57 People Who Were Once Put On A Pedestal, Then Gave Everyone A Reason To Take Them Off

Clarence Thomas was once a black panther. Wrap your head around that s**t.

Howard Stern is probably not the best example, but a current one. He has became everything he rallied against and mocked.

Naomi Wolf was an important public intellectual in the 90s, and is legitimately crazy now.

Jackie chan was one of the few brave celebrities who spoke about the 1989 tianemman square attacks 

He later became the biggest lapdog of CCP .

Francois ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier. He was an actual doctor and saved lives in a US-sponsored campaign against tropical diseases. He then became dictator of Haiti, fostered a cult of personality based around voodoo and k****d a reported 30,000-60,000 people.

Fred Phelps.  He was a lawyer and a hero of the Civil Rights Movement.  He won several landmark cases and was even awarded by the NAACP.

He then went on to found the Westboro Baptist Church .

Jimmy Saville d**d while he was still a hero in a lot of people’s eyes. 

He didn’t live long enough to see all of us realize he was a villain. .

Scott Adams.

Dilbert was once counted among the most popular comic strips in the country but as soon as it's creator found social media it all vanished in moments.

Now he's d**d and it'll probably never be relevant again since he has no heirs and the rights are a quagmire.

If Elon Musk had actually d**d on Mars when he first expressed such a wish back in 2013, I imagine he would be remembered very differently.

I heard it said that if Mao had died in 1950, he would have been a hero forever. If he died in 1960, he would have been a complicated figure. Unfortunately, he died in 1976.

Edit: thanks to /u/eXAt88, the actual quote from Chen Yun is:
”Had Mao died in 1956, his achievements would have been immortal. Had he died in 1966, he would still have been a great man but flawed. But he died in 1976. Alas, what can one say?”.

Robert Mugabe:

started off as a liberator and anti colonist

ended off as a hated dictator.

It's always going to be JK Rowling for me. In spite of the, admittedly, problematic themes in the Harry Potter books, Rowling could have easily been remembered solely as one of the most beloved children's book authors of all time. She wrote a book series that defined a generation and which was, ostensibly, about fighting oppression and the power of friendship. All she had to do was take her gazillions of dollars, sit in her mansion in Scotland, and keep her mouth shut while cashing checks for the rest of her life.

Instead, she decided to devote every ounce of her energy to.....saying really cruel stuff on social media? Being chronically online? Bullying children? For what?? What is she getting out of this? Attention?? She already had plenty of attention! All she's doing is alienating a huge part of her fan base and losing money. Yes, there are lots of people who don't care and still support her, but there's no denying she's lost money and tarnished her reputation to some degree.

Obviously, I personally think she's a transphobic jerk.. but even if you are a person who also hates trans people, you've gotta agree that her course of action here is just incredibly stupid. Why open your mouth just to say divisive s**t??? If she had just kept her opinions to herself everyone would still universally love her. Instead of a big devoted fan base that adores her, now she has people who actively hate her, people who are generally put off by her, people who reluctantly still support her because they love Harry Potter so much, and people who only loudly support her to own the libs. Yikes.

Che Guevara? He did so much good as a doctor in poor communities in South America. But the Cuban Revolution hardened him. He easily put "traitors" to d***h and other atrocities.

Or Castro? Everyone thought he was going to bring power to the people,  but he quickly k****d off his fellow revolutionaries and became a dictator.

Edit: added Castro.

Fritz Haber. He worked out how to fix nitrogen from air, which is why roughly half of everyone alive today can be fed, then ran Germany's chemical weapons programme and stood at Ypres to watch the first chlorine attack. His institute's pesticide work led to Zyklon B, which ended up being used on members of his own family.

Philippe Petain. Was a French general in ww1 and a decorated war hero. In ww2 he signed France’s surrender to Germany and cooperated with n***s.

Kanye west those first few albums went crazy and then he went crazy.

Hulk Hogan. He went from America’s Superhero in the 80s… and then in the 2000s he said the guy his son almost k****d in a car crash deserved it, the racist rants came out in 2015, the Trump supporting the year before he d**d and then getting booed in his final pro wrestling appearance and now that he’s d**d he still gets s**t on.

Maybe Ashton Kutcher, he saved so many little girls, but gave one bad reference and his reputation was ruined.

Neil Gaiman. He was the anti-JK Rowling and a progressive man, a feminist even - until the multiple s****l a*****t claims.

Themistokles. Saved the Greeks at Salamis, then “defected” to the Persian empire.