Have any of Your Idols and Heroes Fallen From Grace?

[Denim&Venöm 18,111]

Has anyone that you looked up to in life that has worked in the public eye, as a singer, actor, athlete, or local leader ever done something that made you loose respect for them, perhaps all of it? 

 

I'm asking cause this has happened recently to me. I'm a wrestling fan. So I respect the work of one Hulk Hogan. He's the face of wrestling. Non-fans will know who he is. Yeah, he's had issues here and there, but nothing all that detrimental. Until leaked phone messages revealed that he's actually a racist bigot, complaining about his daughter dating a black man. WWE have since gone scorched earth policy and have severed ties, publicly fired him and scrubbed his image from most of the site. 

 

More recently and hard hitting was the case of Phil Anselmo, former singer for Pantera, and one of the most respected metal frontmen around. At the Dimebash event, an annual jam show done in memory of late Pantera guitarist, Dimebag Darrel, Phil was seen doing the sieg heil salute of the third Reich, and mouthing off "white power." He says it was an inside joke for white whine, which reports claim there was none. But regardless of that, this has been cropping up once in a while. I thought he was over this, but nope.  Metal is supposed to be an all inclusive genre. It takes in outsiders and knows no race, religion, gender, age or nationality. Let alone that this behavior in this day in age is uncalled for. I'm a huge Pantera fan. Who isn't? And yet this bigot is on all my favorite songs of theirs. It's gonna be a long time before I ever give any of their works another listen. 

 

So what about you guys? Any of your heroes, anyone you looked up to, do anything to shatter your confidence and respect for them? 

[IcyHaze 594]

Seems like Phil's gotten worse with age...that's a pity. But that still shouldn't stop you from listening to their music if you enjoy it, or form enjoying Hulk Hogan's career before now.

 

Although he's not an idol of mine, I used to at least enjoy Lost Prophets. Hearing about Ian Watkin's actions spanning his career shocked me, and I can't imagine how the true fans would've felt about it.

[GeekySonic 1,150]

A while ago there was a craze over one of my favorite YouTubers, SuperPsyGuy. He had been accused of sexual harassment and overall blatant sexism. I didn't want to believe it, but it looked pretty bad.

 

I never bothered to find out the result, but I haven't seen or heard much about him since.

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 41,212]

One of the original YouTubers I subscribed to, all the way back in 2008, was The Amazing Atheist. Back then, he was pretty great. He spoke about a lot of different issues, he had a lot of personality and he was one of the key factors to me becoming an atheist. Sadly, these days he is an absolute shell of his former self. His videos now are incredibly few and far between and nowadays he seems to only focus on 'feminist stuff'. He also seems to be putting most of his focus on his podcast 'The Drunken Peasants' which really isn't a very good podcast honestly so it is sad to see one of the first YouTubers I ever really liked go downhill completely.

[Buck Testa 5,505]

I don't idolize people much but there were people I thought were upstanding blokes that turned out too be garbage human beings. 

 

Bill Cosby comes too mind. Really liked the guy, used to watch the Cosby show as a kid, and I made the mistake in believing that the character he played was synonymous with the person he was. Now a days we know the truth about him and what he did, and one of the saddest outcomes of this is it just taints his entire legacy.