40 Real-Life Heroes Who Lived Long Enough To Turn Into Villains

Philippe Petain. In WW1 he led the French to victory at Verdun, one of the worst battles in human history. In WW2, after France was beaten, Petain was the head of state of Vichy France. Guy went from the Lion of Verdun to the biggest N**i collaborator in France.

Netflix was once THE streaming service. Always had something to watch and the price was worth it. But now, most of those shows and movies are gone, some of them long before things like Disney+ and other network streaming services came about. It got to the point where it was a joke to say "you wanna watch it? Then it's not on Netflix" or something along those lines. Additionally, Netflix once put out a tweet about how "love is sharing your login" but is now charging extra for every additional party using an account. The price for a subscription has also gone up substantially, to the point where there were times my family considered dropping the subscription entirely. Netflix, how far you've fallen...

Ghandi

Blizzard Entertainment (now Activision/Blizzard) Used to be the darlings of the PC world with everything they creating being solid gold classics on launch Now nothing but recycled trash, cash grabs, micro transactions, and sexual assault scandals How the mighty have fallen

R Kelly. Grew up with The Worlds Greatest, Ignition, Ignition (remix), plus other songs. We all voted for The Worlds Greatest to be our graduation song in ‘07. Then we find out he’s minor league Jeffery Epstein.

The company apple

Kevin Spacey

[Specialist John "Stebby" Stebbins](http://www.crimemagazine.com/war-hero-who-became-child-[abuser]) portrayed in *Black Hawk Down* by Ewan MacGregor. Dude was a desk jockey in the US Army Rangers, deployed to Mogadishu in an administrative capacity. For one reason or another was pulled from his cushy position to fight on the ground with infantry and became a total natural, going berserk on the enemy and receiving commendations from numerous squadmates. Dude was nothing short of heroic in a nightmare scenario. Years later he was court marshalled and sentenced to several years in prison. He'd raped his daughter, a toddler. Total fall from grace if I ever saw one.

I had a longtime coworker that I earnestly thought was a great guy. Extremely funny, super charismatic, generally kind. Nice shoulder to lean on, exceptionally conversationalist. I absolutely thought he was one of the best people I had ever met, and did for several years. At the start of a shift, I found out from a girl that had dated him that he was physically and verbally abusive. He had dated several coworkers and multiple coworkers came out and said that it was something that had happened with multiple women, all of whom were scared to speak up about it because they didn't think anyone would believe that *he* of all people was a domestic abuser. I spent the rest of the shift nauseous and sick, unable to focus on work at all. On one hand it felt like a betrayal, and on the other I felt selfish as f*** for putting myself in any sort of "victimhood" in such a situation when there were genuine victims of his assault. I didn't really know what to do or say and at one point was walking by multiple coworkers, himself included. Just kept my head down and tried to walk by, but one of my coworkers called me back. Turns out, they were roasting the f*** out of him because he had just admitted to being a flat earther. I absolutely deflated, because his intelligence had been one of the things I really admired about him. In the course of a single shift, I found out one of the smartest and kindest people I knew was a physically abusive flat earther. He never faced any repercussions for his actions to my knowledge. I quit a couple weeks later, every shift was miserable after that.

Richard Nixon. Won the 1972 election by a landslide, with only Minnesota and DC voting for McGovern, on the back of a strong economy. Two years later resigns in disgrace over Watergate, in the midst of stagflation, and his reputation has never been rehabilitated.

I feel like mine has to be Elon Musk. He seemed like he was this good guy and now he is just an [jerk]

Every organ until it gets cancer

English engineer and writer [James P. Hogan.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_P._Hogan_(writer)) He wrote several really solid Sci-fi books that were hugely influential to me when I was growing up, and then towards the end of his life he became a Holocaust/AIDS/climate change denier.

Benedict Arnold. Almost died during the revolutionary war, if I recall correctly, and if he had he would have been remembered a huge hero, and a martyr. Instead he lived and changed sides, and is remembered only for his being a traitor.

Neil Degrasse Tyson. Though he became less of a "villain" and more "buzzkill". At first he seemed like the next Carl Sagan, celebrating the wonders of science and the universe. But somewhere along the line he turned into this smug, pseudo-nihilistic wet blanket who p*o-pooed on anyone getting excited over solar eclipses and stuff. As someone who grew out of that mentality back in middle school, it's honestly kind of embarrassing to witness the same attitude being showcased by an actual astrophysicist who's old enough to be my dad.

My dad used to annoy me by calling my Pokemon cards "Pokey-Mans". Now my kids have them and I do the same thing and it annoys the s**t out of them.

Chris Benoit This was terrible to see. I was a huge pro wrestling fan back in the day. To my knowledge, Benoit was actually a great person until he suddenly wasn't. That 'suddenly wasn't,' though, carried a h**l of a consequence. It's actually kind of amazing how people with severe CTE act very similarly. When your job is basically to pound your brain in every night, who knows what will happen? Just look at all the NFL guys who have similar issues, i.e. Steve McNair. I feel bad for everyone involved, which includes Benoit himself. I don't think he even had the ability to reason anymore. Steroids didn't help, but I think they only expedited things.

Phoenix Jones, that superhero from Seattle. Saved some people over the years then eventually was caught by an undercover cop selling MDMA.

Tony Blair. He was such a popular figure at one point. But it went so badly for him!

Linus Pauling is an intresting one. He was one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century - won the Nobel Prize twice. Later in life he went off the deep end and became convinced that Vitamin C could cure cancer and maje him immortal - an idea that lives on in various forms today.