40 Times People Were Shocked To Discover The True Colors Of A Person They Idolized

**Elon Musk**

Not so much "idolized" as "admired" and thought was a positive force for progress and advancing the right kinds of sciences.

Then it became obvious that he was actually a pretty horrible person.

Tough to match Bill Cosby

America has never loved anyone as unanimously as Bill Cosby. The Cosby Show was the #1 show in the country.

I’m old, so crushing on Sean Connery and later hearing him explain how you sometimes need to hit a woman to get her to fall in line.

Unfortunately, in my early 20s, I for some reason idolized **Donald Trump**. At the time, I bought the full season of The Apprentice DVD set and would watch it often. I thought those business people were so smart and wanted to be like that. I didn't have much money, so I would sometimes buy old business textbooks and those corny 1990s businessey self-help kind of books and read them.


25 years later, I'm in my mid-40s and hard cringe at the guy I used to be. So happy I never pursued business, and moved out of being in a big city. Enjoying a simpler life now, appreciating nature, camping and fine arts. I'm also Canadian, so not sure why I was obsessed with American businessmen. I can now sympathize with young men today, and recall feeling lost, unimportant, not included in society, and looking for male role models. We need to do better.

Not gonna lie I was pretty heartbroken to hear how awful Walt Disney was. Especially toward the Jews that man gave me Mickey Mouse and movies that made my childhood great. Not to mention he underpays staff and Disney meanwhile makes billions.

My favorite author from about 12-18 was Orson Scott Card, he wrote Enders Game. Turns out he is a super racist who called Obama an animal. He writes sci fi and how humans and alien races can coexist…but then hates black people. What a terrible thing to find out man.

My ex boyfriend took me in when my family disowned me for being gay, after I was anonymously outed. Thought he was my hero and an angel of a person. Later found out he was the one who outed me to them.

Idolized my father as a kid. Then I met his two previous kids, the ones he abandoned and refused to pay child support for, even while his ex wife had cancer. Not cause he was poor and couldn't afford it, but because he wanted to "climb the ladder of success."

Joke was on him, he hid his assets from his first wife by putting his house fully in the name of his second wife, who got to keep the whole house after his divorce.

As an 80s kid, Hulk Hogan. Lucky for him social media did not exist. I am sure he was the same guy then as the one he was later in life.

I remember a time where Will and Jada Pinkett Smith was held up as one of the few examples of a strong celebrity marriage.

Russell Brand

Used to be humble yet hilarious, witty beyond belief in his old radio shows and his British Ponderland show.

I met my hero in an airport, he was kind and charming and genuinely empathetic to me. They say never meet your heroes, but I was so happy I met mine.


Turned out to be a disgusting sycophant who kisses the rings of the worst people on the planet

What a disappointment.

My high school best friend. We were inseparable and unstoppable, super super liberal and free, anti-authoritarian, iconoclastic, irreverent, and very rebellious. He was the kind of guy that would wear a dress to make a point, or make up.

He's now a Trump voting MAGAt who will unabashedly tell you that he is proud to vote against people's rights.

I was very disappointed when it was revealed that Lance Armstrong had been doping for most of his career. And had forced others to do it.

I had believed his book when he wrote about his natural attributes to make him a great cyclist.

I threw out all my LiveStrong stuff and his book.

I used to be big on Sylvester Stallone watcher until he recently said the current president was the "modern day Washington". Gross.

In my early 20s, I made this friend. He was really cool, with an exciting job. He was super kind to me when I was going through a hard time. We messaged every day. He would even send me presents and not let me pay him back.

When we'd been friends for about 3 years, he suddenly cut off a lot of friends, including me. He later told me he was having a mental breakdown. It was hard to accept, because I thought he and I had been uniquely special to each other, and I was a little bit in love with him. I assumed because I was autistic and had depression, I wasn't cool enough for him, and he had dropped me from his life because he was sick of pitying me or whatever.

Years later, he added me back on social media. We got talking and he was complimenting me a lot; we were having a lot of really good conversation, back to being really good friends. We arranged to meet.

It was like love at first sight. We became a couple right away. It was magical. We had this sense of "Life has led me to you." He introduced me to his parents a couple of weeks later. He told me I was the best girlfriend he'd ever had and he wanted to be with me forever. He was the best partner I'd ever had.

For three months.

One day I didn’t want to be intimate, I was just depressed that day. And he Kicked. Off.

After that he was cold with me. The loving messages throughout the day stopped. Sometimes he'd just disappear and not explain it. He started flirting with waitresses in front of me, even calling them by the pet name he called me. He would buy me little presents like a fridge magnet (without me asking) then complain about how much money he spent. He told me his parents had said I was cold and arrogant, and when I asked his parents if I'd done anything wrong, they said they loved me.

He was obsessed with the idea that I thought I was too good for him. He had full on delusions that I had said he was ugly and mocked his career - things that categorically didn't happen, or even resemble anything that happened. He became obsessed with telling me I was a horrible person. When we were out together, he would walk meters out in front of me. I am 99% certain he was still talking to his ex, even though he told me she was stupid and boring and he was embarrassed to be seen with her. Our last weekend together, I was staying with him, and I had a bad migraine and had to mostly stay in bed. He gave me the silent treatment all day. I had done nothing to anger him, but he didn't speak to me, didn't let me get food from the kitchen, etc. Because of the migraine I couldn't leave and drive home.

I broke up with him after a month of seeing how bad he was after the lovebombing ended. He didn't try to win me back, but he checked my social media obsessively until I blocked him. Then he made up fake accounts to harrass me. Within three weeks of me breaking up with him, he got back with his ex and messaged me a picture of them together. That lasted for about a week.

When I think about what a wonderful friend he was for years, I feel in shock. How can they be the same person? It's chilling that most people who meet him still think he is one of the nicest people in the entire world.

I aspired to be as cool as Hyde in That 70s Show at one point... he's in prison now.

Pixar was THE storytelling studio from 1995-2010, and John Lasseter was one of the main people behind that. He revitalized Disney after that, and turned it into a juggernaut. His storytelling instincts were second to none. I used to listen to EVERYTHING I could find where he talked about story telling in order to be a better writer.

When it came out that he was a creep, it was very hard on me. I guess he was “just” a creep, compared to so many other people who were cancelled, he just edged into “making people uncomfortable” territory. Still, it ruined my perception of him.

Similarly, Kevin Spacey WAS my favorite actor….

I haven't been able to fully accept the Neil Gaiman accusations yet, probably because of how influential he was on teenage me.

My older brother. He was always the coolest guy I knew. Had his life together. It always seemed like everything went his way. Was good at sports, school, had lots of friends, dated pretty girls. We grew up and both had families of our own and remained close. I always felt like I struggled to keep it all together, yet he owned his own successful business. Had a huge house. A wife he was devoted to. Great kids.

A couple of summers ago he went through a divorce. A few months after the divorce he and I went on a trip to Vegas. It was the 2 of us, and one of his friends and one of my friends. He and his friend would go to Vegas together a couple of times a year, for about a decade. Our first night there after a 10 hour drive, we gambled for a bit, and headed to his condo around 1 AM. I was ready for bed and he and his friend were going back out. He didn't really say why, but his friend blurted it out. There was a massage parlor that they would frequent that was also a brothel. His friend added "we've been going here for years!".

That's when I realized the guy who i looked up to the most had been cheating on his wife for years. At that moment he understood that by his friend saying this out loud, that I knew he was a cheater.


I still love my brother. But I've never looked at him the same way.

My father than met a girl named Ella.
She was fun, energetic, kind, a teacher…
She seemed to really like me. Got really close to me. After a month she said that she could be my new mom and that she loved me.

I wasn’t doing well at all at this time.
I got quite attached to Ella. I was basically infatuated. I thought she was this amazing person who really cared about me.

Fast forward a couple months, it didn’t work out between my father and Ella. Likes crash and burn situation.

The day she decided to leave.
I was crying hysterically, asking her to stay and that I needed her.

She told me that I was a mosquito and sucked the life out of her, just like my father.

She apologized a day later, but that just did something with me. I kind of never recovered.

I am now 27 and always think people don’t actually like or care about me. I can’t help but ask if “everything is okay” or “if I did something wrong.”

I can’t seem to just shake that belief.

Am I really this horrible mosquito?

I try to forgive Ella, but think what she did to me was not okay.