Entertainment Weekly Presents: Top 25 Biggest Celeb Scandals Since 1982

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10. MARIAH TEETERS ONTO TRL
All that Glitters, it seems, was actually fool's gold for Mariah Carey in 2001. In a surprise appearance to promote her tinselly travesty of a movie, the overworked pop tart popped into MTV's Total Request Live studio pushing an ice cream cart and proceeded to peel off her baggy T-shirt, unveiling gold booty shorts and a tank top. ''Every now and then,'' she told confused host Carson Daly, ''somebody needs a little therapy.''


CAREER IMPACT: MAJOR Glitter bombed, and Virgin Records paid $28 million to buy Carey out of her contract in 2002. Three years later, though, Carey emerged from her shame cocoon as the Billboard-topping butterfly who had the best-selling album of 2005 with The Emancipation of Mimi.
 
#17
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9. BRAD - JEN + ANGIE = BRANGELINA
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie already share the unique mutual handicap of being the world's most beautiful movie stars. So when the duo — who both had a knack for on-set romances — teamed up in 2004 for Mr. & Mrs. Smith, the gossip industry raised its alert level to red. By March 2005, Jennifer Aniston had filed for divorce from Pitt, and less than a year later — after months of playing coy — Jolie announced she was bearing Pitt's love child.


CAREER IMPACT: MINOR ''Brangelina'' became a tabloid phenom, but the new couple wisely shifted the focus to their charitable endeavors and ever-growing family (current count at press time: four). Aniston, meanwhile, emerged with copious public goodwill. All three parties continue to look very, very pretty.
 
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8. BRITNEY'S BIZARRE BUZZ CUT
Turns out the denim dress she wore to the 2001 American Music Awards won't go down as Britney Spears' most unfortunate style decision. On Feb. 16, a visibly distressed Spears paid an after-hours visit to a Tarzana, Calif., salon. After the owner refused to shave the pop star's head, Spears buzzed it herself.


CAREER IMPACT: MAJOR Spears' increasingly erratic behavior continues (most recently when she reportedly partied topless with a music-video extra in a hotel hot tub), further complicating her custody battle with ex Kevin Federline over sons Sean Preston, 23 months, and Jayden James, 11 months. Now the public is more interested in whether the platinum-selling artist will keep her kids than if she'll stage a successful comeback.
 
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7. DIXIE CHICKS DIS BUSH — COUNTRY GOES CRAZY
It's almost quaint, remembering when opposition to the Bush administration could be a radical statement. But when Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks told a London audience on March 10, 2003, that the trio was ''ashamed'' to share a home state with the U.S. president, it was the gibe heard round the world.


CAREER IMPACT: MINOR While they initially took a drubbing — their chart-topping single ''Travelin' Soldier'' vanished, and mocking the group became No. 1 with a bullet on conservative talk radio — things began looking up with the Chicks' 2006 release Taking the Long Way. It debuted at No. 1 with sales of 526,000, and bounced back into the top 10 after earning five Grammys in February.
 
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6. WOODY ALLEN MARRIES SOON-YI
Woody Allen films often feature unorthodox love stories, but he created the strangest one of all in his real life in 1992 when — during a bitter battle with longtime partner Mia Farrow over custody of their three children — the 56-year-old confirmed that he was in love with 21-year-old Soon-Yi Previn, Farrow's adopted daughter. (Farrow uncovered the relationship when she found nude photos Allen had taken of Previn in their apartment.) In 1997 Allen and Previn married; they now have two kids.


CAREER IMPACT: MINOR The director continues to release a movie each year — and has earned six more Oscar nominations. The thunderous ovation he received for his surprise 2002 Oscar appearance, meanwhile, was a fairly clear all-is-forgiven moment.
 
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5. MICHAEL JACKSON DANGLES BABY
Michael Jackson and children. It's a tricky subject — ever since the King of Pop was first accused of molestation in 1993 (he settled out of court with the accuser in 1994). But until Nov. 19, 2002, the public never really had a clear picture of how the King of Pop related to kids; then they saw what he did to one of his own. While visiting Berlin, Jacko greeted fans waiting below his fourth-floor balcony by dangling his son, Prince Michael II (a.k.a. ''Blanket''), over the railing — as the baby wriggled and kicked under his one-arm grasp.


CAREER IMPACT: MAJOR The video of Jackson's shocking gaffe played endlessly around the world, offering another turn in the singer's downward spiral of molestation accusations (he faced more in 2005 but was acquitted) and plastic surgery as performance art.
 
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4. HUGH GRANT'S DIVINE DRIVE-BY
Usually an actor's publicity tour for a new movie involves a round of talk-show appearances and magazine interviews. But just two weeks before the release of his 1995 comedy Nine Months, Hugh Grant put a new spin on PR when he was arrested in L.A. after police discovered him engaging in ''lewd conduct'' with prostitute Divine Brown. He was fined $1,180 and placed on two years of probation.


CAREER IMPACT: POSITIVE Thanks in part to his perfect apology on The Tonight Show (''I did a bad thing''), Nine Months ended up outgrossing his breakout hit Four Weddings and a Funeral with $69.7 million. The debacle actually seemed to enhance his charmingly rakish persona, which he put to good use later in Bridget Jones's Diary and About a Boy.
 
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3. SINÉAD RIPS INTO POPE
Lorne Michaels and millions of Catholics were so not pleased when Sinéad O'Connor capped her 1992 SNL appearance by rending a photo of the Pope. Ripping up that picture on live TV was her dramatic way of making a statement about child abuse, she later explained, but by then outraged viewers were more interested in the singer's head on a platter.


CAREER IMPACT: MAJOR Radio stations banned her songs, fans destroyed her albums, she was fiercely booed at a Bob Dylan tribute two weeks later, and she never regained her platinum-selling status. In 2004 she took out a full-page ad in the Irish Examiner pleading with her country-folk to stop making fun of her.
 
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2. MEL(T) DOWN
On the morning of July 28, 2006, Mel Gibson uttered 13 drunken words to L.A. County sheriff's deputy James Mee that would alter his career forever. ''F---ing Jews.... The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world,'' said the actor-director, who also reportedly called a female officer ''sugar tits.'' (Gibson was arrested for DUI and pleaded no contest, receiving three years' probation and one year of mandated AA meetings.) He issued a statement July 29 apologizing for his ''despicable'' behavior and admitting to a battle with alcohol.


CAREER IMPACT: TBD Endeavor agent Ari Emanuel called for Hollywood to stop working with Gibson, and ABC canned a Holocaust-themed TV show he was producing. True, Gibson's next film, Apocalypto, made a solid $51 million, but studios aren't exactly rushing to cast him in, say, a sequel to What Women Want.
 
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1. NIPPLEGATE
The Super Bowl is as American as apple pie. Flashing a bare breast on live TV during the Super Bowl, however, is not. That was quickly proven during the big game's Feb. 1, 2004, halftime show when Justin Timberlake tore off part of duet partner Janet Jackson's leather bodice, revealing a nipple-shield-adorned boob. With nearly 90 million people watching, many of them children, the incident became a flash point for family-values groups who had long argued that Hollywood was polluting kids' minds — and now they had proof. Timberlake apologized for the ''wardrobe malfunction,'' as did Jackson, who claimed the tearaway bra was ''an accident.'' But that did little to stop the ensuing tempest in a C-cup, which continued to make headlines throughout the year. The FCC issued CBS a $550,000 fine, politicians threatened bills that would ratchet up the punishment for future offensive broadcasts, and frightened radio stations began deleting naughty titles — e.g., Elton John's ''The ***** Is Back'' — from their playlists.


CAREER IMPACT: MAJOR CBS would only allow Jackson and Timberlake to attend the Grammys if they apologized on the broadcast (she declined; he agreed). Jackson was also forced to withdraw as the lead of a planned ABC biopic on Lena Horne, and the Super Bowl controversy didn't help her 8th studio CD, Damita Jo (released weeks later), which sold just under a million. For reasons oft debated (racism? sexism? sheer popularity?), Timberlake emerged from the bra-haha unscathed.
 
#28
Keep in mind that the entire list (nos 50 - 1) are reader voted as to which were the most scandalous.

If it were up to me, I'd put Nipplegate at number 50, only because I felt everyone made too big a deal of it.

I would also put the murders of Biggie and 2pac closer to number one.
 
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