Celebrity scandals that rocked Hollywood: Weinstein, Cosby and more

On June 25, 2009, Michael Jackson died at his home in Los Angeles of a drug overdose administered by his doctor. He was 50. In 2019, the documentary “Leaving Neverland" brought Jackon's past into question. The documentary told the stories of Wade Robson and James Safechuck, two men now in their 30s and 40s who were befriended by Jackson as children when the singer was at the height of his fame, and who allege that Jackson sexually abused them.

At the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, Kanye West infamously interrupted winner Taylor Swift's speech to praise Beyoncé. The incident kicked up a years-long feud between the two artists. 

In Janurary 2011, news broke that Arnold Schwarzenegger had an affair and fathered a child with his and then-wife Maria Shriver's housekeeper, Mildred Baena, more than a decade earlier. The news prompted Shriver to move out and file for divorce. 

For Halloween in 2013, actress Julianne Hough painted her skin and wore an orange jumpsuit as a nod to the character "Crazy Eyes" from Netflix's series "Orange Is the New Black." The blackface caused such a social-media backlash that Hough publicly addressed the incident: "It certainly was never my intention to be disrespectful or demeaning to anyone in any way. I realize my costume hurt and offended people and I truly apologize," she tweeted.

In 2014, leaked surveillance camera footage showed Solange Knowles attacking Jay-Z in an elevator after a Met Gala party as Beyoncé stood impassively between them. Theories began swirling. The trio eventually released a statement: "We love each other, and above all, we are family. We've put this behind us and hope everyone else will do the same." The incident was later referenced in Beyoncé's "Flawless" remix: "Of course sometimes (expletive) goes down when it's a billion dollars on an elevator." 

In 2014, Jennifer Lawrence made headlines for a photo hack that allowed theives to steal and post nude and semi-nude images of several celebrities, including Lawrence. The incident happened due to a massive breach of Apple's iCloud service. The photos wound up on the website 4Chan. Other celebs targeted included Kate Upton, Victoria Justice, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ariana Grande and Kirsten Dunst. In 2016, Ryan Collins, 36, of Pennsylvania, one of the hackers responsible for Lawrence's leaked photos, agreed to plead guilty to a felony violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. 

Brian Williams, the former NBC Nightly News anchor, was suspended in February 2015 after he was challenged on social media about a statement he made about his reporting tour in Iraq in 2003. Williams said he was on a helicopter that had been hit by enemy fire and forced down. Veterans from the convoy challenged Williams' story on Facebook. Williams eventually recanted the story and was demoted.

In 2015, Ariana Grande was involved in Donutgate, in which she was caught on security cameras licking a tray of pastries she had not paid for at Wolfee Donuts in Lake Elsinore, Calif. (while saying "I hate America"). She later issued two public apologies for the headline-making incident. The bakery's owners declined to press criminal charges against Grande for deliberate food tampering, according to the Riverside County Sheriff's Department.

Former NBC "Today" show co-host Billy Bush drew international furor in 2016 when a 2005 "Access Hollywood" tape of his conversation with Donald Trump leaked to the press. On the tape, Trump makes several graphic comments about women while Bush eggs him on. Though NBC fired Bush following the tape's release, he has returned to television as host of Fox's "Extra," a celebrity TV news show that premiered in Sept. 2019.

During the 2017 Academy Awards, there was a major flub when Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty announced the best-picture winner as "La La Land" instead of the real winner: "Moonlight." The producers of "La La Land" were making their acceptance speeches when, suddenly, producer Jordan Horowitz was at the microphone, waving a white card: "There's a mistake. 'Moonlight,' you guys won best picture. This is not a joke."

In 2017, Kendall Jenner found herself in hot water on social media after appearing in a Pepsi commercial where she joined a Black Lives Matter-style march, handing a can of Pepsi to a cop outfitted in riot gear. A day after releasing its tone-deaf ad about breaking through racial barriers, the soft-drink giant apologized and announced it would pull the ad.

In April 2017, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly and 21st Century Fox parted ways after revelations of a series of settlements with female employees at the network who accused O'Reilly of sexual harassment or inappropriate behavior.

In May 2017, Kathy Griffin ignited backlash after holding a mock "decapitated" head of President Donald Trump shot by self-proclaimed "provocateur" photographer Tyler Shields. After the incident, CNN terminated its decade-long contract with the comedian to appear with Anderson Cooper on New Year's Eve. But Griffin has since embraced the brouhaha. "I don't think my Trump photo was a mistake and I'm actually quite proud of it," she told USA TODAY in May 2020.

In 2018, Kanye West made headlines for saying slavery "sounds like a choice" during an interview with TMZ. He later "properly apologized" for his comments. The same year, he came under fire for supporting (and meeting with) President Donald Trump.

In 2020, West made headlines when he announced he would be running for president. The musician elicited worries about his mental health after holding a campaign rally in North Charleston, South Carolina, where he shouted without a microphone, cried and offered deeply personal statements about his wife and family. Later, his wife Kim Kardashian put out a statement calling for "compassion and empathy" for her husband. "He is a brilliant but complicated person who on top of the pressures of being an artist and a black man, who experienced the painful loss of his mother, and has to deal with the pressure and isolation that is heightened by his bi-polar disorder," she wrote. "Those who are close with Kanye know his heart and understand his words some times do not align with his intentions."

Megyn Kelly's "Today" show run at NBC ended in 2018 after a tumultuous week that began when she defended blackface Halloween costumes, causing massive backlash that led her to apologize the next day.

In 2018, USA TODAY broke the news that Mark Wahlberg made $1.5 million to reshoot scenes in Ridley Scott's "All the Money in the World," while Michelle Williams was paid an $80 per diem totaling less than $1,000 – less than one-tenth of 1% of Wahlberg's paycheck. And Williams wasn't told. Wahlberg ultimately donated his reshoot fee to the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund.

Director Woody Allen faced backlash in 2019 after he claimed in an interview that he should be the face of the #MeToo movement because he's worked with hundreds of actresses over 50 years and nobody had ever "suggested any impropriety." Dylan Farrow, Allen's adopted daughter, in 2014 renewed the claim that Allen molested her in 1992 when she was 7 years old. Allen has long denied the allegations. Since Dylan's allegation has resufaced, multiple actors, including Kate Winslet and Rebecca Hall, have expressed regret for working with Allen, while others, like Scarlett Johansson and Diane Keaton, have defended him.

After nearly two decades of sexual assault and misconduct allegations against him, R. Kelly was indicted in 2019 and gave an intense interview a month later with CBS' Gayle King, where he insisted his innocence and claimed his accusers were lying. The documentary series "Surviving R. Kelly" detailed troubling accusations against the singer. Since his indictment, Kelly has remained in jail while wrapped up in multiple legal battles related to these allegations. In September, a judge denied Kelly's motion seeking immediate release from prison after he was attacked by another inmate while in prison in Chicago.