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53 Romanticized Historical Figures That Should Be Villainized Instead
When mentioning names such as Einstein, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, or Picasso, one instantly thinks about sheer genius or impeccable goodness. Because that’s the sanitized and G-rated version the history books shoved down our throats.
But if there’s anything social media users excel in, it’s sharing evidence and keeping the receipts.
Recently, netizens were asked to name the most idolized historical figures who were actually total monsters in real life. The responses are quite eye-opening, and some might even wreck your perception of the past.
Brace yourself, because you’re about to find out which of your favorite historical heroes were actually walking red flags.
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#1
George Washington. The young founder of a nation, willing to fight the Strongest Empire on the planet for the freedom of a-. Wait, he owned double digit numbers of people and ab*sed them horribly.
Ever wonder why we go to bat for these historical villains?
One of the reasons is the halo effect, a glitch in our brains discovered by psychologist Edward Thorndike. Basically, if someone is a genius artist or a brilliant leader, our brains automatically assume they’re a good person overall. We let their talent blind us to their massive red flags.
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#2
Christopher Columbus is one. But honestly, read A People’s History of the United States of America by Howard Zinn. He exposes a LOT of false narrative we read in high school.
#3
Edgar Allan Poe married his 13-year old cousin, was a hopeless drunk, a bully, and could never get his financial s**t together.
When the ugly truth finally drops, cognitive dissonance kicks in. Coined by Leon Festinger, this theory explains the absolute mental discomfort we feel when a beloved idol turns out to be a monster.
To stop the distress, people might subconsciously make excuses, minimize the crimes, or blame the victims just to keep their flawless image intact.
“When you find out information that is contradictory about what you believe, or how you [personally] would behave, it’s really quite shocking and disappointing. It shatters that image you had of the person,” explains Danya McStein, a psychologist and media consultant.
#4
I’m gay, and I’ll put Oscar Wilde in the dock. Treated his loving wife cruelly and f**ked minors. My own community made him a saint solely on the basis of what England did to him.
#6
Winston Churchill: founder of the Black & Tans.
mambo_taxi:
There’s a reason Barack Obama took his bust out of the Oval Office.
Studies on collective memory also show that societies intentionally scrub the wrongdoings of national founders to protect the national identity. We are literally raised on propaganda, and our own brains are wired to help us swallow it.
For example, Christopher Columbus. To build a cool heroic origin story, 19th-century American writers totally airbrushed his record. They even erased his own journals detailing human trafficking, and brutality against the Taíno people.
Experts call this structural amnesia. Societies intentionally delete historical horrors from classrooms because keeping a pristine national myth is way easier than facing a deeply disturbing truth.
The “history is written by the victors” playbook is actively running even today. We just call it crisis management and brand strategy.
Powerful institutions, public relations firms, and media spend millions annually to clean up the reputations of problematic icons.
According to experts, media uses calculated strategies like reducing offensiveness and shifting the spotlight back to the talent. It actively tries to drown out the dark side with sheer star power.
#10
Alexander Graham Bell. He was trying to make his deaf wife hear. Support the eugenics and oppressive laws in deaf children’s and adults
#12
Albert Einstein. He ab*sed Mileva, neglected his children, stole Milevas ideas and later discarded her to marry his cousin.
It’s not just historical figures who got away with horrible things.
Take a look at modern celebrity culture. Global superstar and footballer Cristiano Ronaldo faced intense and documented legal battles over a 2009 assault allegation. Yet, a relentless PR machine kept him framed as the ultimate disciplined family man and the most followed person on Instagram.
Rock legend Anthony Kiedis from the Red Hot Chili Peppers band has written a literal autobiography detailing deeply disturbing behavior with underage girls. Director Woody Allen maintained a legendary Hollywood status for decades despite severe and high-profile allegations.
Even when people hear about these scandals today, their brains completely bypass the bad stuff.
Instead of seeing a predator, they only picture Ronaldo’s record goals or Allen’s cinematic masterpieces. Their talent acts like a shield.
#13
John Jacob Jingle-Himer-Schmidt the atrocities he did in the minivans and school buses of the 90’s and early 2000’s
#14
It's a tie between Mother Teresa and Gandhi.
ski_knee_runner:
I looked this up and yes, he was deeply racist against black people, supported apartheid, denied his wife life saving medical intervention, and forced young females in his family to sleep naked in bed with him. I did not know that before today.
los_angeles_john:
Teresa helped poor people die inside. She was not a bad person. It's India is so terrible that people were dying outside.
She was a nun, not a doctor.
#15
Pablo Picasso and Ernest Hemingway. They were both celebrated creatives but were total misogynists, alcoholics, and were ab*sive.
The ultimate erasure happens when these figures pass away.
Several studies show a massive trend of narrative flattening. For instance, a 2021 analysis of news coverage following basketball star Kobe Bryant’s 2020 demise examined stories from 18 major US news organizations.
The study found that despite the #MeToo movement, journalists oversimplified and cleansed his narrative. They focused heavily on his athletic greatness and status as a girl dad. Meanwhile, they almost entirely scrubbed his documented 2003 assault case from the collective memory.
#16
Henry Ford. Introduced the $5 day and then immediately took it away. Didn't allow unions. Anti-Semitic and supported H*tler. Terrible father and husband. Greenfield Village is full of basically stolen houses. The list goes on.
Giraffe Sitter 23 minutes ago
He did worse than disallow unions. Anyone who uttered the “u” word was beaten up by his hired thugs.
Why does it matter if some of these figures are not even alive? Is it even our business anymore?
Experts argue that keeping their dark sides in the spotlight is crucial for our own society today.
When we put historical icons on a flawless pedestal, we create a dangerous cultural blind spot. Excessive and unchecked praise actually breed entitlement and ignorance.
“The effects of excessive praise on conduct are also worth concern. Praising people, even those who deserve praise, can actually have a negative effect on their behavior. Praising people excessively can lead them to act badly, while blame puts them on notice and reinforces good behavior,” writes David V Johnson for Big Think.
#18
Edison. He “invented” very little. He stole other inventors' inventions. i.e., the light bulb.
#19
Elvis Presley was an absolute a**hole. This will be controversial, but the more recent sanitizing of MJ has me sick to my stomach…
jendcpdx:
Right? It boggles my mind. I know MJ had a tough childhood and ab*sive father. But that’s not an excuse for most of what he is accused if.
Historically, we treated artists like they were practically gods. Because they could create beautiful things, we assumed their souls had to be spotless. We built this massive cultural expectation that if you’re a genius, you must be a moral saint.
Experts point out that people are deeply complex. Someone can create a masterpiece and still be a total mess behind closed doors. They can do incredible things for the world and simultaneously make horrific, toxic choices.
Accepting that icons are deeply flawed doesn’t mean we excuse their bad deeds, it just means we stop treating them like deities.
#20
Dr. Seuss! Drew racist depictions of Black and Asian people and cheated on his cancer-ridden wife for 12 years, with her best friend, ultimately leading to her s*ic*de.
#21
There are SO many. Most recently in my discovery? Muhammed Ali.
Two different child-brides, plus several s*xual relationships with teenaged girls resulting in babies to whom he provided inconsistent child support. Just. gross.
#22
Walt Disney. Was secretly helping further the Hollywood blacklisting of actors, musicians, screen writers, etc. during the McCarthy Era.
This blind worship is actively fueling today’s toxic stan culture. Fans weaponize their timelines to bully victims and bury evidence.
Social media algorithms love drama, so they pump these toxic celebrities directly into your feed for views.
But unlike past generations, we have the ultimate superpower — the ability to instantly fact-check and expose the truth.
We don’t have to swallow the same corporate PR or the filtered history books. It’s time we stop letting talent excuse malice and hold these monsters accountable.
#23
James Watson - won the Nobel Prize along with Francis Crick for solving the double helix structure of DNA. Asserted that black people had lower IQs due to genetics. Disparaged Rosalind Franklin for her contributions to solving the structure of DNA.
#24
Teddy Roosevelt. National parks 👍
Condoning colonialism and the m*rder of several hundred thousand Filipinos because of manifest destiny 👎
#25
Dalí. Looked up to the fascists, was a N*zi sympathetizer, and enjoyed torturing small animals. Got kicked out of his own art movement for it.
#28
In India king akbar is romanticised … in reality he was like his predecessors a cruel barbarian who ordered multiple massacres in his long tenure amongst the many other excesses
#29
Prince. But all the aunties of the world conveniently “forget” how much of a p*do he was because he sang a song about Purple Rain.
#30
Alfred Hitchcock ruined Tippi Hedrens career and a**aulted her after she refused his advances.
#32
Edward Barton and his cronies who introduced the 1901 Immigration Restriction Bill that was later referred to as the “White Australia Policy”, the Pacific Island Labourer’s Act and the Post and Telegraph Acts, also 1901 (so from Federation). These policies were adopted by South Africa and evolved to create the Apartheid system.
#33
Ernesto de la Cruz. Made crowds swoon with timeless hits like "Remember Me." But the truth always comes out sooner or later.
#41
Charles Dickens stiffed his wife, like she had all the babies and then he muddied her name after leaving her just to not look like the bad guy. He also hated women in general, especially if they weren't young or were fat 🙄 Really dislike this guy
#42
JFK and RFK. Yes, both made political strides to further the civil rights movement and better treatment of the poor, but were both vicious adulterers, womanizers and misogynists. RFK hired rich white bankers to gentrify Bed-Stuy, using their poverty for a headline. Their assassinations made them heroes. And don't get me started on their Daddy. Ugh.
#43
King James was a terrible person , and I wonder why people still read Bibles adorned with his name.
#46
Che Guevara. I’ll never understand so many people idolizing him, wearing his face on a t-shirt. Guy was a monster.
#47
I’m surprised nobody has said it yet, Stephen Hawking. Disappointed does not begin to describe the feeling.
#48
Literally Abraham Lincoln, he personally ordered the largest execution on us soil. Publicly hanging 38 Dakota men. Native American men. Hung. On their own soil. In the middle of a town like it was entertainment.
#49
Captain James Cook.
I wish more people celebrated him being annihilated by the Hawaiians, rather than all the cultures and indigenous people he sl**ghtered.
#51
Atticus Finch - I was absolutely going to name my son after him until the chapters that had been cut from the book were released in the early 2000’s. I was heartbroken.
#52
John Wesley, the founding father of the Methodist Church. He pretty much abandoned his wife and children to travel growing the church and left them with minimal resources. Rumors of adultery, also sounds like he was physically ab*sive.
#53
It’s MLK. The man was basically pure evil, but good at pretending to be wise at the direction of his handlers who wanted long term, to cause race riots more than they wanted to help black people.
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