perfume line, which she had sold to a Jewish company in 1924. After Chanel was revealed to be a spy in 1944, she arranged to have her Nazi dealings erased to avoid punishment by paying the medical bills and taking care of the families of the people who threatened to expose her. Chanel escaped serving any jail time for her actions. She returned to Paris in the 1950s, where she regained control of Chanel until her death in 1971.
4."Elvis Presley groomed a 14-year-old and slept with her while he toured." —u/YellowB
During the height of his fame, Elvis Presley was the world's biggest heartthrob, who was particularly beloved by teen girls. While on the road, Elvis would often meet underage girls, who he would then invite back to his hotel or tour bus. After sleeping with a fan one night in Louisiana, the condom broke. Unsure of what to do, Elvis took her to the emergency room, then left her there while he called his 15-year-old girlfriend, who he had been cheating on.
Even Elvis's marriage to Priscilla Presley started off on some shady terms. The pair met while Elvis was deployed in Germany. He was 24, while she was just 14. Once Priscilla gave birth to their daughter, he refused to have sex with Priscilla ever again. He "had mentioned to me before we were married that he had never been able to make love to a woman who had a child," she wrote in her memoir. To make things even creepier, Elvis installed two-way mirrors in their Palm Springs home so he could spy on couples getting it on during parties.
After Elvis and Priscilla divorced, he started a new relationship with Reeca Smith, who was 14 years old. He later proposed to Ginger Alden, a 21-year-old former pageant star. Alden recalled Elvis firing a gun at her headboard while she was sleeping to get her attention.
5."Mother Teresa believed suffering brought people closer to God. Her hospices were just places for people to die in agony, but as soon as her own health was at risk, she fled to the best hospitals. She was a hypocrite and caused untold suffering that could have very easily been avoided with even basic medical intervention." —u/Pangolinsareodd
While Mother Teresa claimed to heal people, many of her treatment centers made patients even sicker because of poor practices. Needles were reused, patients were treated with expired medicine, and untrained volunteers were responsible for handling patients with life-threatening illnesses. Mother Teresa also believed that people were brought closer to God through pain and suffering. As a result, her treatment centers had mortality rates of over 40%. Despite this belief, once Mother Teresa began suffering from heart problems, she went to America, where she received advanced health care in a modern hospital.
Mother Teresa also had close relationships with questionable people, like Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, and Charles Keating, who committed financial crimes in the 1980s. Mother Teresa also received millions in donations. In fact, Keating donated over $1.25 million to her charity. Despite the millions in donations, it was reported that only 7% of the money went to the charities. When asked about where the money went, Nirmala Joshi, who worked for Mother Teresa's charity, said only, "God knows. He is our banker."
6."Andy Warhol is one of those people where the more I learn about him the less I like him." —u/Brendy_
Much of Andy Warhol's work came from his legendary Factory, where he hired artists to help produce his art and star in his films. The issue? They were overworked and underpaid, and received no credit while Warhol was praised for their work. When questioned about this, Warhol said that he paid people by giving them their newfound fame.
Warhol is often blamed for the untimely death of his muse, Edie Sedgwick. Sedgwick, who made 18 films with Warhol, became addicted to drugs while under Warhol's constant companionship. She died of an overdose at age 27.
7."Alfred Hitchcock. The guy probably was one of the best filmmakers ever, but it's worth mentioning how much he abused his actors, including sexually harassing Tippi Hedren." —u/RingoStarAllies
Tippi Hedren is known for her iconic roles in Hitchcock's classic films like The Birds and Marnie, but behind the scenes, Hitchcock sexually assaulted Hedren. In her memoir, Hedren wrote that Hitchcock tried to force her to kiss him, and would ask her to touch him on set.
During the filming of The Birds, Hitchcock promised Hedren they would use mechanical birds for a scene in which her character was repeatedly pecked. On the day they were set to film the scene, Hitchcock told Hedren there was a mechanical issue with the fake birds, leaving Hedren to be pecked by real birds for hours.
In 2021, Hedren's granddaughter Dakota Johnson blamed Hitchcock for the untimely end of her grandmother's career. "Hitchcock ruined her career because she didn't want to sleep with him, and he terrorized her. He was never held accountable," she told the Hollywood Reporter.
8."The Wright Brothers. The war between them and other aviation pioneers, including Glenn Curtiss, created such a blockage in aviation progress, that Roosevelt was forced to call them to the White House as their lawsuits were a threat to national security." — u/whippet66
Even though the Wright Brothers were pioneers in the aviation field, their love of lawsuits probably set aviation back several years.
In 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright successfully launched the first flight. In the years to come, other aviation enthusiasts attempted to launch their own, but were blocked after the brothers filed a patent for not only their technology, but the scientific principles involved in flight. Other inventors fought back, saying that the patents should only apply to their machine, and not the aeronautical principles of flight.
From 1907 to 1917, the brothers were involved in countless lawsuits, essentially trapping the American aviation field in gridlock. During World War I, American pilots had to fly European aircrafts instead because there was not a single American plane fit for military service available. Once the war ended, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was the Assistant Secretary of the Navy at the time, proposed a patent pool, meaning airplane makers could use each other's technologies for a small fee.
9."Woodrow Wilson was a giant racist who made segregation even worse during his term." —u/rewrarin
During his presidency, Woodrow Wilson re-segregated the federal government. While several government agencies had been desegregated as part of Reconstruction after the Civil War, Wilson re-imposed segregation in agencies like the Postal Service and the US Treasury in 1913.
Wilson also frequently defended the Ku Klux Klan. "At last, there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the Southern country," he wrote in his book, A History of the American People. Wilson also said that he believed that the KKK were wrongly denied the right to use violence to make their feelings known.
10."John Lennon. Treated like shit during his childhood, whines about it his whole life, then does the exact same thing to his son Julian." —u/BigMattress269
Throughout his life, John Lennon referenced his tumultuous childhood. He was abandoned by his father as a child. His mother later decided she could not handle raising a child, so she left Lennon to live with his aunt.
After Lennon married Cynthia Powell, the pair had a son, Julian. Lennon was supposedly an absent father who frequently criticized Julian. Lennon's housekeeper, Dorothy Jarlett, said that Lennon would smack Julian at the dinner table and often left drugs lying around the house.
Lennon cheated on Powell with Yoko Ono, and eventually married Ono. He made Ono accompany him everywhere, even forcing her to come to the bathroom with him. In a Playboy interview published just days before his 1980 death, Lennon admitted to hitting women. "That is why I am always on about peace, you see. It is the most violent people who go for love and peace," he said.
11."[Albert] Einstein. He influenced the Manhattan Project, and after the bombing of Hiroshima, he condemned the war. Basically, a wolf in sheep's clothing." —u/aykalam123
Albert Einstein might have been an incredible scientist, but he treated his family incredibly poorly. His first wife, Mileva Marić, was a talented physicist who reportedly had a hand in helping Einstein develop many of his theories. He refused to give her any credit for her work. By 1912, Einstein began having an affair with his first cousin. Despite this, Marić wanted to make the relationship work, so Einstein created a humiliating contract that essentially turned Marić into his maid. The pair divorced in 1919.
Einstein also ignored his children. He forced Marić to give up their first child for adoption, then refused to acknowledge his other children, even after his son had a breakdown and was sent to Zurich for treatment. He believed his only duty as a father was to provide financial assistance to his children.
After Einstein came to America during World War II, he was of high interest for the FBI, who followed him for 22 years. During that time, he urged President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to use nuclear weapons, which he said he regretted after seeing the sheer destruction they caused.
12."Dr. Seuss. Cheated on his wife, plus questionable racism in early work." —u/Cierraluxe
It's pretty much impossible to think of children's literature without thinking of Dr. Seuss, but in reality, his first wife, Helen Palmer Geisel, played a large role in the author's success.
Geisel helped Seuss write some of his most popular books, from creating the "Whos down in Whoville" from How the Grinch Stole Christmas, to writing the ending lines of When Horton Hears a Who. Geisel later became the vice president at Beginner Books, which was Seuss's publisher. While people in the industry knew of Geisel's influence on her husband's work, she rarely received recognition for helping to turn him into a literary sensation.
Despite the pair's literary success, Geisel faced several health challenges throughout her life. A surgery at age 33 removed her ovaries, and Seuss was often questioned by the media about why the pair didn't have any children. Geisel also struggled with Guillain-Barre syndrome, which attacks healthy cells.
After 40 years of marriage, Geisel felt trapped in a marriage that was no longer bound by love, but by business. She died by suicide, leaving behind a note that read, “I didn’t know whether to kill myself, burn the house down, or just go away and get lost." In the months following Geisel's death, it was revealed that Dr. Seuss had been having an affair with Audrey Stone Dimond, a close friend of the couple. The pair married less than a year later.
In recent years, Seuss's books have faced criticism for including characters with racial stereotypes from a Chinese character with lines for eyes to African men wearing grass skirts.
13."Henry Ford [was] part of a mutual admiration society with Hitler. [He] wrote an anti-Semitic screed called The International Jew, was a proponent of fascism in America, and surveilled his own employees at their homes to see if they were living up to his moral standards." —u/SonOfButtPushy
When he wasn't revolutionizing transportation with the development with the Ford Model T, Henry Ford was widely known for promoting his anti-Semitic beliefs.
Ford believed that all evil in the world could be attributed to Jewish people. In 1918, he bought the Dearborn Independent, his hometown newspaper, and began publishing a series of articles detailing a vast conspiracy that Jewish people were infecting America. The series ran in 91 issues of the paper, and Ford later bound them into a four volume book called The International Jew. Ford distributed over half a million copies of the book. In 1938, Adolf Hitler awarded Ford the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, Germany's highest honor for foreigners.
Ford also established the Ford Sociological Department, a team of over 200 people who he hired to spy on employees to ensure they were living up to Ford's standards.
14."John Wayne needed to be restrained from assaulting a Native American actress in the '70s at the Academy Awards." —u/b10h454r8_y
When Marlon Brando won Best Actor at the 1973 Academy Awards, he sent Sacheen Littlefeather, an Indigenous actor, onstage in his place to speak about the protests at Wounded Knee. This infuriated John Wayne, who was known for his roles in westerns, where he typically played cowboys who killed Indigenous people. He stormed the stage and had to be restrained by six security guards.
Wayne also spoke publicly about his white supremacist beliefs. In 1971, he told Playboy, “I believe in white supremacy until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility.”
15."Winston Churchill. He was great in WW2, but his actions in India are indefensible, and he was racist even in 1940s-'50s." —u/crispier_creme
Winston Churchill is often regarded as a World War II hero, but he also had some pretty racist views. Churchill was a believer in eugenics, and also thought that there was a racial hierarchy, with white protestant Christians at the top.
Churchill also advocated for the use of chemical weapons against the Kurds and Afghans. "I am strongly in favor of using poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes," he was reported saying in 1919, while serving as the minister for war and air.
In the 1940s, Churchill also refused to provide aid in India during the Bengal Famine, despite the fact that India was a British colony at the time. It's estimated that over three million people died during the famine.
16."Charlie Chaplin definitely. Dude groped and assaulted girls and married a woman 40 years younger than him." —u/cnoelle94
Silent film star Charlie Chaplin was known for his relationships with women who were often half his age. When he was 29, he married Mildred Harris, a 16-year-old actress, because she was pregnant with his child. Harris received roles because of her connection to Chaplin, but he was incredibly unsupportive and told her that she had no talent.
By 1924, Chaplin had impregnated Lita Grey, a 16-year-old actress who he had cast in his film The Gold Rush. The pair married, but divorced after three years in what was one of the biggest celebrity scandals of the time. In a 50-page statement, Grey detailed Chaplin's abuse, and wrote that he tried to force her to get an abortion. After another failed marriage to Paulette Goddard, a 22-year-old model and Broadway star, Chaplin married Oona O’Neill. O'Neill was 18, while Chaplin was in his 50s.
17."Thomas Edison wasn't an amazing inventor; he was a patent thief." —u/Sibogy
While Thomas Edison did have a role in inventing some incredibly life-changing things, he was actually a huge bully who was threatened by the success of other inventors. He also took credit for things he didn't invent.
In 1894, Nikola Tesla came to America to work with Edison. Edison bullied Tesla and told him his idea for creating a motor that was powered by alternating current electricity was too dangerous. Instead, Edison bribed Tesla to improve upon Edison's own technologies, and promised him $50,000 if he could do it successfully. Tesla did, and when he went to collect his money, Edison told him, "When you become a full-fledged American, you will appreciate an American joke."
Meanwhile, fellow inventor George Westinghouse had bought Tesla's alternating current patent. Edison felt threatened and launched a smear campaign. He publicly electrocuted animals in order to prove that Tesla's technology was dangerous. Edison was later asked if he thought electrocution was a humane method of execution. He said it was, and one of his employees was hired to develop the first electric chair, using Tesla's alternating current technology.
18."Charles Dickens tried to have his wife committed to an insane asylum so that he could run off with his mistress, a teenage actress." —u/Spacebarman010101
Charles Dickens harbored bitter resentment toward many of the women in his life, from his mother to his wives.
After his father was jailed, Dickens was pulled from school and sent to work at a factory, a decision he blamed his mother for. When he married his wife, Catherine Hogarth, Dickens didn't trust her to do anything properly, and would follow her to the store to ensure she ran his errands correctly. After he started an affair with Ellen Ternan, an 18-year-old actress, he began attempting to bribe doctors to diagnose Catherine with a mental illness so that he could justify divorcing her. Luckily, doctors refused to oblige.
Makes having to suffer through A Tale of Two Cities in school even worse now, doesn't it?
