Top 10 Celebs People Tried to Warn Us About

While he’s now a household name, Jeffrey Epstein first came to the public’s attention in 2005, at a time when he was a popular and successful financier. In March of that year, a woman informed the Palm Beach Police Department that her teenage stepdaughter was taken to Epstein’s mansion and paid to massage him. An investigation was opened, and it uncovered a long history of sexual assault involving dozens of girls. Unfortunately, the law totally bungled the case by giving Epstein a highly controversial plea agreement, and he received just eighteen months in prison. He was out in twelve. It was a warning that no one heeded, and the assaults and sex trafficking continued for years after until he was famously arrested again in 2019.

There were few athletes as big as Lance Armstrong in the early 2000s. He brought cycling to the mainstream and won the Tour de France in seven straight years, from 1999 to 2005. And from the very beginning, people were trying to tell us that he was a cheater. Many people came clean about Armstrong’s history with doping, from journalists to fellow cyclists to Armstrong’s masseuse. However, their claims were often met with legal threats, or just blatantly ignored due to Armstrong’s influence in the sports community. And year after year, Armstrong denied it. That is, until the United States Anti-Doping Agency proved conclusively that Armstrong was using PEDs, to which he finally came clean and admitted to years of cheating and deception.

For a long time, Ellen DeGeneres was regarded as a pop culture icon, with an enormously popular talk show and a legacy of aiding LGBT acceptance on mainstream television. But the house of cards startled collapsing in March of 2020, when comedian Kevin T. Porter called DeGeneres “one of the meanest people alive” on Twitter. Many people responded positively to Porter’s tweet, supporting the claim and sharing personal anecdotes about their harsh run-ins with DeGeneres. We didn’t know it at the time, but this thread was a huge warning. Just four months later, an extensive report was released in which former employees accused DeGeneres of harassment, racism, and toxic workplace behavior. The allegations effectively killed her career - and ruined what was once a sterling reputation.

While not necessarily a celebrity in the traditional sense, Bernie Madoff was widely known as the chairman of the Nasdaq stock exchange. He also owned his own firm, through which he conducted the largest Ponzi scheme in history. Warnings were raised by multiple people, including financial analyst Harry Markopolos, who knew that Madoff’s numbers were fraudulent after looking at them for just five minutes. Markopolos told the Securities and Exchange Commission about Madoff’s shady accounting back in 1999. They ignored him. Madoff was eventually turned in by his own sons in 2008, and investigators concluded that he had stolen over $65 billion from investors. The SEC was viciously criticized for its poor work ethic in investigating Madoff, despite repeated warnings over a number of years.

One of the biggest actors of all time was brought down in October 2017, when Anthony Rapp accused him of sexual assault. His allegation dates back to 1986, when Spacey made a drunken and unwanted advance upon the underage Rapp at a party. This accusation opened the floodgates, and Spacey’s downfall is now the stuff of legend. But did you know that Rapp tried to warn us about Spacey before 2017? Yep, he shared this exact story with the LGBT magazine The Advocate all the way back in 2001. However, Spacey’s name was redacted for legal reasons, and because no one knew who Rapp was talking about, the accusations were largely ignored. Heck, even “Family Guy” tried to warn us back in 2005!

It was basically an open secret in Hollywood that Harvey Weinstein was a creep. Rumors of his salacious casting couch had circulated for decades, and references to his inappropriate behavior propped up in shows like “Girls” and “30 Rock.” But it wasn’t just shows - multiple celebrities alluded to Weinstein’s crimes years before they were publicly known. Seth MacFarlane made a joke at the Oscars. Courtney Love gave a startling piece of advice at the roast of Pamela Anderson. Gwyneth Paltrow told David Letterman that Weinstein “will coerce you to do a thing or two.” Looking back, these were obvious clues. But they went completely ignored and unchecked, allowing Weinstein’s crimes to continue unabated for years to come.

The once-popular Jimmy Savile wasn’t around to experience his downfall, as it occurred after his death in 2011. But there had been many warnings beforehand - warnings that went completely ignored. In fact, the allegations date all the way back to the 1950s! An official police investigation against Savile was opened in 1958 following claims of sexual abuse, but there was not enough evidence to charge him. Sex Pistols vocalist Johnny Rotten alluded to Savile’s crimes in a 1978 interview with the BBC. Heck, even Savile himself tried to warn us! He wrote an autobiography in 1974 titled “As It Happens,” inside of which are blatant admissions of criminal conduct. No one cared.

The first major warning sign about R. Kelly appeared in the December 1994 issue of Vibe magazine. Inside was the secret marriage certificate between Kelly and Aaliyah. Their marriage had privately occurred on August 31, 1994, when Kelly was 27 and Aaliyah just 15. Things took an even darker turn in 1996, when a woman named Tiffany Hawkins tried to tell the world about Kelly’s dark propensities. She filed a civil suit against the singer, claiming that she had been sexually abused and that Kelly had a thing for younger women. The suit was quietly settled in 1998 for $250,000. It was another four years before the Chicago Sun-Times broke the Kelly story wide open and kickstarted the famous criminal proceedings of the 2000s.

There were a multitude of allegations against Bill Cosby before the famous reckoning of 2014, but no one wanted to incriminate America’s Dad. Joan Tarshis told a reporter named John Milward that she was sexually assaulted by Cosby back in the 1980s. Milward did not write about it. Playboy Playmate Victoria Valentino made sexual assault allegations against Cosby in 1996. The report was never published. The National Enquirer wrote a story about Cosby in 1990, and radio show host Wendy Williams openly spoke about the story on her program. No one cared. Lachele Covington filed a complaint against Cosby in 2000. The District Attorney never prosecuted him. Plenty of people tried speaking out, but everyone refused to listen.

While the allegations date back to the early ‘90s, the first major red flags against Diddy popped up in 2017. This is when his personal chef, Cindy Rueda, filed a lawsuit against him claiming sexual harassment. It was quietly settled in 2019, and the singer faced no major ramifications to his public image. Regardless, it was a clear snapshot of what was to come in 2023 and ‘24, when Diddy faced an onslaught of accusations. Attorney Andrew Van Arsdale reports that he’s heard from 3,000 people with accusations against Diddy, and according to The Washington Post, over 120 lawsuits will be brought against him. Half of the plaintiffs claimed to have reported Diddy to the police, and some even went directly to the FBI.

Do you remember when these scandals broke? Let us know in the comments below!