Top 10 Scandals

Top 10 Scandals

1. Charges of Sexual Abuse at Penn State

In what could easily be called the worst ever scandal in sports, former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was indicted by a grand jury Nov. 4 on 40 counts of sexually abusing and assaulting young boys. As the founder of the Second Mile, a children's charity, Sandusky had spent much of his postretirement career mentoring underprivileged young boys; according to the grand-jury testimony, he was also molesting several of them. What elevated the horrific allegations to an all-out debacle were the revelations that many of Sandusky's colleagues at the university, including legendary head football coach Joe Paterno and the university's president, had been aware of his behavior with children and didn't do enough to stop him. One assistant coach reported seeing Sandusky raping a child who looked to be about 10 years old in the university showers, but he did not report it to the police. As sickening as the allegations against Sandusky are, perhaps even more disturbing is what some have dubbed a cover-up by Penn State officials.


2. The Tabloid Phone-Hacking Scandal

It's fitting that the practices of some of Britain's most gossipy tabloids would become the center of one of the year's biggest scandals. Though the Rupert Murdoch–owned News of the World had long been accused of hacking into the mobile phones of celebrities to get story scoops, the gasket really blew when it was revealed that it had hired a private investigator who hacked into the voice mail of murdered 13-year-old Milly Dowler. The investigator then deleted messages to make room for new incoming voice mails that could presumably be mined for more stories about the tragic case. Heartbreakingly, the move gave Milly's family and friends hope that she was still alive and checking her voice mail, and it perhaps interfered with the police investigation. (Milly's murderer went on to kill two more teenagers before he was caught.) Not only were the public outrage and the subsequent parliamentary inquiry enough to shutter the 168-year-old News of the World, but also the ensuing investigation revealed how widespread the despicable practice was, as some 5,800 people are thought to have been hacked. Politicians and police officers had a hand in, or at least some knowledge of, the story-at-all-costs mentality that led to the hacking practice. And with the ongoing investigation and inquiry continually implicating more people and British tabloids beyond the Murdoch empire, it looks as if this scandal will continue into 2012.


3. DSK vs. the Maid

A hotel maid. A high-powered French official. A sexual-assault accusation. The bare facts of the attempted-rape case against International Monetary Fund director Dominique Strauss-Kahn read like the plot of an episode of the crime show Law & Order: SVU. On May 14, the New York City Police Department boarded an Air France flight just before its departure for Paris from JFK airport and arrested the IMF official on charges that he sexually assaulted a Sofitel hotel housekeeper. DSK was charged with attempted rape and spent six weeks in jail and under house arrest while the prosecution tried to build its case. Meanwhile, an international media frenzy ensued, as French news outlets and politicos lambasted the NYPD as well as the alleged victim, an immigrant single mother. Eventually the woman was prompted to face the public and tell her side of the story, but the case was already in tatters. Prosecutors, feeling that the maid lacked credibility, dropped the charges against Strauss-Kahn, and he returned to France. Though the scandal was effectively over, no one was vindicated: while DSK was forced to resign from his IMF position and his political career was severely damaged (he'd once been the favorite to replace Nicolas Sarkozy as President of France), the alleged victim was perhaps the most affected, as she was publicly humiliated and branded a prostitute and liar by tabloids. And the public was left with some lingering uncomfortable questions about the ethics of men in power, the justice system and whether sexual harassment still exists in the workplace.

4. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Hidden Child

Philandering and politicians seem to go hand in hand. But a scandal involving one of the most powerful political couples in the U.S., who'd been married for nearly 25 years, is still sure to cause a tabloid frenzy. When Arnold Schwarzenegger announced in May that he and his wife Maria Shriver would be separating, people wondered what went wrong. They didn't have to wonder for long, however, as Arnie confessed to the Los Angeles Times that he'd had an affair with the family's longtime housekeeper that had resulted in the birth of a son over a decade earlier, before the former actor became governor of California. Shriver, who apparently initiated the separation after learning of the betrayal, and Schwarzenegger had met in 1977; they have four children together. (Their youngest son was born just days before Schwarzenegger's love child.) The blow was thought to be particularly hard for Shriver, who during her husband's 2003 election campaign had defended him against allegations of sexual harassment and womanizing. In July, the former journalist, current philanthropist and Kennedy heiress officially filed for divorce.

5. Congressman Anthony Weiner's Explicit Photos

Was there ever such an appropriate last name for a seedy politician? We don't think so. The Democratic Congressman had been married to Hillary Clinton's longtime aid Huma Abedin for less than a year when, on May 27, he tweeted a sexually suggestive photo of himself, intended as a direct message to a 21-year-old woman, to all of his Twitter followers. Though he quickly deleted the tweet and proceeded to claim he'd been hacked, several women came forward with claims that the politician had sexted them as well. And soon enough, explicit nude photos purportedly of the Congressman began to surface on the Internet, in addition to some embarrassing images of him preening in front of mirrors at the congressional gym. He later publicly admitted he'd been corresponding with several women over the past three years. While Weiner initially refused to step down when the scandal erupted, after the women reported they'd had sexually charged online conversations with him, he resigned.


6. Charlie Sheen's Career Implosion

There's going out with a bang, and then there's going down in a fiery crash — the route Charlie Sheen opted for when he parted ways with CBS and his role on the popular sitcom Two and a Half Men. Following a very public clash with the show's creator, Chuck Lorre, Sheen embarked on a lengthy series of erratic and bumbling interviews in which he came off as increasingly unhinged. When CBS officially dropped the ax and fired Sheen, who had more than a year left on his contract, the actor's downward spiral continued, playing out in front of a very eager audience. Sheen filed a wrongful-termination lawsuit against the network, declaring that he deserved a 50% raise. He paraded his live-in girlfriends, dubbed "the goddesses," around in interviews while undergoing a public custody fight with Brooke Mueller, the mother of his two youngest children. Along the way, he coined about half a dozen catchphrases with bizarre statements like "I'm tired of pretending I'm not a total *****in' rock star from Mars" and frequent shouts of "winning." He even took his ego show on the road, with a short-lived tour that sold out in some cities and got him booed off the stage in others. While much of Sheen's behavior was worrisome, it was more likely the boldness with which he carried out his breakdown that caused such a stir in the media. While most celebrities hide behind vague explanations and big sunglasses when scandal strikes, Sheen flaunted his erratic lifestyle for all to see; sadly for everyone involved, we just couldn't seem to stop watching. And in case you haven't gotten enough of him, the FX network has tentatively picked up a sitcom starring Sheen for next year called Anger Management.

7. John Galliano's Anti-Semitic Slurs

In the year's most shocking fall from fashion grace, the king of couture and the creative head of Dior, John Galliano, was charged with drunkenly hurling anti-Semitic slurs at a couple in a Paris café in February. While the British designer later said in court he had no recollection of the incident, blaming "a triple addiction" to "alcohol, sleeping pills and Valium" for his offensive behavior, he had originally denied the charges, going so far as to counter sue his accusers. But when a video emerged showing Galliano on a separate occasion drunkenly proclaiming his love for Hitler, there was no longer much point in denying the charges. Dior fired its golden boy, and the company's newly signed campaign model Natalie Portman openly lambasted Galliano and his remarks. A court in Paris, where racial and religious hatred speech is illegal, heard the details of the case and found him guilty in September. While his official sentence was on the lighter side — a suspended fine of 6,000 euros (nearly $8,500) — the real punishment was the damage to Galliano's status and career.

8. Beyoncé's Disappearing Baby Bump

The year's biggest collaboration news in hip-hop was undoubtedly the announcement that Beyoncé and Jay-Z were expecting their first child. All it took was one calculated cupping of a budding baby bump on Aug. 28 at the MTV Video Music Awards for the Internet to go into overdrive with the news that one of the biggest couples in music was procreating. Yet just weeks later, in October, the Internet was buzzing over the same baby bump, or rather, the seeming lack thereof. When Beyoncé appeared on an Australian talk show, her swollen stomach, whether by trick of light or a fold in her dress, appeared to deflate as she sat down. The scandal was brief but furious. Was Beyoncé faking a pregnancy? Was she wearing a prosthetic bump while paying a surrogate to carry her child? Was she planning on adopting à la Angelina and passing the baby off as her own? Each speculation seemed less likely than the last, but that video, when slowed down, sped up and freeze-framed, really did appear to show a bellyless Beyoncé. After an exasperated denial by B's publicist and the release of some beach photos taken weeks earlier of a bare bump, the Internet conceded: if the camera can add 10 lb., perhaps it can also temporarily camouflage an actual baby.


9. Kim Kardashian's Divorce

Apparently even a celebrity-obsessed public can take only so much. After the media circus that was reality-TV star Kim Kardashian's whirlwind romance with and engagement to NBA player Kris Humphries, Americans were treated to an extravagant and televised "fairy-tale" wedding. The couple's nuptials were featured in a two-part television special on the E! network that drew 4.4 million viewers and reportedly netted the couple $18 million in media rights, gifts and donated items. Just 72 days later, Kardashian announced that she was filing for divorce, and a backlash erupted. Critics blasted Kardashian for her seemingly blasé view of marriage, and some accused her of using the wedding to make money. Others demanded to know what the couple would do with their lavish wedding gifts and exorbitant profits from the big day. And more than 100,000 people signed an online petition to E! Online, requesting that her family's show, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, be canceled.

10. The Judge William Adams Video

Any Internet consumers worth their salt know that disturbing videos are just part and parcel of a world where everything can and often does end up online. In late October, a video was posted to the social news website Reddit that was so upsetting it caused an instant scandal off-line. The 7-min. clip, filmed in 2004, showed a man viciously and repeatedly whipping his teenage daughter with a belt. Even more disturbing was the video's description, which identified the man as a prominent Texas county-court-at-law judge, William Adams. The video was posted by his daughter Hillary Adams, who wrote that she had been "holding on to the video until the right time" and added a request that viewers share the clip. Share they did; they also started a campaign to have Adams brought to justice. The State Commission on Judicial Conduct launched an investigation of the judge after it was flooded with calls, e-mails and faxes — many condemning the judge, others debating the rights of parents to apply corporal punishment. Adams, who sometimes oversees family law cases, later admitted that it was him on the tape, though he claimed it was a dark part of his past and that he no longer hit his children. Hillary publicly disagreed, as did Adams' ex-wife Hallie Adams. While Texas prosecutors said the statute of limitations prevented them from criminally charging Adams, the video and resulting backlash against the judge resulted in his suspension from the bench as well as a restraining order preventing him from seeing his other daughter.