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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.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Edison. He “invented” very little. He stole other inventors' inventions. i.e., the light bulb.
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
John Lennon. Deadbeat dad, wife beater and h*roin a*dict.
#3
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.
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
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 10 hours ago
He did worse than disallow unions. Anyone who uttered the “u” word was beaten up by his hired thugs.
#5
Walt Disney. Was secretly helping further the Hollywood blacklisting of actors, musicians, screen writers, etc. during the McCarthy Era.
#6
Bonnie & Clyde
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.
#7
Coco Chanel-she was a raging antisemitist.
#8
Joe Rogan. I know a lot of people don't like him but not enough people don't like him.
#9
Pablo Picasso and Ernest Hemingway. They were both celebrated creatives but were total misogynists, alcoholics, and were ab*sive.
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
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.
#11
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
#12
Alfred Hitchcock ruined Tippi Hedrens career and a**aulted her after she refused his advances.
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 a*****t 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 h**h-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.
#14
Fidel Castro and Che Guevara.
Michael Largey 35 minutes ago
Wildly successful revolutionaries. Highly disastrous rulers. Another case where Moses should not enter the Promised Land.
#15
Albert Einstein. He ab*sed Mileva, neglected his children, stole Milevas ideas and later discarded her to marry his cousin.
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 a*****t case from the collective memory.
#16
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 h**h school.
#17
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.
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
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.
StPaul9 6 hours ago
Dali is complicated. He called himself a 'F*****t, a Communist, a Republican and an anarchist'. He did not get kicked out of his own art movement (how one gets kicked out of an art movement anyway). Other surrealists went into hiding because of politics but Dali remained living in neutral Spain and sometimes France purely out of artificial ego. You wanted an artist, so Dali presented himself as that idea of artist. At worst, apolitical.
#19
Che Guevara. I’ll never understand so many people idolizing him, wearing his face on a t-shirt. Guy was a monster.
Frank Ropen 3 hours ago
Peanuts compared to the d***h as a consequence of the dismantling of USAID. Che was not a good guy but compared to the average US presidents his d***h toll is pretty low
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
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.
#21
I've seen a few people try to romanticise Aileen Wuornos lately, that really shocked me.
#22
Pope Pius IX. And, lest we forget, Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace prize.
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
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.
#24
Edgar Allan Poe married his 13-year old cousin, was a hopeless drunk, a bully, and could never get his financial s**t together.
#25
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.
#26
Pavlov. What he did to those animals is unforgivable.
#27
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.
#28
Winston Churchill: founder of the Black & Tans.
mambo_taxi:
There’s a reason Barack Obama took his bust out of the Oval Office.
#29
Teddy Roosevelt. National parks 👍
Condoning colonialism and the m*rder of several hundred thousand Filipinos because of manifest destiny 👎
#30
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.
#31
I’m surprised nobody has said it yet, Stephen Hawking. Disappointed does not begin to describe the feeling.
Loosey Goosey 5 hours ago
Why? Because he visited Epstein Island in the early noughties? He was there for a conference. The two bikini clad women he was photographed with were his carers. None of Epstein's victims have accused Hawking of anything. Simply being named in Epstein files is not proof of wrongdoing. Epstein deliberately cultivated friendships with rich and famous people.
#32
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.
#33
John Jacob Jingle-Himer-Schmidt the atrocities he did in the minivans and school buses of the 90’s and early 2000’s
Stephanie Did It 10 hours ago
He's been around since the 19th century! BTW, his name is my name too.
#34
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
#37
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.
#38
Alexander Graham Bell. He was trying to make his deaf wife hear. Support the eugenics and oppressive laws in deaf children’s and adults
#39
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.
#40
King James was a terrible person , and I wonder why people still read Bibles adorned with his name.
#41
Bing Crosby. Alcholic a**hole.
#42
Ernesto de la Cruz. Made crowds swoon with timeless hits like "Remember Me." But the truth always comes out sooner or later.
#44
Sir Isaac Newton hated women, hated his mother, and died a virgin
Roman Arendt 7 hours ago
But without him, everything and everyone would just fall of of earth.
#46
Peter the Great. Drunkard philanderer who was really into starting wars.
#47
Julius Caesar!!!
Michael Largey 19 minutes ago
His whole political career was about expanding democracy and ended up making himself Dictator for life.
#48
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.
#51
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.
Alfred 9 hours ago (edited)
Over 300 men were initially sentenced to dèàțh. Lincoln personally reviewed the trial records and refused to have the vast majority put to déàțh. He limited the hangings to 38 men convicted of specific acts against civilians, such as ràpe and mûrder. He commuted the sentences of the remaining 264 prisoners.
#52
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.
#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.
Frank Ropen 2 hours ago
Pure Evil? Look up Marc Dutroux and then come back and tell my how MLK was pure evil compared to him
What do you think ?
Rick Murray 8 hours ago
There is a fair amount of dubious stuff in Lovecraft's stories. But here's the thing - this was fairly normal for the time. Hell, people these days look at stuff from the eighties and cringe but in context that was just seen as normal. So if we're going to judge historical figures by current ideals, many will fail. As will we at some point in the future.
Auntriarch 1 hour ago
H G Wells, now there was a stinker, even for the time.
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Apatheist 4 hours ago
It's a bit harsh to criticise people for the era into which they're born. If they're from a time when sexism and racism were the norm, they were just behaving like everyone else. In the future, there may be an arch-vegan or arch-teetotaller who persuades everyone that eating meat or drinking alcohol were abominable - as such, all of you on here who've ever had a burger or a drink would be considered appalling. One should take the context into account.
Eastendbird 3 hours ago
Exactly. Also I hate that we are encouraged to simply label people 'hero/heroine' or ' villain'. People are complex, life and history are complex. People can do both good and bad things in their lives. Why do we have to reduce everything to a simplistic judgement?
Load More Replies... Rick Murray 8 hours ago
There is a fair amount of dubious stuff in Lovecraft's stories. But here's the thing - this was fairly normal for the time. Hell, people these days look at stuff from the eighties and cringe but in context that was just seen as normal. So if we're going to judge historical figures by current ideals, many will fail. As will we at some point in the future.
Auntriarch 1 hour ago
H G Wells, now there was a stinker, even for the time.
Load More Replies... Apatheist 4 hours ago
It's a bit harsh to criticise people for the era into which they're born. If they're from a time when sexism and racism were the norm, they were just behaving like everyone else. In the future, there may be an arch-vegan or arch-teetotaller who persuades everyone that eating meat or drinking alcohol were abominable - as such, all of you on here who've ever had a burger or a drink would be considered appalling. One should take the context into account.
Eastendbird 3 hours ago
Exactly. Also I hate that we are encouraged to simply label people 'hero/heroine' or ' villain'. People are complex, life and history are complex. People can do both good and bad things in their lives. Why do we have to reduce everything to a simplistic judgement?
Load More Replies...
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