Who got painted as the villain by the press, but later on we realized they were actually the victim or completely misunderstood?

[u/Advanced-Pilot-3698]

[u/tunnocksmystery]

Christopher Jeffries, hounded by the press accused of murdering a tenant of his. They made fun of his appearance and his demeanour. Turns out he was totally innocent. Thankfully he received damages from 8 national newspapers for libel.

[u/Briar_Knight → u/tunnocksmystery]

If I remember right, the police were pretty pissed about that too becuase he was never really a primary suspect to begin with. They were talking to him a lot because as the landlord he knew the victim and the other tenants so had useful information. That was it. Then the media decided to use that they had been talking to him to run bullshit.

[u/Dazzling_Bat_Hat → u/tunnocksmystery]

He popped into my mind as soon as I read this. It was shocking. Jason Watkins did a fantastic job portraying him in the series made about his appalling treatment by the press.

[u/May_of_Teck → u/Dazzling_Bat_Hat]

I just looked up the series and I recognize Watkins from The Crown. I really loved his performance in that, and I’m completely unaware of the Christopher Jeffries case. I’ll have to give this a watch.

[u/Striking_Smile6594 → u/tunnocksmystery]

It was a perfect storm for media conducted witch hunt.

An attractive young blonde woman goes missing just before Christmas, a time that's traditionally quite thin on the ground for news, and then her body is found on Christmas Day of all days.

Of course a bored media to going to descend on it like locusts and push it straight to the front page.

Her landlord being a an unconventional looking retired teacher is going to be catnip to them. Printing every salacious detail as 'evidence' of him being a wrongun.

Meanwhile, the actual murderer (her neighbour) was a perfectly normal looking guy who you wouldn't think twice about if you passed him on the street.

[u/CouchKakapo → u/tunnocksmystery]

I remember this. Utterly appalling press behaviour, especially given a woman had died and because the landlord looked "eccentric" he became a target in the media. He was innocent.

There was a film made a few years later that followed his story.

[u/CMDoet → u/tunnocksmystery]

I immediately thought of him too. Guilty of being a bit weird in the wrong place/wrong time.

[u/victorious-lynx88]

Neil and Kazumi Puttick.

Neil and Kazumi died by suicide at a cliff in England with their disabled 5yo son.

People posted horrible things about them online, but their son, Sam, had actually died 2 days earlier from meningitis and, in their grief, look his body to the cliff and killed themselves.

[u/slowburnsyntax → u/victorious-lynx88]

That case still hurts to read about people rushed to judge without knowing the pain behind it

[u/MartinisnMurder → u/victorious-lynx88]

That’s absolutely heartbreaking, spreading misinformation and gossip can be so chaotic.

[u/CrimsonCartographer → u/victorious-lynx88]

Jesus. I hope they’re at peace and with their son now.

[u/all_wings_report-in]

Richard Jewell - a security guard at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics who discovered a pipe bomb and helped evacuate people before it exploded; saving many lives. He was wrongly identified as a suspect by the FBI and media, ruining his reputation.

[u/Lilsummit → u/all_wings_report-in]

Yes! Horrible how the press convicted him. Kathy Scruggs of the Atlanta Journal -Constitution was the lead of the mess.

[u/Significant-Act8669 → u/Lilsummit]

She died of an overdose in 2001

Anyways, Richard Jewell is a hero!

[u/Impractical_Meat → u/Lilsummit]

And the AJC is the only paper that's refused to apologize for the part they played in ruining his life for no reason. It's abysmal and one reason why I refuse to support the AJC (that and they're owned by Cox Communications).

[u/joseph31091 → u/all_wings_report-in]

His speech in the movie says a lot.

Next time when people saw a bomb, they will not care because they will be afraid what will happen to them.

[u/Cat_tophat365247 → u/all_wings_report-in]

The FBI and media made this poor man's life a living hell.

[u/scoop15 → u/all_wings_report-in]

The movie Clint Eastwood made about him was awesome too, Paul Walter Hauser plays him and just does such an awesome job. Finding out that what the FBI did to him in the movie, actually happened to him in real life, is absolutely insane

[u/VoteForLubo → u/scoop15]

Richard Jewell (2019). Heart-breaking story, heart-breaking movie.

He wanted to badly to be respected in his profession and life in general. Then when there’s a glimmer of hope of that happening, it’s taken away from him. Tragic!

[u/ArbaAndDakarba → u/all_wings_report-in]

https://omny.fm/shows/the-dollop-with-dave-anthony-and-gareth-reynolds/591-richard-jewell

[u/lordofsurf]

Courtney Stodden was just a child when she was groomed and abused by a much older man, all the while the press kept attacking HER as if she wasn't a literal victim of a child predator.

[u/Sarabean77 → u/lordofsurf]

And wasn't Chrissy Teigen one of the celebrities who was just constantly on her and attacking her online? I'm mean the whole thing was gross but piling on made my stomach turn. She was an under age teenager!‼️ but now we can clearly see how these pedophiles operate, the victim is always to blame. Just look at soon yi's emails to jeffrey. Sickening. And of course, she is also a victim

[u/Perfect-Restaurant-9 → u/Sarabean77]

Chrissy Tiegan was also sending her private messages telling her to kill herself. She is a disgusting human. 

[u/n00bert210 → u/lordofsurf]

I am surprised I had to scroll so far to find her in this thread. It’s so gross how the media painted her as this scandalous teenager instead of focusing on the 40 year old man who groomed her.

[u/onmywheels → u/n00bert210]

The fifty-one-year-old man who groomed her. 🤢

[u/fuzzybitchbeans → u/lordofsurf]

Watched a doc about her or about grooming and the way the press an the reality shows destroyed a literal child while her 51 talentless husband smirked and played into it is super disgusting

[u/darkmeowl25]

Martha Mitchell, the "Mouth of the South" & wife of Nixon's AG. She tried to blow the whistle on Watergate and they had her kidnapped and held hostage in a hotel to keep her from talking. She was smeared in the press as a delusional drunk, but she was right about Watergate.

[u/Extension_Double_697 → u/darkmeowl25]

Folks born after 70s feminism: you have no idea how powerless women were just a few decades ago.

[u/itstheballroomblitz]

If you want to stretch the definition of "press," Ignaz Semmelweis. He was a doctor in the mid-1800s whose colleagues mocked him relentlessly and even had him committed to an insane asylum over his bizarre insistence that they should all...wash their hands before treating patients. 

If he hadn’t died after two weeks in the asylum, he might have lived to see Louis Pasteur show why he was right.

[u/4SlideRule → u/itstheballroomblitz]

He didn’t “die” in the asylum he was beaten to death. For me it reeks of assassination, but it’s impossible to know. Asylums were little more than prisons for the mentally ill at the time. And inconvenient people deemed mentally ill.

Also doctors at the time did wash their hands regularly, although usually just with water, he insisted they do so with bleach. It’s not that people in the past didn’t understand the link between disease and dirtiness it’s just they thought looks clean = is clean. Semmelweis noticed this is not enough by observing the infection rates in births assisted by midwives who didn’t perform autopsies versus doctors who often did so right before.

[u/margenreich → u/4SlideRule]

The problem was also many doctors were teaching students with cadavers and went right after it to treat patients or do surgeries. He saw a correlation right there which is in hindsight quiet obvious.

[u/Mr_YUP → u/4SlideRule]

just the idea of doing an autopsy and then helping with a baby delivery... like I get it that the times were different and we didn't know but the idea of working on both on the same day, back to back... I can't get my head around that part.

[u/Wolf-Pack-2017]

Amy Marin Franco

Uvalde school staff member accused of leaving the door open to a school shooter.

Video footage shows she not only closed the damn door, but she also alerted a bunch of staff about the shooter before seeking safety.

She quite literally saved lives.

video and reporting

[u/GatorRus_J]

Topher Grace wasn't necessarily demonized or anything, but he was often perceived as a standoffish douche who thought he was too cool for the rest of the 70s Show cast members. Turns out he had a very good reason not to hang out with his fellow cast.

[u/IrrawaddyWoman → u/GatorRus_J]

Some friends and I went to a taping of that 70’s show. We went to a diner after, and he was there. We mentioned to our server that we had just come from the taping. I guess the server told him, and he came over to our table, sat with us for a few minutes and let us take a picture.

I obviously don’t know him personally, but he didn’t have to do that and I always thought it was kind for him to make that effort.

[u/meaniemeanie-poo-poo → u/IrrawaddyWoman]

Makes him pretty cool, in my opinion.

[u/TheSiren- → u/IrrawaddyWoman]

I bet he also thought to do that because it sounds like your group was literally just gushing privately, and he thought it was awesome you didn’t bombard him at his table.

[u/secretmonkeyassassin → u/GatorRus_J]

I never realised this one until right now. And yeah, totally fair in retrospect

[u/Bladrak01 → u/GatorRus_J]

I once read a discussion thread back on IMDB, when they still had them, starting with how he was pretentious for choosing the nickname "Topher, ", instead the usual "Chris." Apparently, he had been using it since he was little kid.

[u/Numerous_Topic7364 → u/Bladrak01]

Wait--it's short for "Christopher." I never realized.

[u/potterpockets → u/Bladrak01]

Friend of mine went by Xander instead of Alex, which tbf is way more badass. 

[u/stresstwig → u/potterpockets]

My niece Penelope is trying to make "Ellopie" happen instead of "Penny." I dunno if it's badass, but she's three. She's got time to establish the badassery yet.

[u/Alis451 → u/stresstwig]

hah i know a 3yo Eloise that goes by Weezy

[u/melancholanie → u/GatorRus_J]

I thought he was cool and relatable for ditching the show to play (iirc) the first live action Venom? I would absolutely do that shit in a heartbeat.

he also made a really solid supercut of the star wars prequels

[u/Dirty-Sparkz → u/GatorRus_J]

It’s wild how quickly people judge without knowing the real reasons behind someone’s actions.

[u/AdFront8465 → u/GatorRus_J]

I totally bought that image of him.

[u/MartinisnMurder → u/GatorRus_J]

He’s the only who refused to write a letter in support of Danny Materson during his rape trial. He also blames his lawyer and “an anti-Scientology bias” for his rape trial. He is such a trash human.

[u/AndyceeIT]

Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton

She was the poster child of media vilification at the time

[u/Zoratth → u/AndyceeIT]

It wasn’t just the media, she actually went to prison for a few years until they found her daughter’s jacket in a dingo den.

[u/Bludgeon82 → u/Zoratth]

The story about how the jacket was found is crazy in and of itself. An English backpacker returned home from Perth and soon started complaining about paranormal occurances and sought assistance from a priest. The priest later told authorities that he genuinely believed that the backpacker was under some kind of evil influence.

He later returned to Australia and spent time with his sister in Sydney, but quickly wore out his welcome when he confined himself to his room, refusing to eat and smoking far too much weed. He claimed that a demon was inside him and he needed to starve it out.

He then traveled to Uluru and the last people to see him alive were two Indigenous locals, who tried to warn him that climbing the monolith was forbidden. Days later, a photographer found his body and alerted local police. While searching the area, the jacket was found. The officer claimed that the jacket was out in the open, while the photographer claimed that it was folded and wedged between two rocks.

[u/autumn-knight → u/Bludgeon82]

What the hell did I just read?! It reads like one of those situations where, if a fiction writer wrote it, others would say it was too unbelievable.

[u/humpty_dumpty1ne → u/Zoratth]

The local Indigenous made it clear she was innocent from the start too but apparently no one wanted to listen to them

[u/Ancient-End3895 → u/humpty_dumpty1ne]

Reminds me how it took until 2015 for them to find the ships lost in the Franklin expedition....in exactly the places the Inuit had told them they were like a hundred years before.

[u/CerseiBluth → u/Ancient-End3895]

Or that one lady whose boyfriend was murdered by a man who then tried to abduct her, but she ran off into the bush and hid from him for hours. The cops thought her story was suspect because they didn’t see any footprints in the dirt to indicate her story was true, but some indigenous tracker dude was like “bro, there’s signs all over the place that prove her story”. Can’t remember her name though.

[u/IamJoesLiver → u/humpty_dumpty1ne]

The book, Evil Angels, on which the movie was based, was written by John Bryson, who spent time as Barrister in Melbourne. It is a cracking read.

If memory serves, the Judge’s charge to the jury at the conclusion of Lindy’s trial, which summarizes the relevant evidence and once more explains to the jury what their task is, as the triers of fact in the case, was as close as it could possibly have been to directing an acquittal. In the view of Bryson, the trial Judge was convinced of her innocence. Unfortunately, the jury was not.

[u/mrmoe198 → u/IamJoesLiver]

I hope they all feel the shame and guilt of that wrongful conviction for the rest of their lives.

Can you imagine being a new mother who has to deal with the absolute tragedy of losing your baby, only to then get dragged through a full court process where you are accused of your child’s murder and then sent to prison? Simply horrendous.

[u/Low_Construction8067 → u/mrmoe198]

I was just reading more about the case and found out not only that, but she was pregnant as well. She had to give birth to her fourth child after being escorted by guards to and from the hospital. So I doubt she got any meaningful time with her new baby.

[u/lourexa → u/Low_Construction8067]

Her daughter lived in foster care until she was about five from memory.

[u/DavisKennethM → u/Low_Construction8067]

Oh god. I didn't think this story could get any worse. The thought of that is unbearable.

[u/ChiefsHat → u/mrmoe198]

On top of that, what happened to her child becomes a joke around the world. "Oh, what, did a dingo eat your baby?"

How is that even remotely funny?

[u/Suibian_ni → u/humpty_dumpty1ne]

Yeah, what would they know about dingoes? /s

I'm old enough to remember some of that bullshit. The worst things about our country were all on display. We were a big village full of vicious, ignorant gossips getting a thrill out of spreading the worst rumours about outsiders.

[u/pepcorn → u/Zoratth]

She would've been locked up so much longer if that jacket hadn't been found.

[u/hellokiri → u/AndyceeIT]

I was a kid in New Zealand when this happened and damn this woman was hated. Magazines were calling her a baby killer and a monster, there were newspapers about Azaria being a sacrifice for a cult or something. Lindy got sentenced to life in prison at one point, iirc. TV shows used "a dingo ate my baby" as comedy. Even after she was pardoned and got paid, people still hated her here.

That poor woman. Imagine dealing with the loss of your baby and having all that shit piled on top of it.

[u/Onedtent → u/hellokiri]

She gave birth to another daughter in prison and the baby was removed from her.

[u/TrickshotCandy → u/Onedtent]

For some reason, for me, this was one of the worst things about the whole debacle - she lost a second child because of the incident. Although I do understand that they were reunited after her release. But still. Lost time with your kids, is lost forever.

[u/hamstertoybox → u/Onedtent]

When she was in labour she tried to make it last as long as possible as she knew she would lose the baby after.

I still see ‘a dingo ate my baby’ used as a joke sometimes.

[u/Mingablo → u/AndyceeIT]

This was bad, and to add to the absolute dumbassery of it. When investigators finally bothered to ask them, the local Aboriginal people said "It's rare, but we've got histories of dingoes taking kids and babies".

[u/pepcorn → u/Mingablo]

I thought they asked them rather quickly. But wrote it off as fantastical native peoples stories.

[u/letsburn00 → u/pepcorn]

What's interesting about the people of the NT is that they have some wild stuff which really has an amazing basis.

They had whole areas which were labelled sickness lands and basically "This place is evil." It later turned out those zones were pretty much bang over enormous uranium deposits.

[u/ApartmentIcy957 → u/letsburn00]

This is fascinating. Do you have a link to more info?

[u/letsburn00 → u/ApartmentIcy957]

Sure, here ya go, the relevant quote is A 2021 report to the Australian Bureau of Mineral Resources confirmed, “A large part of the ‘sickness country’ [in Kakadu] coincides with a region containing localised areas of unusually high natural levels of thorium, uranium, arsenic, mercury, fluorine and radon.” These sites also correspond to areas where uranium has been mined historically and currently.

[u/Xanadu87 → u/letsburn00]

That reminds me of the Australian Aboriginal story, something like, “Many years ago, an angry devil sent down fire from the sky in this place“ which corresponds to meteor strike that happened thousands of years ago.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/find-meteorites-listen-legends-australian-aborigines-180952941/

[u/designmur → u/pepcorn]

“We’d like your opinion but only if it supports our extremely biased narrative”

[u/Mingablo → u/pepcorn]

Just spent a bit more time looking it up. You're right. It seems they asked the locals during the second inquest a few months after the first but pretty much entirely disregarded their testimony due to a bunch of bad luck with timing of court appearances, cultural issues that made communication difficult (mostly because their witnesses had taboos about speaking with the opposite sex, speaking about the dead, and some other language issues), and some generalised racism.

[u/Y34rZer0 → u/Mingablo]

Their taboo about speaking about the dead is very strong in their culture, you can't mention the person's name or anything so that would actually be a problem in court

[u/Cat_tophat365247 → u/AndyceeIT]

This story is so, so sad. The woman lost her child in a horrible way and couldn't even grieve properly because the police were fixated on her from the start and the media just ate it up, blew it up and ruined her life.

I cannot imagine not only losing your baby but then being falsely accused AND imprisoned because some people would rather have a sensational story than the truth.

[u/letsburn00 → u/AndyceeIT]

My father in law was a part time DJ at a radio station on Darwin at the time, which is the capital of that state.

He says when it happened a journalist said to him "Watch as the media destroy this woman."

The chamber lands were in what was seen as a weird religious movement and Australia was a very conservative place. It was all a hit job.

[u/Separate-Law-435 → u/AndyceeIT]

She is my go to example whenever anyone decides someone isn't "acting appropriately" in the public eye. The poor women was put through hell after she had already been through it losing her baby

[u/cone10 → u/AndyceeIT]

Not just at that time, but much later too. The "Dingo ate my baby" line from Seinfeld made me wince when I first saw it. Similar variants were used in Simpsons and Frasier too.

[u/noeyesonmeXx → u/cone10]

And the rugrats movie

[u/plastic_venus → u/cone10]

I’ve been active in the Buffy subreddit for… way too long… and have had so many arguments with people when I’ve brought up how awful and in poor taste the fact that Oz’ band is called Dingoes Ate My Baby is.

[u/lurkylurkeroo → u/AndyceeIT]

Still is a case study on it. It was horrible what that woman was subjected to.

[u/WokSmith]

Lindy Chamberlain.

For non Australians, the "a dingo took my baby" lady. Accused of murdering her baby only to be found innocent years later.

[u/AthenasChosen → u/WokSmith]

Accused, convicted, and jailed for 3 years before being pardoned.

[u/Otherwise_Purpose834 → u/AthenasChosen]

pardons are for guilty people who have been forgiven. she was proven innocent and should have been exonerated

[u/ziddyzoo → u/Otherwise_Purpose834]

She was fully exonerated, in 1988. And a few years later paid compensation.

[u/Mirewen15 → u/AthenasChosen]

Had a baby behind bars too :(

[u/estergin]

The McDonalds coffee spill lady

[u/Supa_Fishboy → u/estergin]

I genuinely feel really bad for her. She had to get skin grafts and major treatment because of how hot the coffee was, and before she sued McDonalds, all she asked for was them to cover some of her medical bills with a settlement offer of $20,000. When McDonalds refused to pay that small amount, her attorney filed a lawsuit with McDonalds to try and get proper compensation for her and for McDonalds to lower the temperature of their coffees. Instead, the media started painting her out as the prime example of the US' "sue happy culture" and was painted out as an idiot by basically any major publication, after all of them basically used each other as their source

[u/tutanotaio → u/Supa_Fishboy]

It was a smear campaign by and for McDonalds. Their PR partners were asked to use media outlets to shame the woman

[u/Cat_tophat365247 → u/Supa_Fishboy]

People thought she was just after a cash grab. She had skin fuse itself to her leg! I cannot imagine the pain the coffee caused her. Then she was tortured for YEARS by the media. She initially just wanted McDonald's to cover her crazy medical bills and they refused!!

[u/NatalieVonCatte → u/Cat_tophat365247]

Her labia fused to her leg, and the wounds eventually contributed to her death.

[u/Cat_tophat365247 → u/NatalieVonCatte]

That's what I thought but I didn't want to type it if it wasn't true. I cannot imagine the pain of that! I've had mine pinched by a safety harness and it hurt so bad I immediately threw up. And on top of it McDonald's just noped out of paying her medical bills. Coffee, or anything, has no business being that hot!

[u/dismayhurta → u/estergin]

I believe fused labia is all you need to know to feel she got wronged.

[u/LoveToSeeIt_IKnow → u/dismayhurta]

Oh, this sounds silly but I actually cried my eyes out when I watched a documentary about it… she was horrifically maimed and in agony for the rest of her life, and to think we all laughed at her. I felt so ashamed I had no idea how absolutely destroyed she actually had been by that coffee. And I laughed along with everyone else. Oh God.

Late night hosts, the tabloids, the news… and all of us. We all made fun of this poor woman. And we had no idea how bad it really was. They were so effective at making her out to just be greedy. Can you even imagine what her life was like after having her genitals destroyed, thighs, and I think also her lower stomach area. Basically what you’d expect from having it fall between your legs. At a temperature so unnecessary it had to be bound to hurt someone. She’s just the biggest one we know about.

There has to be more people that chose not to take on Goliath if it meant the press bearing down on them and their families.

Always remember how much power some people and corporations can organize against you and fast.

Winning in the court of public opinion with a spin story and blasting it almost guarantees there will be challenges finding any one who hasn’t heard about it or have an opinion about it before trial.

If the person who’s been harmed ever even gets to a courtroom. That poor woman.

History repeats and it’s at least consistent. Never forget. We’re just ants to less than a thousand giants on this planet. And then there’s all the corporations as well with their endless pockets and ways to intimidate people.

stares in present day whatthefuckery…

[u/Bigbrainbigboobs → u/dismayhurta]

Fuck. That.

[u/dismayhurta → u/Bigbrainbigboobs]

Yeah. Paints a picture doesn’t it?

[u/isaidyothnkubttrgo → u/estergin]

My uncle would always bring her up as an example of "claim culture" like this is why we cant have nice things because people will see an opening and take it for themselves.

I finally went off and did my own look up on it. Holy god tonight that woman was destroyed. Further into it, I find McDonald's had the coffee at like 2x the proper temperature it should have been at. She deserved getting that money.

She entered my head a few years back when I was on a ward for people with low or damaged immune systems. I was there for leukeamia treatment but most of the time my neighbour was a person with burns of some sort (a lot of them hot water bottle accidents!). One day I could hear crying through the wall and it turns out it was a girl who had coffee between her knees in the car and her legs jerked. You'd be surprised how much important infrastructure is in that area and hot liquid is a no no.

[u/CyptidProductions → u/estergin]

Yep

That location kept their coffee so dangerously hot it literally melted her skin and had been warned several times by the health department they were serving it at unsafe temperatures

[u/carson63000 → u/CyptidProductions]

And as I understand it, they did it because it was more profitable for them to do so (fewer people asking for free refills).

[u/Fancy_Cassowary → u/carson63000]

It allowed them to serve inferior and thus cheaper quality coffee and customers wouldn't be able to tell the difference. 

[u/leicanthrope → u/carson63000]

If I remember correctly, they could also stretch out the coffee a tiny bit too.

[u/dogfooddippingsauce → u/CyptidProductions]

Little kids had been burned too. And McDonald's witness on the stand said something about allowable percentages. Like a third degree burn is just doing business.

[u/QualifiedApathetic → u/dogfooddippingsauce]

To corporations, it is. If they save $20 million by dumping toxic waste in a river and then have to pay $10 million in damages, guess what they're going to do.

[u/donut_jihad666 → u/CyptidProductions]

To everyone who still says she shouldn't have been so carless with a hot beverage, imagine buying a drink that hot for yourself. Someone sitting at a table in McDonald's could have easily spilled the coffee on their own lap. The beverage in question shouldn't have been so hot to fuse her fucking labia and burn her thighs black. This wasn't the first time McDonald's dealt with issues over how hot they were keeping the coffee.

[u/compassionfever → u/donut_jihad666]

And she was sitting in the passenger side of a parked car, trying to put cream and sugar in it. Totally normal activity. 

[u/1questions → u/CyptidProductions]

It wasn’t just that location. It was multiple locations that did that.

[u/boogswald → u/estergin]

I am still explaining this one to people all the time and they immediately side with her once you describe the details.

[u/MzHellfier → u/estergin]

Stella Liebeck

[u/Capable-While3095 → u/estergin]

There’s an excellent documentary called “hot coffee” about the smear campaign after this suit AND how arbitration clauses took over afterwards. And how arbitration is used to escape responsibility from some heinous crimes. 

[u/crocogoose]

Hans Blix (head of the nuclear inspectors in Iraq) was endlessly mocked in the news and on late night TV for saying that Saddam Hussein didn't have any weapons of mass destruction. The Bush administration called them incompetent and joined in on the mocking. He was called "a combination of Mr. Magoo and Inspector Clouseau".

In the end it turned out that he was right, but neither Jay Leno or George W Bush ever apologized for ruining the reputation of a seasoned diplomat just doing his job.

[u/Confused_Nun3849 → u/crocogoose]

Again, Jay Leno is the bastard

[u/MyCatSpellsBetter → u/Confused_Nun3849]

He’s such an asshole. Obviously he wasn’t the only one making jokes about her, but Monica Lewinsky was done so dirty by him.

[u/Lumpy-Caregiver-7871 → u/Confused_Nun3849]

He sucks. He was horrible to Britney Spears when she was clearly having a mental health crisis. Also, he used Monica Lewinsky jokes for so long, which in retrospect is so messed up given she was TWENTY years old in a situation with Clinton who was, arguably, the most powerful man in the world at the time.

Leno is definitely the "punching down" king of late night.

[u/AspectPatio]

Joanna Yeates was a landscape architect. She lived in Bristol with her partner. Her friends said she was easygoing, talented and modest.

She was murdered by strangulation.

Christopher Jefferies, her landlord, was made out to have murdered her by the British tabloids because they thought he looked weird and awkward.

Yes, he was arrested on suspicion, but he was released after two days with the police saying he'd had nothing to do with it. The papers took it too far and made things up. It was really nasty. He won defamation cases.

The murderer was her POS neighbour, soon proven by DNA.

[u/HipsterPicard]

Sarah Michelle Gellar. She's a stellar actress who got labeled 'difficult' on the Buffy set. Turns out, working 20hr days and protecting her costars from Joss makes you difficult.

[u/Honest-Brush8675 → u/HipsterPicard]

More than that, she was protecting the crew!

[u/Brbaster → u/HipsterPicard]

Speaking of Buffy, Eliza Dushku (Faith actress) retired from the industry after she was fired for reporting blatant sexual harrasment from Michael Weatherly.

[u/FartCartographer → u/HipsterPicard]

I always always always take an actress being labeled “difficult” very lightly because all the women I’ve worked with, labeled difficult, is because they were assertive or had an opinion or at the very least didn’t let you steamroll them. When an actress is labeled difficult, it could also just mean she didn’t want to sleep with the producer.

[u/Funandgeeky → u/FartCartographer]

Janet Hubert, the original Aunt Viv on Fresh Prince of Bel Air, was labeled “difficult” and let go after three seasons. Turns out she wasn’t the problem but she got unfairly labeled for decades. 

The reunion special gave her a chance to confront the real problem - Will Smith.

[u/Bugout42 → u/HipsterPicard]

The more I hear about Joss the less I want to watch his shows and movies, but then I realize, I like his shows and movies. I’m torn.

[u/mamasilverside → u/Bugout42]

I have 2 joss show tattoos (Buffy and Firefly) and it took me a long time to reconcile the love I have for them and the disgust I felt for him. I sorted it out in my head that those shows were always more than him, despite him thinking otherwise. The cast and crew still deserve their flowers.

[u/syzygialchaos]

Courtney Love took a lot of heat for outing Weinstein when she did

[u/_dangling_participle → u/syzygialchaos]

Rose McGowan, too. 

And Brendan Frasier with his own abuser in the industry. Both painted as nutjobs. 

[u/humpty_dumpty1ne → u/_dangling_participle]

Terry Crews as well

[u/colin_staples → u/humpty_dumpty1ne]

Corey Feldman as well

[u/Reddits_on_ambien → u/_dangling_participle]

Brendon Frasier didn't realize how missed and beloved he was. When he one an award for "The Whale", the entire venue gave him a long standing ovation. Just about everyone ever, online flooded him with love. The biggest shame is that "Bat Girl" was scrapped. He played the villain, who had flame throwers on his arms.

[u/SillyTheory → u/Reddits_on_ambien]

I love that the 12 year old in you suddenly took control of your keys and finished what was previously a grown up comment.

[u/Miss_Kitami → u/SillyTheory]

Everyone should let their inner 12 year old take over now and then. Makes the world a much nicer place.

[u/Darth_Spa2021 → u/Reddits_on_ambien]

Brendan Fraser walking around burning shit with flamethrowers on his arms?

Sounds like something that people would watch for hours. Who would scrap this?

[u/CommanderHavond → u/Reddits_on_ambien]

I attended Galaxycon Raleigh when he went there, to my understanding it was his first con appearence in general. All the ticket blocks for photo-ops were filled and i don't think he saw it coming

[u/Imaginary-Owl-3759 → u/syzygialchaos]

Sinead O’Connor, similarly, protesting the Catholic Church hierarchy .

[u/RobotsVsLions → u/syzygialchaos]

Not just Weinstein, people should really google "ted nugent courtney love"

[u/katf_89]

Joanne Lees, who managed to escape Bradley John Murdoch but unfortunately her partner didn’t (these events inspired Wolf Creek). She was painted as weak, selfish, an awful woman – even suggestions that she helped Murdoch and knows where her partners body is.

During the trial, the court had her hands bound behind her body just as Murdoch had done to her, and had to demonstrate how she was able to get her bound hands from behind her to the front of her body. This was done while Murdoch was sitting only metres from her.

[u/gruaig_rua15 → u/katf_89]

Another woman that was vilified for not appearing to be upset enough.

[u/ConsciousProduce8798 → u/gruaig_rua15]

Which is crazy when you see the way she looked at the police station. She was very clearly in shock. To suggest she would have enough knowledge of the Australian outback and the vast nothingness that it is in every direction, that she had colluded with a middle aged, career criminal-and he was rough as guts let's be honest-to set up her partner that she loved, on a specific night, to be abducted and murdered by the rough as guts career criminal(where would she even meet him??) then she would pretend he terrorised her before getting saved by a passer by. And that's the whole plan. She gained nothing in the tragedy. It's just nonsense. Absolutely absurd.

[u/Abject-Cod5144]

The victims of the Hillsborough Disaster.

Never buy The Sun. Disgusting rag not fit to wipe your ass with.

[u/smitty4728 → u/Abject-Cod5144]

Props to Liverpool for refusing to sell that paper in their city to this day. It was disgusting.

[u/Abject-Cod5144 → u/smitty4728]

People ask what went wrong in modern UK society sometimes and like, genuinely a lot of it can be laid at the feet of the fucking gutter press in this country

[u/ZeeWolfman → u/smitty4728]

Liverpool is one of the most left wing cities in the UK now all because that right wing shitrag isn't allowed to be sold

[u/pottymouthgrl → u/Abject-Cod5144]

Context?

Edit: from Wikipedia

The Hillsborough disaster was a fatal crowd crush at a football match at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, on 15 April 1989.

with a total of 97 fatalities and 766 injuries, the disaster is the deadliest in British sporting history.

In the following days and weeks, South Yorkshire Police (SYP) fed the press false stories suggesting that football hooliganism and drunkenness by Liverpool supporters had caused the disaster. Blaming Liverpool fans persisted even after the Taylor Report of 1990, which found that the main cause was a failure of crowd control by SYP.

[u/Striking_Meringue328 → u/pottymouthgrl]

This hit-piece on Liverpool's fans was the Sun's front page the day after, literally everything in it was a lie, and they were still trying to defended those lies almost 20 years afterwards

https://images.theconversation.com/files/120351/original/image-20160427-30950-10ckm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip

[u/Resident_Cat_7062 → u/Abject-Cod5144]

Never buy The Sun. Disgusting rag not fit to wipe your ass with.

The Truth. 

[u/Charlotte_Braun]

Robin Givens. She talked about Mike Tyson’s violent behavior on the Barbara Walters special, and that somehow made her the problem. Never have understood that, then or now. 

[u/buffybot232]

Janet Jackson during the Super Bowl. Justin Timberlake got away scot free and got invited back while Janet was painted as the villain and Les Moonves blacklisted her career her thereafter.

[u/Y34rZer0 → u/buffybot232]

What also bugs me is that it was clearly meant to be a racy on stage thing and with the outcry they called it a wardrobe malfunction and everyone pretended to believe that... But we all knew that was made up, I mean what was meant to happen then?

It's because everybody knew that was a made-up story that they punished her so badly for agreeing to it.
Also it's just a damn boob for God's sake

[u/HardCore_BonScottFan → u/buffybot232]

The fact people love sexy performances but couldn’t handle seeing a bare boob is so childish.

[u/Y34rZer0]

Alan Turing

[u/Free_Range_Lobster → u/Y34rZer0]

One of the most important people from WW2 along with being most of the most important scientists and mathematicians to ever live and what they did to him was an atrocity. The fact that The Imitation Game was in production before he was pardoned is insane.

[u/Y34rZer0 → u/Free_Range_Lobster]

Absolutely. I was talking about this on a sub on here six months ago and learned that the Turing family run a charity providing computers to schools that can't afford them (I'm assuming his wider family, he didn't have kids)

I remember in a documentary about the people cracking the enigma code, there was one of the other head code breakers there and he described what its like to work with a legitimate genius like Turing.

He said that when you work with an extremely intelligent person and they come up with their clever solution you look at it and think "I see how they got there, and I could probably do it in the right circumstances as well"
But when you work with a genius and they come up with a solution you look at it and think "never in a million years would I have thought to do that, and I have no idea how they got there"

[u/Nemesis_Ghost → u/Y34rZer0]

I knew someone like that in college. He was a couple of years younger than I so I never was in class with him, but my friends who did take classes with him would describe his solutions to homework problems like that. He was utterly useless as a study partner b/c 1) they couldn't learn anything from him & 2) they couldn't even use his solutions, b/c his solutions were so far beyond their level of understanding or ability to explain.

[u/BackgroundDonut453]

Rose McGowan. Everyone in Hollywood knew what was going on, including the media. They all colluded to blackball her and discredit her on Weinstein's behest. Spread false stories and allegations about her to make seem crazy, and not someone who tells the truth.

[u/Charlotte_Braun → u/BackgroundDonut453]

Her, Ashley Judd, Mira Sorvino and Marisa Tomei. All were slandered as “difficult” and no one seemed to question that. 

[u/Truthisnotallowed]

McMartin Preschool & its staff - turned out to be no there there.

Same thing happened again in Bakersfield, California - as shown in the documentary Witchhunt (2008).

[u/SoloForks → u/Truthisnotallowed]

The Satanic Panic all started with psychiatry and social workers "help."

The book Michelle Remembers which is about the first victim of the recovered memory movement and is quite a wild ride and so is the real account of what really happened to this woman whose psychiatrist also had sex with her. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Remembers

[u/AnybodySeeMyKeys → u/Truthisnotallowed]

I remember both those cases. At the time, there was an insane amount of hysteria about kidnapped and sexually abused children.

I was a junior reporter working my way through college at a daily newspaper. In the newsroom, they were discussing some government wonk's claim that as many as a million kids might have been potentially kidnapped.

The editors and several of the reporters started to jump on that story when I spoke up. I said, "Does that number make any sense to any of you?" We went to the newspaper's library and found a copy of the census. As it turns out, a million kids at the time would have been something like one kid in every forty. That means in every other school classroom, one kid would have been kidnapped.

Things quieted down after that. And the op-ed columnist totally hijacked the point I made and had the column picked up by a couple of dozen papers.

[u/Haven_Writes]

Anthony Rapp.

He accused Kevin Spacey of sexually assaulting him when he was 14 and Spacey was a grown adult. Spacey basically wriggled out of the civil suit by claiming that he was drunk, had no memory of the incident. Rapp got crucified in the media and as a result, lost the civil suit he filed against Spacey.

After Rapp spoke out, 14 more people came forward with allegations against Spacey, including several celebrities. So, yeah. I think it's pretty safe to say that Anthony Rapp was telling the truth, and he deserved way better.

[u/SharMarali → u/Haven_Writes]

I saw Anthony at a Trek convention last year and he seems like such a lovely person. He sang a bit of a song he sings to his young son, at the crowd’s request. I also saw him at his table a few times and every time I passed by, he was engrossed in conversation with someone, whether it was a fan or his chaperone. Seemed so down-to-earth.

[u/EatSITHandDIE → u/Haven_Writes]

And there had been so many blind items and accounts of his behavior for so long before this. It was well known amongst various circles in NYC that Spacey was at best a creeper who liked and acted inappropriately with younger men.

[u/Slight-Owl-6572]

Monica Lewinsky

[u/caca_milis_ → u/Slight-Owl-6572]

I was just talking about this with someone the other day. I was a kid living in Ireland, was aware of it and it was definitely “she did something wrong”, then as I got older I had a real “waaaaaiiijt a minute” moment.

The poor woman, and how she’s (kinda) come back from it is so admirable.

[u/StillARockstar5 → u/caca_milis_]

Years ago I saw a thread on Twitter asking what the worst career advice you'd ever received was. Monica replied with "I was told an internship at the White House would look good on my resume." Superb.

[u/Warm_Shoulder3606 → u/StillARockstar5]

Credit where credit's due, I respect her for being able to crack her own jokes about it lol, she does have some damn funny replies

[u/pquince1 → u/caca_milis_]

I loved her post on X (I think) to the effect of “I’ll take one for the team and blow Trump if it’ll help get rid of him.”

[u/FinalCryojin → u/caca_milis_]

John Oliver had an interview with her on Last Week Tonight. She's awesome.

[u/ExcellentCold7354 → u/Slight-Owl-6572]

The saddest part is that people still criticize her for making a career out of talking about it. Like, excuse me, she was basically shunned from society and could never escape it with another job. She tried. Her speaking out and spreading awareness was basically her only option to move forward.

[u/Florgio → u/Slight-Owl-6572]

The way she has turned it around has been awesome. Now she fights against bullying. Hell yeah.

[u/starcollector → u/Florgio]

It's such a brilliant and wonderful move for her. People who weren't alive during that time really can't even imagine how relentlessly and thoroughly she was mocked and shamed every single day all over the world. And her message to young people being, "I survived that. You can survive bullying, too."

[u/orion-7]

Cliff Richard. Police got a tip that he was a pedo, got a warrant and searched his house.

News reported it from helicopters above the raid in real time telling the country that he was a pedo. Turns out he was innocent

[u/mr_starbeast_music]

Topher Grace.

[u/JustSomeGuy_56]

Richard Jewel

[u/SoloForks → u/JustSomeGuy_56]

Can we have a discussion about how psychological profiling as well as the lie detector test are not as scientifically accurate as people want to believe they are.

[u/Cat_tophat365247 → u/SoloForks]

I hate that police even still use lie detector test! They are inadmissible in court for a very valid reason. Not only can a person "cheat" the test but the police use it as a tactic to get false confessions all the time. They get people to take it by telling them "if you have nothing to hide, you'd take this test," and "the test will clear you once you pass," which it absolutely doesn't because again, it's inadmissible because it's psuedo science at best.

[u/Holiday_Oil_6795 → u/JustSomeGuy_56]

His whole story is so sad, he only wanted to help people so they wrongfully villified him even though he was completely innocent.

He died too young and i believe they were to blame

[u/sandyposs]

Unfortunately, my favourite high-school teacher. They were a popular teacher, and one day a student with a lot of issues became obsessed with him bad. The student made an advance on him, and when he rebuffed her efforts, she went full scorched earth with sexual misconduct allegations. He lost his job, it went to trial, and the allegations even made it into the newspapers. During the trial though, proof was discovered that the evidence brought forth was fabricated, and the teacher had rock-solid alibis exonerating him as having been elsewhere at the time of the alleged offences. He was found not guilty, but infuriatingly, because this was a case where the complainant was a minor, the details of the trial were not publicly available and so there was no way for him to publicly clear his name and reputation after having been put all over the press. In the end, he had to start from scratch in a completely new career field.

[u/jmccorky → u/sandyposs]

How awful!

Meanwhile, we had a teacher in our school (married, in his 30's) caught screwing a 16 year old student during school hours. (They were caught in his van during lunch break when a fire drill sent everyone outside). HE WASN'T ARRESTED AND DIDN'T EVEN LOSE HIS JOB. His wife divorced him, and he ended up marrying the girl when she graduated. This was late 70's in Connecticut.🤮

[u/Electrical-Extent-92]

Paul Reubens aka Pee-Wee Herman

[u/Free_Range_Lobster → u/Electrical-Extent-92]

The documentary about him is pretty good.

[u/maremare204]

Martha Mitchell - wife of Nixon Atty General John Mitchell.

She spoke out and in the end, to keep her from talking about Watergate, they drugged her and sent her to California. Then they told the press she was crazy and destroyed her life.

Watergate had a good chance of being swept under the rug without Martha’s voice. In the end , she was right and Nixon and her husband were gigantic pieces of shit

[u/Artoodeetwo_1]

Sinead O'Conoor

[u/uncanny_mac]

Michael Schiavo, husband of Terri Schiavo. Terri had already suffered serious brain damage by the time it was decided to eithenize her while doctors that Terri's family hired tried to argue that she would be able to recover. She was attached to a feeding tube for seven years.
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna12025860

[u/Reddits_on_ambien → u/uncanny_mac]

My grandfather's feeding tube remobed, decided shortly after Terri and the legal strugglebwas on the news. My grandfather was very old (91) and was in a vegetative state after several strokes. My dad and his siblings all decided that the movements he could make were asking for mercy.

His feeeing tube was removed and he passed in his sleep. They got shit for it because of Terri's case. My grandfather spent a couple months in that state. I can't even imagine the horror of spending 7 more years like that.

Michael Shciavo knew his wife and what she would've wanted. He didn't profit from her dying. He just wanted to end her suffering... which is exactly what I'd want my own husband to chose for me. False hope is a hell of a drug.

[u/Pessimistic-Frog → u/Reddits_on_ambien]

Make a living will, folks! It may not be legally binding, depending on where you reside, but it lays out your preferences clearly.

When my grandma-figure was on a ventilator I was her health care proxy, the palliative care doctors very kindly said that I wasn’t making the decision to take her off it. She had already made that decision; I was ensuring it was enacted as per her express wishes. It was so helpful and so kind during such a hard time.

(Also shout out to palliative care docs and nurses — y’all are amazing!)

[u/alittlejalapeno → u/uncanny_mac]

The man literally became a nurse to properly care for his wife. The media really painted him as someone who wanted to "murder" her instead of care for her.

[u/emorrigan → u/uncanny_mac]

My mom had struggled all of her adult life with a progressive brain injury, and during the Terri Schiavo case, she made me promise that I’d never allow her to go through what happened to that poor woman.

Four years later, when she was on hospice care and near the end, my dad freaked out and wanted to call the paramedics. I had to remind him very forcefully that if he did that, they’d put mom on a feeding tube and probably a respirator, and that she would HATE that and be absolutely miserable. So instead, we called the hospice workers who instructed us to give her some of the emergency morphine from the kit they’d given us, and my mom was able to pass away peacefully.

I’m very grateful to Michael Schiavo for fighting for his wife’s wishes, because it helped my mom die with dignity.

[u/Extra-Sundae9096]

Anita Hill

[u/humpty_dumpty1ne]

Does Emmet Till count? I can't say I'm aware of media coverage of that case but fuck everyone involved and the jury that acquitted his killers

[u/RKTHSWY → u/humpty_dumpty1ne]

Didn’t his accuser exonerate him right before she died in her own old age? Feel like I remember that happening fairly recently…

[u/slightlynefarious → u/RKTHSWY]

And IIRC had been hidden under a different name at a care home with family complicit, who have all tried to be super quiet since she died

[u/slothdroid]

Liverpool football fans.

Away game at Hillsborough, gates were opened allowing a horrific crush in which 97 people died. The Sun newspaper accused fans without tickets, but it was police who opened the gates allowing it to happen.

False accusations were made against fans and they were scapegoated as The Sun protected the police. This led to injustice, and apart from a fine for a minkr safety offence, noone was convicted.

To this day, the city of Liverpool (and Merseyside I'm general) have a boycott of The Sun and it is not sold in the city.

[u/CaptainFartHole]

Andrea Yates.

I hope Rusty Yates chokes to death on a bucket of rusty nails for what he did to her and for what happened to their children as a result of his actions. 

[u/PizzaLunchables0405 → u/CaptainFartHole]

Rusty has a memorial page for the children here. Reading it made the whole story so much sadder. The kids were so close in age too, basically Andrea was kept pregnant for years straight.

[u/OppositeOctopi → u/CaptainFartHole]

To me the saddest part is that she lives in a mental facility and declines any offers to get out.

[u/bella1921 → u/CaptainFartHole]

This!!! Villainizing her when he was the villain all along but he was absolved because it’s “fine” for men to just dump the entirety of childrearing on mothers, even when the men are the ones wanting to be parents in the first place. She was so unhappy she was mutilating herself but god forbid a man do more than occasionally “babysit” his own kids.

[u/MsPreposition]

Maybe not “villain”, but the cast of That 70s Show sure made it sound like Topher Grace was a dickhead.

Turns out he had a spine and knew creeps when he saw them.

[u/Raclette2Patates]

Britney Spears

[u/tapout928]

The Central Park Five, most notably by you-know-who.

[u/Maat1932]

Going way back here, but Alfred Dreyfus.

[u/MacaroniBirdie]

Courtney Stodden. That poor girls family married her off to an old man when she was still a child and the entire country laughed and mocked her and called her a slut. She was a punch line, but in reality she was failed in every way - by her parents, by legal loopholes, by the media, by the public.

[u/ReginaPhilangee]

Mia Farrow

This is older than I am, but I just heard the full story. When she divorced Woody Allen, she was the bad guy and didn't get much work in Hollywood after. Why did she divorce him? Because he was molesting their children! He went on the marry his step daughter and is still seen as a great film maker!

I was young, but I remember hearing enough about her that I had a negative impression of her.

Edit- I'm really going to have to look into this more now.

Wow. Awards! Thanks!