There is a dark side to fame, and celebrities have their every move reported on, which means that there is very little room for mistakes. Well, for most of them. Because while some celebrities take a lot of criticism for their actions -- especially reality TV stars because they share more of their lives with the world -- others seem to be forgiven. And we have to ask, why the heck are they being given a free pass?
Some famous people can’t even post a selfie or share an opinion without getting a stream of hate for it, yet others have an awful history of being violent, decade-long affairs, and racist rants, and somehow, the public has somehow managed to forget these indiscretions, and these people are still able to work in the industry without judgement. The celebs in question are mostly looked upon favorably by the tabloids, and the media gives them a free pass. This is so wrong!
There is definitely a double-standards for some people in the industry (which you may not have even realized) and it’s time that we start bringing attention to it because while these celebs may be a hero to some, they're no angels. Below are 15 Hollywood celebs who don’t get enough criticism for their actions.
15 Taylor Swift’s Nice Girl Act
The media holds Taylor Swift to different standards than other celebrities, and it’s time that it stopped. While Swift has not done some of the horrific things others on this list have, she has tried really hard over the years to give herself a “nice girl” image, and the rest of the world has really bought into it. But Swift deserves a lot more criticism for her actions than she gets, and here’s why: While Kim Kardashian and the rest of the Kardashian-Jenner clan get crucified by people for their actions, Swift, on the other hand, is forgiven, even if she is caught in a lie -- Kardashian had "proof" that Swift lied about her interaction with Kanye West.
While most of us would slam a celebrity who was excluding others with their “girl squad,” Swift is celebrated for having female friends, and her decision to invite people into her squad is seen as girl power goals. It’s not.
14 Selena Gomez’s Passive Aggressive Attitude
Selena Gomez is another young celebrity who the world loves -- she’s also the most followed person on Instagram -- but again, it’s really annoying that she hasn’t been called out for her actions. Firstly, there's her extremely annoying relationship with Justin Bieber: the pair just can’t seem to leave each other alone, despite all their fallouts, but the real reason that Gomez deserves a spot on this list is that she has passively aggressively attacked other female celebrities, and no one has flinched.
Gomez has slammed Lorde for her approach to feminism after the singer criticized the message behind her track “Come and Get It." And then in 2016, she commented on how Miley Cyrus had shed her Disney image in an interview with W magazine. She said, that she “wouldn't want to be doing what she's doing” -- and added that she didn’t think Cyrus would want to be doing what she’s doing either. Weird.
13 Arnold Schwarzenegger's Relationship With The Housekeeper
Arnold Schwarzenegger had an affair with the family housekeeper, Mildred Baena while he was married to his wife, Maria Shriver. And it was only years later, in 2011, that the affair came to light. It was revealed that he had also fathered a child, Joseph Baena, with Mildred.
For years, Schwarzenegger kept the secret, but when Joseph started to grow up the resemblance became too much, and Shriver finally found out. The affair tore apart Schwarzenegger’s marriage, and in 2017 he addressed it in an interview with Men's’ Journal, saying, “You can't go back - if I could, in reality, be Terminator, of course, I would go back in time and would say, 'Arnold... no.'”
But the only good thing to come from this is that Schwarzenegger was able to develop a proper relationship with his son. Still, while many celebs who have affairs get criticism for their actions (for example Dean McDermott and Gavin Rossdale), when it comes to Schwarzenegger most people seem to be willing to give him a free pass.
12 Alec Baldwin's Clashes With The Paparazzi
Alec Baldwin definitely has no love for the paparazzi, and over the years he has been involved in a number of scuffles with them. Some are physical -- with one of the most memorable moments when he shoved a paparazzo onto a car after he followed his wife, Hilaria Baldwin, into a shop just outside of the couple’s apartment -- and others are verbal. Baldwin has previously got up into a photographer’s face and called him a “piece of trash,” because he was taking photos of his wife.
Having your every move being followed must be incredibly annoying, and in Baldwin’s case, he seems to get really angry when it involves someone getting too close to his wife. That said, these sort of outbursts shouldn’t just be forgiven so easily.
11 Lance Armstrong's Lies And Bullying
Why is Lance Armstrong even granted the time of day? In my opinion, he is one celebrity who needs to disappear off the face of the Earth instead of giving interviews about his doping scandal. The issue here is not just that he tarnished the sport of cycling or that he decided to be deceitful in his own performance, but that he went to great lengths to destroy the life and career of an Irish sports journalist named David Walsh, and massage therapist Emma O’Reilly.
Walsh and Pierre Ballester wrote the book, "L.A. Confidential: The Secrets of Lance Armstrong", and they enlisted the help of O’Reilly. What followed was a tirade of abuse, as Armstrong tried to discredit those involved in the book, including calling O’Reilly some very suggestive names.
He’s a bully who intimidated multiple people into silence, and he definitely doesn’t deserve anyone’s forgiveness for doing so.
10 Mark Wahlberg's Actions
Mark Wahlberg definitely wants to forget his past actions, because when he was a teenager he did something shocking. According to reports, in 1988, when Wahlberg was aged 16, he robbed a convenience store in Massachusetts and end up punching a Vietnamese man in the face. And moments before this attack, according to Daily Mail, he hit another Vietnamese man over the head with a wooden stick and left him unconscious. He is also believed to have called out a racial slur.
According to New York Daily News, Wahlberg reportedly served 45 days of a three-month sentence, and in 2014 tried to get pardoned for his crime. Now, while the actor has clearly cleaned up his act and changed his life in a dramatic way, the fact that he thought he deserved a pardon is debatable.
9 Naomi Campbell's Awful Treatment Of Her Employees
Naomi Campbell is undoubtedly one of the worst people to work for, and she has made headlines multiple times for her treatment of her employees. In 2010, she allegedly attacked her limo driver and then ran away.
In 2005, she was accused by her assistant of hitting her with a cellphone, and in 2007, she reportedly plead guilty to assault on her housekeeper. Campbell clearly has an anger management problem, and why she thinks it’s OK to abuse the people who are trying to do her a service is mind-boggling!
She’s not known to be the nicest woman in the world, yet she still manages to secure high-profile modeling jobs and campaigns. Does the world really turn a blind eye when the person is rich, famous and beautiful? In Campbell’s case, it really seems as though that answer is yes.
8 Roman Polanski's Dodging Of A Crime
Roman Polanski still has the respect of people in Hollywood, despite allegations that he took advantage of a 13-year-old girl, and later fled the country to avoid going to jail for the second time. According to The Guardian, in 1977, the director was arrested on charges that he took advantage of Samantha Geimer. He reportedly spent 42 days in jail, but then left the country after he heard that the judge intended to extend his sentence.
And in 2009, something shocking happened. Polanski was arrested in Switzerland on a warrant stemming from the 1977 case in the United States, and more than 100 actors and actresses, and people who work in the film industry signed a petition demanding the release of the director. According to IndieWire, some of the people who signed their names were Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Tilda Swinton, Julian Schnabel, and Harmony Korine. As for why Hollywood keeps defending Polanski? That's a question we have to keep asking.
7 Hugh Grant Caught With His Pants Down
Hugh Grant did cause a scandal when he was caught with his pants down in 1995. The incident happened on Los Angeles Sunset Strip when Grant was caught in a compromising position with a night worker named Divine Brown. He was arrested for “lewd conduct in a public place.”
According to The Independent, Grant was sentenced to two years probation, ordered to attend an AIDS awareness class, and pay a fine of $1,000 -- Brown, on the other hand, was sentenced to 180 days in prison and fined $1,350.
I’m not saying that this lapse in judgment should have destroyed Grant’s career, and it didn’t, but what I am saying is that there is definitely a double standard when it comes to some celebrities and the things that the media and the public crucify them for.
6 Michael Fassbender’s Treatment Of A Former Girlfriend
The world hates Chris Brown for what he did to Rihanna, and he got a lot of flack for it. But there seems to be a bit of a double standard when it comes to celebrities and their wrongdoings because Michael Fassbender also allegedly hurt his girlfriend. According to The Establishment, in 2010, Sunawin “Leasi” Andrews filed charges of violent domestic abuse against Fassbender.
Andrews filed a petition for a restraining order against Fassbender in L.A. County Superior Court because she feared for her life. And according to TMZ, she revealed in her documents that in July of 2009, Fassbender had been drinking heavily when he attacked her. She said that he "threw me over a chair breaking my nose,” and that one night he allegedly dragged her alongside his car after having an argument.
Yet despite this, Fassbender is considered one of the most talented actors in Hollywood, and he has continued to secure big roles, with his most recent including Alien: Covenant, The Light Between Oceans, and X-Men: Apocalypse.
5 Sean Penn's Altercation With Madonna
Sean Penn is alleged to have been physically harmful with Madonna in 1987, when according to reports he struck her with a baseball bat, and in 1989, he allegedly tied her up and beat her.
However, in 2015, Madonna released a statement addressing this incident and claimed that although she and Penn had many heated arguments during their relationship, he never actually struck her. She said, "I am aware of the allegations that have surfaced over the years accusing Penn of incidents of physical assault and abuse against me,” and according to Rolling Stone she went on deny that the 1987 incident, as well as the second one in 1989.
Her statement came about after first Lee Daniels was discussing the allegations of abuse against Terrence Howard in an interview for The Hollywood Reporter. He claimed, "[Terrence] ain't done nothing different than Marlon Brando or Sean Penn, and all of a sudden he's some demon."
4 OJ Simpson's Crimes That Landed Him In Jail
In the late ‘80s, OJ Simpson was arrested on spousal-battery charges against Nicole Brown, and there is a divide on whether or not he was the person responsible for taking the lives of her and her friend, Ronald Goldman five years later -- a charge that he was not convicted of.
Simpson found himself in trouble with the law on several other times: police were called to handle the domestic disputes with Simpson and his girlfriend, Christie Prody, he was arrested but not charged of battery and auto burglary charges on a motorist, and then in 2007, he was arrested for various charges related to armed robbery and kidnapping.
Then in 2008, he was found guilty of multiple weapons, robbery, and kidnapping charges (stemming from the 2007 arrest). According to Vulture, he was sentenced to 33 years in jail, with eligibility for parole after serving nine years. Should there have been more public backlash for Simpson’s actions before his time in prison? You decide.
3 Floyd Mayweather's Domestic Altercation
Floyd Mayweather is a fantastic boxer, and he has the love and respect of millions of people, but why is no-one talking about the domestic abuse charges filed against him? And why is he still able to box if he has a history of harming women?
According to International Business Times in 2001 and 2002, he pleaded guilty to two counts of domestic battery. Then in 2002, Mayweather was reportedly arrested and charged with two counts of battery, relating to an incident that he got into with two women at a nightclub. And then in 2011, Mayweather made headlines for beating his former partner and the mother of his sons, Josie Harris. The details of the attack are awful, and Mayweather reportedly told Harris, "I'm going to [hurt] you and the man you're messing with." One of her sons reportedly saw the attack and ran to a neighbor for help.
2 Charlie Sheen's Many, Many Indiscretions
Charlie Sheen has been caught in compromising positions, multiple times. He has insulted half of Hollywood and has some absolutely disgusting things to say about women, and still, people give him the time of the day. His actions seem to be brushed off, but if someone else had done even half the things that Sheen had, they would not be getting off so lightly.
Let’s take a look back at some of Sheen’s worst moments: According to The20sDiary, he allegedly punched a woman in the face for refusing to be physical with him. His ex-girlfriend, Brittany Ashland has sued him for abuse (he got violent with her in 1996 and knocked her unconscious). He also has a restraining order taken out against him by ex-wife Denise Richards, and let’s not even get into the awful things he said about her during, one of his many, Twitter rants.
And then there is the incident where he reportedly held a knife to Brooke Mueller’s neck… the list goes on! But why is no one concerned?
1 Elvis Presley’s Interests
Elvis Presley was the King of Rock and Roll and he was loved by many, but people don’t seem to ever comment on how much he liked younger girls. The most obvious case of this is the massive age gap between himself and his wife, Priscilla Beaulieu. The pair met when Beaulieu was only 14-years-old and Presley was aged 24. They began courting and married almost a decade later when she finally turned 21.
More troubling is that according to Daily Mail, one of his former entourage, Lamar Fike stated, “He was fascinated with the idea of real young teenage girls. It scared the hell out of all of us.”
This is definitely not normal, yet no one gives a second thought to it. In comparison, Courtney Stodden was 16 when she married 51-year-old Doug Hutchison in 2011, and everyone freaked out -- and rightly so. Their relationship was criticized heavily by the media, but why is this any different to Presley?
