History often paints a picture of heroes and villains, but sometimes the lines are blurred. This list reveals 10 figures once hailed as 'good guys' who, upon closer inspection, weren't so noble after all. From hidden scandals to controversial actions, these individuals remind us that history isn't always as black and white as it seems.
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1. Coco Chanel
It is surreal how Chanel's products generate a multi-billion dollar industry, considering Coco Chanel's history during World War Two. Of course, we must judge people's actions by when they happened. However, Chanel's crimes include being a Nazi spy, betraying her Jewish colleagues to gain control of the company, and starting several anti-Jewish newspapers.
2. Henry Ford
Aldous Huxley's masterpiece Brave New World refers to Ford as a deity, even using "His Fordship" as a third-person reference to greatness. The dystopian novelist may or may not have known Ford was a keen eugenicist and anti-semite. Tragically, great achievers are sometimes deeply flawed.
3. Mahatma Gandhi
"He wouldn't let his wife get modern medical attention and made her rely on 'traditional medicine' like water from the Ganges, saying faith would have to heal her," explains our next contributor. "His wife died."
4. John Lennon
As much as I love Lennon's musical genius, I dislike much of what I have read about most fans' favorite Beatle. The man who wrote the lyrics, "Imagine no possessions," while sitting at a white grand piano in his 72-acre Georgian estate in England is hardly the "Working Class Hero" he championed. He also physically abused his wife and verbally assaulted his son Julian.
5. James Marion Sims
The doctor earned the "father of modern gynecology" moniker as his legacy. However, one commenter claims he "committed some pretty nasty human rights violations when he experimented on women" in the plantations. Wretched.
6. Oprah Winfrey
Oprah appears in this thread a lot. Sadly, her rise to fame came with misfortune for others, as Bill Burr once insinuated. "Oprah … has put a lot of dangerous people and ideas into the spotlight while taking zero responsibility for the damage done." When making an omelet…
7. John Batman
It is hard to read this guy's name with a straight face, but John Batman (stop it) was also Christened "founder of Melbourne" in southern Australia. Before his mainland exploits, Batman was active in the Black Line, a dreadful episode of mass slaughter during the colonization of Tasmania.
8. Fritz Haber
Fritz Haber was a decorated bio-chemist who, one commenter says, "pioneered the synthesis of Ammonia, which allowed the human population to get as vast as it is now." The downside is that Faber's knowledge became central to the Imperial German Army's chemical warfare use in World War One.
9. Andrew Jackson
On the one hand, the 7th president showed courage and determination in his young life: he overturned the odds and was a testament to the American Dream in many ways. However, this came with many awful traits and cruel actions as he rose to power, says a critic: "Some people still think Andrew Jackson was a good U.S. president, despite being responsible for the Trail of Tears."
10. John Wayne
My dad will not like this choice, and nor do I because I love his films. However, the American screen icon had a string of nasty allegations over the years. "He also apparently had to be held back when Sacheen Littlefeather was at the Oscars," recalls a forum member. Ironically, Wayne didn't know she wasn't from any tribe, nor was she Native American. Her father was Mexican.
This thread inspired this post.
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