10 Times Celebs Were Fooled by Horrible People

10 Times Celebs Were Fooled by Horrible People

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re examining our picks for the infamous times a celebrity befriended or conducted business with someone only to discover they were a terrible person.

Lou Pearlman’s Pop Band Scam

Inspired by the success of New Kids on the Block, Pearlman went into the music industry as a manager. After a talent search, he had his first band, the Backstreet Boys. They were soon followed by NSYNC, Aaron Carter, and O-Town, among others. However, in 1998, the Backstreet Boys issued a lawsuit against Pearlman. The group had only made several hundreds of thousands of dollars compared to Pearlman’s millions. Further lawsuits were later issued by NSYNC and Carter for similar reasons, all three of which were settled out of court. In 2007, after officials announced Pearlman had been running a Ponzi scheme, he fled but was soon arrested. In 2008, he was sentenced to 25 years in jail but passed away in 2016 after only serving a portion of his sentence.

Cristiano Ronaldo & the Fraudulent Travel Agent

In 2021, the Portuguese newspaper Jornal de Noticias announced the country’s most famous football star had been the victim of fraud. Between 2007 and 2010, Ronaldo used the services of travel agent Maria Silva to make 200 trips, even giving her a virtual credit card and PIN. However, she soon took advantage. Silva was getting other clients to pay her directly and then charging Ronaldo’s card to the company to hide her crimes. He lost around $340,000 or €288,000, while his agent Jorge Mendes lost $20,000, and fellow footballer Nani $2000. In 2017, after confessing to her crimes, Silva was handed a four-year suspended sentence and ordered to repay the stolen amounts.

The Real Christophe Rocancourt

Known as Eric Rockefeller, Christopher De Laurentiis, Christopher de la Renta, or any one of the other aliases he used, Christophe Rocancourt moved from his native France to the U.S. and began rubbing elbows with the rich and famous in the 1990s. He splashed cash on luxury restaurants to convince guests to invest in one of his business ventures. Rocancourt even lived with Mickey Rourke and purportedly got Jean-Claude Van Damme to agree to produce his next movie. However, the Frenchman was a con artist and an imposter, and he’d been stealing money. In 2001, after fleeing from arrest the previous year, Rocancourt was tracked down in Canada. In 2003, he was sentenced to three years and 10 months and fined $9 million. Afterward, Rocancourt returned to France, where further accusations followed him.

Dana Giacchetto: Money Manager to the Stars

Armed with his own company, the Cassandra Group, Giacchetto began rising in high society after meeting talent agent Jay Moloney, who opened the door for the stockbroker to work with the rich and famous. Leonardo DiCaprio was one of his clients and even stayed in Giacchetto’s loft for months. Tobey Maguire, Cameron Diaz, and Ben Affleck are just some of his other clients as he raked in fortunes and threw lavish parties. However, in 2000, Giacchetto was arrested for fraud. He pleaded guilty to stealing up to $10 million. However, prosecutors believed it was a number over $20 million. Giacchetto was sentenced to 57 months in jail. In 2014, he received two years of probation after another fraud charge, but ended up passing away in 2016.

Naya Tuiasosopo Catfished Manti Te’o

Before he broke into the NFL and was still playing college football for Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Manti Te’o announced heartbreaking news. In the matter of a day his grandmother had passed away and he’d lost his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, to leukemia after she was diagnosed following a serious car accident. However, a report in early 2013 found that Kekua didn’t exist. Instead, a fan who now goes by Naya Tuiasosopo had been pretending to be her, effectively catfishing Te’o into a fictitious relationship despite never meeting in person. Naya told the college star she was Kekua’s cousin and befriended him, too. Tuiasosopo later admitted on “Dr. Phil” how she conducted the hoax and was in love with Te’o.

The Scientology Ponzi Scheme

In 1999, at his 50th birthday party, Reed Slatkin, the co-founder of the internet service provider EarthLink, had his high status all but cemented thanks to greetings and praise from Kevin Costner and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yet, not everything was as it seemed. As a member of Scientology, Slatkin used his position and connections to embezzle money as part of a Ponzi scheme. He often targeted fellow Scientologists, such as Giovanni Ribisi and Joe Pantoliano, taking over $593 million from 800 investors within 15 years. Former venture capitalist John Poitras alone lost $15 million. In 2003, Slatkin was sentenced to 14 years in prison. He was released in 2013 but passed away soon after in 2015.

Celebrity Endorsements of FTX

In 2021, the cryptocurrency exchange company FTX was flying high. On top of bringing in a fortune, they had celebrities endorsing them and starring in their commercials. NFL legend Tom Brady and then-wife Gisele Bündchen, as well as NBA icons Shaquille O'Neal and Stephen Curry, were involved. However, due to fraud conducted by Sam Bankman-Fried and others, the company folded in 2022 as legal cases were issued. With the amount of shares Brady and Bündchen had in FTX, they lost approximately $45 million when it went bankrupt. Many of the celebrities who endorsed the company have been sued by clients. In 2024, Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years. Later, in client lawsuits, he would side against the celebrities who endorsed his company.

Oprah Winfrey & the James Frey Lie

If you were an unknown author, getting a recommendation from “The Oprah Winfrey Show’s” Book Club segment could turn you into an overnight success. In September 2005, the talk show legend selected James Frey’s “A Million Little Pieces.” It was said to be a memoir of the author’s struggle with substances. However, allegations were then released claiming that the content was embellished and contained lies. In 2006, Winfrey confronted Frey on her show, leading to him admitting to lying. Winfrey wasn’t done as she also publicly embarrassed the book’s publisher, Nan Talese. The scandal caused Frey’s agent to drop him. Lawsuits soon followed, leading Random House to set up a refund policy in 2007 in order to settle the cases.

Fyre Festival Influencer Endorsements

Scheduled to take place over weekends in April and May of 2017, Fyre Festival was set to be a luxury music festival on the island of Exuma in The Bahamas. Leading up to it, several celebrities, including Hailey Bieber, Bella Hadid, and Kendall Jenner, jumped aboard to promote this unmissable experience. However, some of the famous faces didn’t disclose it was an advertisement when they published on social media. This drew further ire when the festival turned out to be fraudulent. What attendees got paled in comparison to what they were promised. As lawsuits soon rolled in, the event’s organizer, Billy McFarland, was sentenced to 6 years in jail. Bella Hadid apologized for her role, while Hailey Bieber donated her fee to charity.

Bernie Madoff's Ponzi Scheme

As the head of a successful stock brokerage firm for decades, Bernie Madoff’s reputation grew as he began working with high-profile foundations, including those created by writer and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel and film director Steven Spielberg. He also worked with other celebrities like Kevin Bacon, John Malkovich, and Sandy Koufax. Yet behind the scenes, Madoff was crafting the largest known Ponzi scheme in history. The majority of those who invested with Madoff lost millions. Malkovich alone lost $2.23 million. Altogether, the scheme was esteemed to be worth $65 billion. In 2008, Madoff’s sons called the cops after he admitted to them about the scheme. He was sentenced to 150 years in prison. He served almost 12 before passing away in 2021.


What other infamous incidents did we miss out from our list? Anne Hathaway’s partner Raffaello Follieri committing fraud? Prince Harry being the victim of a practical joke by Russian radio hosts? Let us know in the comments.