12 Celebrity Scandals From The '90s That Make 2017 Seem Tame In Comparison

1. The Crazy Story Behind The Most Infamous Sex Tape Of The '90s

Perhaps the most infamous stolen celebrity item in the history of the world is the Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee sex tape.

The chronicling of Anderson's and Lee's sexual activities while on their honeymoon peaked the public's interest back in the late '90s. It generated millions of dollars and can still be found online today.

Tommy Lee, the Motley Crue drummer that was a rock megastar at the time, and the sexy, blonde Baywatch actress Pamela Anderson wed in early 1995, and soon after their sexual activities could be watched by anyone who owned a working computer or VCR.

The story of the stolen tape

The newlywed couple hired many people to renovate their Malibu mansion, but often complained by how poorly done the work was. Electrician Rand Gauthier was so fed up he was willing to forget about the money they had owed him.

When he and a general contractor came back to pick up their tools at the couple's mansion, Lee pointed a gun and yelled at them to get off their property.

"I was never really that popular with people, " Gauthier recalled. "But I had never been held at gunpoint. It screwed with my head."

That was the last straw for Gauthier, who now would stop at nothing to seek revenge.

"He wanted the drummer to feel vulnerable, to realize that he was just a human being, not an invincible rock god, even if he had sold 20 million records by the age of 32," Rolling Stone reported.

So he stole the giant safe he knew was in their garage, which contained Lee's guns and Anderson's jewelry. But there was something even more precious in that box - a homemade sex tape.

It was a win-win situation because he thought he would get rich by selling it and also accomplish his main goal - damaging Lee's inflated ego.

In the eyes of the public, this wasn't just your regular porno, it was getting a sneak peak into the lives of one of the hottest celebrity couples of the '90s.

The release of the sex tape

Internet Entertainment Group pioneered the American internet pornography industry, and was one of the few distributors to accept the sex tape without the famous duo's consent.

The home video, which is approximately an hour long and features only eight minutes of the couple having sex, took two years to go viral.

It's estimated that the tape made $77 million in less than a year! Most people paid to watch the video online. Club Love, an early internet porn site, made the most money by streaming the sex tape for five-straight hours.

During that time, the porn business was booming, and almost every home could afford a VCR, so other people made money by selling copies of the tape out of the trunk of their cars.

When the sex tape was widely circulated enough and everyone in Hollywood had a chance to see it, Anderson and Lee finally noticed that their safe was stolen. They hired a private investigator to look into it and find the perpetrator.

They sued the distribution company and won $1.5 million in damages. However, they were unable to stop the distribution, so they signed over the copyright to Club Love.

"Our servers were rocked. It was insanity. We had thousands of sales a day, every day, for months," said Jonathan Silverstein, who was working as the company's director of sales and marketing at the time.

Aftermath

"It's the greatest tape I have ever seen in my life," Howard Stern, American radio and television personality, said in late 1997. "What's cool about it is that, like, you get to live their lives with them."

Gauthier's plan to tarnish Lee's image did not go accordingly, and he didn’t get rich off it either.

"I made his career, is what happened," Gauthier said.

Pamela Anderson is in her 50s now, but back in the day she was a Playboy model and a major sex symbol. This sex tape didn't really tarnish her public image, but it was embarrassing for her.

"I've never seen it. I made not one dollar. It was stolen property," Anderson told host Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens. "I don't want to talk about my vagina anymore or my public sex — anything."

As for rock star Tommy Lee, people called him an “asshole” more than they did before, but he became even more famous than he originally was.

The famous duo got divorced in 1998 after Anderson accused Lee of abuse towards her and her two sons.

This sex tape caused a huge shift in the way people consumed tabloid celebrity news and how celebrity news sites reported on them. It also changed the porno industry.

It led to the creation of sites like TMZ and RedTube. It also helped people to make a name for themselves, such as Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian, whose popularity was boosted after their sexual activities were exposed online.

All in all, there’s so much pornographic content online that we don’t think much about the Pamela and Tommy sex tape now, but its history will never be wiped away from the internet, or the minds of those who heard or watched it in the '90s.

Believe it or not, despite their sex tape, Pamela and Tommy Lee weren't actually the most scandalous couple of the decade. This next couple, however...

2. Woody Allen Marries His Step-Daughter Because "The Heart Wants What It Wants"

While being known as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, Woody Allen has led a life of both triumph, and shame.

The acclaimed writer, actor, and producer faced a public backlash like no other when his marriage to Mia Farrow began to fall apart at the seams, bringing forward accusations that shook the reputation of the once-beloved Hollywood icon.

While both Allen and Farrow were dating (the pair were never formally married), they shared custody over their biological child, Satchel, and two adopted children, Dylan and Moshe.

At the time of their relationship, Farrow had five other children, including Soon-Yi Previn, who was adopted after being rescued from difficult circumstances in Korea.

By all accounts, Allen and Farrow had a happy 12 year relationship together. In that time, Farrow appeared in 13 of his movies, along with many of her relatives.

While they never moved in together, instead living on opposite sides of Central Park, Farrow herself said that Allen was an "excellent father" because of the amount of time he spent with his children.

Though these words now hang ominously, following the events of later years. In early '90s, it was revealed that Allen had begun an affair with Previn several years prior. Farrow was the one to discover the affair, and it led to a bitter divorce and breakup of the shared family.

The filmmaker spent much of his time visiting his family at Farrow's apartment, and got to know his former partner's children quite well. Much of his behavior has now been called into question, but it appears that there was a shared attraction between Previn and the man many deemed to be her stepfather.

Friends of the family said that they sensed the 20-year-old had formed a crush on Allen over the course of several years of knowing him, and that he "seemed to delight in it."

One family friend reported that "Woody started taking her to basketball games, and Mia would reportedly tell her to stop dressing up for them as if she were going to a disco."

While Allen and Farrow were having relationship issues towards the beginning of the '90s, it seems that the actress had no idea that her daughter was carrying on an affair with her partner, until she stumbled upon staggering evidence of his infidelity and what she describes as "immoral behavior."

Farrow discovered several photographs of Previn fully nude in Allen's apartment, with her daughter in sexually explicit poses. She felt betrayed and horrified, ending the relationship with him outright.

Allen maintained that Previn had asked for the photos to be taken as she had an interest in modeling, but did not deny the allegations.

Following the split, Previn moved into Allen's apartment and the two of them formalized their now public relationship.

Previn maintains that their relationship was consensual, and reject's her adoptive mother's narratives of grooming that took place. She took to the press that year to give her side of the story.

"I'm not a retarded little underage flower who was raped, molested and spoiled by some evil stepfather — not by a long shot," says Previn. "I admit it's offbeat, but let's not get hysterical."

Allen also came out in defense of his actions, distancing himself as her father figure at first, though this would eventually change. In the wake of the scandal he portrayed them as lovers who met under unusual circumstances.

"The heart wants what it wants. There's no logic to those things. You meet someone and you fall in love and that's that," he said. "I could have met her at a party or something."

The two of them have stayed together for over 20 years, getting married in Venice in 1997.

Some have called their relationship into question, citing a movie Allen once wrote and starred in about an older man dating a college girl, telling himself it is just a fling, until they eventually fall in love.

They have recently appeared in headlines again, with Allen offering more explanation as to the nature of their relationship. Whereas previously, he attempted to separate any filial link between himself and his wife, he now employs some rather strange terminology.

“She deferred to me, and I was happy to give her an enormous amount of decision-making just as a gift and let her take charge of so many things,” he said.

Previn has always agreed with this point of view, "To think that Woody was in any way a father or stepfather to me is laughable."

"I started the relationship with her and I thought it would just be a fling. It wouldn’t be serious, but it had a life of its own. And I never thought it would be anything more," said Allen, very coyly. "And the age difference didn’t seem to matter. It seemed to work in our favor actually."

Now, the two of them share two adopted children, and it appears that Allen and his fan-base have moved past this very quizzical time of his life.

However, Woody Allen wasn't the only celebrity to face some pretty heinous accusations concerning children...

3. The True Story Behind The Child Abuse Allegations That Cost Michael Jackson Over $20 Million

Every celebrity has a side of themselves that they don’t share with the public, but in the summer of 1993, it seemed like Michael Jackson had split into two entirely different people.

There was the King of Pop, the 12-time Grammy-winning artist behind albums like Thriller and Bad, who had given an incredible performance at Super Bowl XXVII just months earlier.

But there was also “Wacko Jacko,” the version of Jackson’s personality that sold millions of tabloids filled with lurid stories about his personal life.

Tabloid readers obsessed over whether or not Jackson was bleaching his skin (he probably was), if he had cosmetic surgery (he admitted to two nose jobs and a surgery adding a chin dimple), and why he seemed to be losing so much weight (Jackson’s closest friends and family say he struggled with anorexia).

But the most popular stories were the truly bizarre, like the wild claim that Jackson slept in a hyperbaric chamber designed to keep him looking youthful. Of course, the strangest story of all turned out to be 100 percent true: on the weekends, Jackson invited children to visit him at his $17 million mansion dubbed “Neverland Ranch” in Santa Ynez, California.

The massive property was Jackson’s home, but also his private amusement park where he invited a number of children he called his friends. He let them ride on his Ferris wheel, watch movies in his private theater, and - according to a number of parents - invited children for sleepovers, even sleeping in the same room with them.

Jackson became so close with one of those children, Jordan Chandler, that he invited him on his Dangerous World Tour, and was often photographed in public with Jordan and his family.

So it made national headlines when Jordan and his father, Evan, accused Jackson of sexual abuse, saying the singer had inappropriately touched the boy.

The public was shocked by news that police raided Neverland Ranch in late August, discovering nude photographs of children, which did not qualify as child pornography. Police also questioned 30 children who had stayed at Jackson’s home, including child star Macauley Culkin, but none accused the singer of being a child molester.

While police never found enough evidence against Jackson to press charges, the singer was dragged into a pair of messy civil court cases.

Before the details of Jordan’s allegations came to light, Jackson declared his innocence in an emotional televised statement from Neverland Ranch. A poll taken by the TV show A Current Affair at the time found that 75% of American believed Jackson was innocent.

As the trial began, the media dissected every single piece of evidence revealed by the sensational lawsuit.

Jackson was forced to literally bare all, as one of the key pieces of evidence was Jordan’s description of the singer’s genitals. While the Los Angeles County District Attorney and the county sheriff’s photographer say strip search photos of Jackson matched the boy’s description, the jurors weren’t convinced.

Lisa Marie Presley (the granddaughter of Elvis Presley) had been dating Jackson for a year when the allegations broke, and their relationship became another subject of gossip and rumors. She described how the stress from the news stories took its toll on the singer’s health, and how his addiction to prescription drugs only got worse.

"I believed he didn't do anything wrong and that he was wrongly accused and yes I started falling for him,” she said in an interview. “I wanted to save him. I felt that I could do it."

Meanwhile, Jackson’s estranged sister, La Toya, claimed she had evidence that her brother was a pedophile, and would sell the information to $500,000. While her claim caused yet another media uproar, reporters found that her “evidence” was untrue, and La Toya later confessed she had been forced to make the claims by her abusive husband.

Back in court, Jackson’s attorney portrayed Jordan’s father Evan as an extortionist. Joan, Jordan’s mother and the parent who had custody of him, never believed her ex-husband’s allegations. It was also revealed in court that Evan was behind on his child support payments, and spent months negotiating a settlement with Jackson before reporting his son’s alleged abuse to police.

In the end, Jackson was never indicted for any crime, and no charges were filed against him by police. But Jackson did settle out of court with Evan Chandler for $22 million. Even if Jackson wasn’t guilty, the huge settlement helped cement the popular belief that he was hiding something.

Jordan never took the stand himself during the trial, and Jackson’s trial lawyer Thomas Meserau still insists he had witnesses who could prove that the boy was lying.

Jackson and Presley married soon after the trial ended, leading to even more tabloid stories as writers claimed that their marriage was a publicity stunt to repair Jackson’s image. The couple’s divorce just two years later seemed to confirm the narrative, except that Presley told Oprah Winfrey in 2010 she and Jackson tried “getting back together and breaking up.” She also insisted that her marriage to Michael was "a married couple's life ... that was sexually active."

Jackson would be dogged by child abuse allegations for the rest of his life, but neither the LA County Police or the Department of Children and Family Services ever found any evidence of abuse by the singer.

The negative publicity effectively ended Jackson’s career, and even his early death can be connected to the embarrassing court case.

Jackson lost 10 pounds during the trial, and began mixing the painkillers Valium, Xanax and Ativan while coping with the stress from the court case. Prescription drug abuse - and the tabloid press’s obsession with him - would remain a constant in Jackson’s life until his death in 2009.

The King of Pop wasn't the only "villain" that the press obsessed over...

4. "The Whack Heard 'Round The World"

A healthy dose of competition plays an important role in an athlete's success, but during the early '90s, figure skater Tonya Harding took her rivalry against Nancy Kerrigan to a whole new level, resulting in a scandal that played out like a Lifetime movie. In fact, their story did inspire a couple of documentaries, TV movies, and an upcoming biopic, but before we delve into that, let’s revisit what went down between the two Olympic skaters.

On January 6th, seven weeks before the 1994 Olympic Winter Games were scheduled to begin in Lillehammer, Norway, Harding’s longtime rival, Nancy Kerrigan, was viciously attacked and injured with a police baton by a hitman named Shane Stant after a practice session.

The doctor who treated Kerrigan told the New York Times that “he [the perpetrator] was clearly trying to debilitate her.”

Stant fled the scene, but video footage of Kerrigan crying and asking, “Why? Why me?” was later leaked to the public.

She later explained, “People made such a big deal and almost, like, complaining, like, why would I say that? Well, after getting attacked, you don’t know what you’re going to say. But I think it’s a reasonable question. Like, ‘Why did this just happen? What happened? Like, why?’”

Due to the injuries she sustained to her knees, Kerrigan had no choice but to watch Harding skate her way to the stop of the scoreboard at the Women’s U.S. National Championships in Detroit, and earn a spot on the Olympic team. But in a surprising twist, the U.S. Figure Skating Association (USFA) named the extremely talented Kerrigan to the team.

All the while, investigators were pursuing the case in hopes of nabbing the suspect before they struck again. They suspected that a crazy fan may have been behind the attack, so it wasn’t until they received a lead from a Portland-based minister that they started to expand their suspect list.

The clergyman told the investigators that he heard a recording of three men plotting to hurt Kerrigan. The men were eventually identified as Harding's bodyguard, Shawn Eric Eckardt, her ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, and Stant.

By the time the Olympics started in February, this information reached the public’s ears, and people all over the nation began to speculate about Harding’s involvement. Authorities began to piece things together, and it didn’t take much longer for them to figure out Harding and Gillooly weren’t innocent. According to the reports, Gillooly paid Stant $6,500 to knock Kerrigan out of the competition.

The media frenzy surrounding the incident dubbed “the whack heard around the world,” turned Harding and Kerrigan into even bigger international sensations and pop culture figures. Although the extent of Harding’s involvement in what New York Times reporter Jere Longman described as “the most horrifying, embarrassing and ultimately beneficial moment in the history of the sport,” remained unknown, news reports continued to pit the two women against each other.

"The media couldn't wait to tell this story of [Harding as] a hard-knock kid from a hardscrabble background who belied the stereotype [and] went against all the norms of what a world-class skater should be," recalled Ann Schatz, a Portland-based sportscaster who covered the case. "It didn't work out the way we envisioned."

Instead, Harding was portrayed as the “evil witch,” and Kerrigan as the survivor “princess,” who still eventually got the podium moment she was almost denied. Kerrigan embodied everything that the figure-skating world wanted in their athletes, while Harding refused to conform. She was a talented skater, but unlike Kerrigan, who appeared ladylike and poised, Harding’s life wasn’t very stable, she also smoked, drove a pickup truck, and skated to songs by rock bands like ZZ Top.

She later wrote in her autobiography, The Tonya Tapes, that the U.S. Figure Skating Association was on her case even before she was accused of assaulting Kerrigan. The disgraced athlete claimed that the USFA tried to talk her into taking her ex-husband back so she would appear to have blissful domestic life while competing at the games.

"They said I had a stable life when I was with him – married, settled down," she wrote. "They wanted to make sure I was still going to be that way to go to the Olympic Games."

Both Harding and Kerrigan competed at the Winter Olympic Games in the midst of the investigation, and even if you watched them skate on TV, you could sense the tension, especially as they both took to the ice to practice beside each other.

In what the media described as karma, Harding came in 8th place after her skate lace broke and she wasn’t allowed a redo. Kerrigan, on the other hand, took home the silver medal.

As the games came to an end, investigators made some new developments that further implicated Harding. She denied all the allegations, but no one, including the USFA would believe her. Harding claimed that she had no idea that Gillooly and Eckhart were planning an attack on her teammate. She said that they didn’t do it to take Kerrigan out of the competition, but rather to punish her for taking the USFA’s advice and rekindling her doomed relationship with Gillooly for publicity.

A “bizarre, anonymously signed” letter naming Harding as an accomplice surfaced, and despite her continued plea of innocence, she was eventually was charged for hindering apprehension.

She pleaded guilty, and was placed on a three-year probation plus 500 hours of community service. She also received a $100,000 fine, and was banned from the USFA for life.

In exchange for a plea deal, Gillooly testified against Harding, and was sentenced to two years in prison. Stant, Eckhardt and Derrick Smith, who drove the getaway car, were all jailed for assault.

Harding and Kerrigan never competed at the Olympics again. In 1998, they agreed to sit down for a joint interview with FOX.

"I just ask forgiveness,” said Harding. “She has her life, I have my life, I would hope we could just end it.”

Kerrigan continued to work as a professional skater in the years that followed. She worked on Broadway on Ice, and appeared on various documentaries, TV shows and films like 2007's Blades of Glory. She was also among the celebrity dancers on season 24 of Dancing With The Stars. However, she still struggled with a slew of personal problems, including an eating disorder and multiple miscarriages.

Harding, on the other hand, faded into obscurity and was not heard from for another few years. She appeared in a few documentaries and released an autobiography, The Tonya Tapes, in which she gave a harrowing account of the story behind Kerrigan's attack, revealing that Gillooly threatened her at gunpoint when he found out that she was planning to go to the FBI with the information she had.

In an attempt rebuild her life, Harding remarried twice, had kids, and tried out different career paths. However, her past still continued to haunt her.

"I'm not an educated woman. What am I gonna do for the rest of my life? I'm an athlete ... And now I have absolutely nothing," she said in the 2006 documentary Anything to Win.

As for Kerrigan, she recently revealed that she never received a direct apology from Harding

It’s been 23 years since the scandal occurred, but it seems like neither the two women nor the media are ready to move on. A new biopic, I, Tonya, starring Margot Robbie as Harding is set to hit theaters on December 8, and the spotlight is once again shining on Harding.

"The more I became Tonya, the more I saw things from her point of view,” Robbie told W Magazine. “I’m on her side 100 percent. I don’t think she did anything but be different from what the world wanted. She didn’t fit in. And I love that."

In preparation for all the press she will be receiving, Harding spent some time "getting ready to be seen again." Her friend added that "she’s eating well and has lost some weight. She’s getting in shape and is even skating again. She’s really excited about this."

Harding, now 47, made an official public appearance for the first time in tears at the Los Angeles premiere of the film on December 5th.

Harding and Kerrigan were definitely the biggest sports scandal of the decade. However the biggest music scandal of the '90s probably wouldn't even make the news if it happened today...

5. Girl You Know It's (Not) True: Milli Vanilli Get Their Grammy Stripped

If you were a music lover in the late '80s, then chances are the story behind Milli Vanilli is one that’s pretty familiar to you.

Formed in Germany by producer Frank Farlan in 1988, Milli Vanilli consisted of Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus, two models who had only dabbled in singing careers. The two released their international debut album, Girl You Know It’s True, in 1989, and the album quickly skyrocketed to international success, hitting the #1 spot on Billboard’s Top 200 chart and going platinum a whopping SIX times.

The album was a genuine sensation thanks to it's title track and songs like “Baby Don’t Forget My Number,” and “Blame It On The Rain,” and Milli Vanilli soon found themselves touring the globe. This all culminated in a Grammy win for Best New Artist. However, things started to get weird when they found themselves being featured on TV.

MTV executive Beth McCarthy-Miller commented that people were starting to become suspicious of the duo when they revealed their thick accents and limited English skills during interviews, but the worst was actually yet to come.

During a performance broadcast by MTV at the Lake Compounce theme park in Bristol, Connecticut, it was revealed that they were lip-syncing to their songs when the recording of the album’s title track jammed, and the “Girl you know it’s…” line kept repeating over and over.

The duo attempted to keep dancing for a few more moments, but then both ran offstage. However, according to people in attendance at the show, the audience seemed to neither notice nor care about the lip-syncing.

However, Milli Vanilli weren’t doing themselves any favors perception-wise. In an interview for Time magazine in 1990, Pilatus referred to himself as “the new Elvis” and asserted that the duo were more musically talented than artists like Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, and Mick Jagger.

But once the story started to spread, things were about to take a turn for the worse.

Things behind the scenes weren’t much better. Unlike on their Europe-only debut album All or Nothing, the production notes for Girl You Know It’s True listed the performances and lyrics as being solely those of Morvan and Pilatus, which people were quickly beginning to suspect was not the case.

This came to a head when singer Charles Shaw became angered at the lack of credit he received, and revealed that he was one of three singers who were actually contracted to record all of Milli Vanilli’s songs. Morvan and Pilatus were just lip-syncing along in the videos and live performances.

Frank Farlan, still the band’s producer, ultimately paid Shaw $150,000 to retract his statements, but at this point this did little to change the public’s perception of the group or the legitimacy of their music. Between the media outcry and Morvan and Pilatus’s demands that they be given more chances to sing themselves on the next record, Farlan ultimately revealed to the press in November 1990 that the duo did not sing whatsoever on the records.

The reaction to this was borderline nuclear. Within four days, the band’s Grammy award was retracted, the first time in history this had ever happened.

Not only that, but both the duo and their record label received a whopping 27 lawsuits, filed from various U.S. fraud prevention laws.

A settlement was ultimately agreed upon to many of these suits, and nearly 10 million people were eligible to receive refunds for either buying Milli Vanilli albums or attending their live performances.

As a result of all of this negative press, everyone involved with the group went their separate ways. Farlan continued to work in the music industry, but never produced another hit album. Meanwhile, singers Brad Howell and John Davis, the other two real voices behind Milli Vanilli’s songs, released an album under the moniker The Real Milli Vanilli, only to soon rename themselves to Try ‘N’ B. The album, The Moment of Truth, was never released in the United States, and had little chart momentum in Europe.

As for Morvan and Pilatus, things became a bit more of a roller coaster. Morvan found some solid success as a DJ in Los Angeles, and the two soon recorded a new album as Rob & Fab, but the album failed to find any success. They were soon commissioned to record a Milli Vanilli comeback album, this time using their real voices, which became the album Back and In Attack, released in 1998.

However, during the recording of the album, Rob Pilatus began to struggle with his personal life. He turned to hard drugs and a life of crime, committing several assaults and robberies that found him sentenced to three months in jail and six months in a drug rehabilitation clinic. Farlan paid for the entire process, but on the eve of the album’s promotional tour in April 1998, Pilatus was found dead of an overdose in a Frankfurt hotel room.

His death was ruled as accidental, though many at the time speculated that it may have been a suicide, due to both his tumultuous personal life and the embarrassment faced by the band. In any case, it was the end of Milli Vanilli.

Fab Morvan continues to perform and to offer public speaking appearances.

While Milli Vanilli's lip syncing scandal was considered big news then, there was one woman who - no matter what else was going on in the world - was always guaranteed to be front page news.

6. The Real Life Tragedy of "The People's Princess"

Everyone in the '90s remembers the night our world was rocked - the day the “People’s Princess” died in a car accident in Paris, France. Princess Diana was loved not only by the people of the United Kingdom but around the world.

Princess Diana’s funeral was named to be the most-watched live TV event with 31 million viewers in the UK and 33 million people in the United States tuning in.

While her funeral took place only six days after her tragic death on August 31, 1997, people haven’t forgotten the story of her life, and what lead her to be on that dark road in Paris the night of her death.

Few people knew the truth about Princess Diana's marriage. In 1991, Prince Charles had rekindled his relationship with Camilla Parker-Bowles and Princess Diana was suffering from an eating disorder trying to cope with her life as a Royal.

Diana and Charles met in 1977 when the Prince was dating her older sister, Sarah. He ended the relationship with Sarah and he and Diana began courting in 1980 when she was just 19 years old.

Proposing to Diana in February 1981, they married in July of that same year.

"I was very, very calm, deathly calm. I felt I was a lamb to the slaughter. I knew it and couldn't do anything about it. My last night of freedom with Jane at Clarence House," she said.

It all started just 2 days before their fairy tale wedding that took place in front of a global audience of 750 million people.

"We got married on Wednesday. On the Monday [July 27, 1981], we had gone to St Paul's for our last rehearsal, and that's when the camera lights were on full and I got a sense of what the day was going to be. And I sobbed my eyes out. I absolutely collapsed and it was because of all sorts of things. The Camilla thing rearing its head the whole way through our engagement," transcripts that Diana made in secret revealed.

Diana struggled with bulimia throughout the couple’s engagement and after their wedding.

“I remember the first time I made myself sick. I was so thrilled because I thought this was the release of tension," Diana said. “The first time I was measured for my wedding dress, I was 29 inches around the waist. The day I got married, I was 23-and-a-half inches. I had shrunk into nothing from February to July.”

Things didn’t get easier throughout their marriage.

"I was so depressed, and I was trying to cut my wrists with razor blades. It rained and rained and rained. I came down early (to London) to seek treatment, not because I hated Balmoral, but because I was in such a bad way," she said.

The medical professionals she saw put her on high doses of Valium to try and help her cope.

Even the birth of her two children, William and Harry, didn’t make the Princess’s life any easier.

Diana recalled the events of William’s baptism that triggered her depression.

"Nobody asked me when it was suitable for William — 11 o’clock, couldn’t have been worse," Diana said in the transcript. "Endless pictures of the Queen, Queen Mother, Charles and William. I was excluded totally that day. I felt desperate, because I had literally just given birth — William was only six weeks old. And it was all decided around me. Hence the ghastly pictures."

Diana and Charles were officially divorced in 1996 after his affair with Camilla became public. Just one year later, she was in the car accident that ended her life.

It wasn’t just Camilla that Charles had his eye on during his marriage to Diana. In a letter addressed to the wife of the UK Ambassador to Washington, he admitted "I have fallen in love with Mrs Reagan – she is wonderful… I wanted to kiss her."

Charles and the First Lady had a very close relationship that was kept secret for a very long time. The pair, however, exchanged plenty of letters.

“No one can really understand what it all means until it happens to you which is why it all keeps getting worse and worse. One day I will tell you the whole story,” wrote Charles in one of the letters.

It was also rumored that Diana had a high-profile affair of her own. In 1995, three years after her separation from Prince Charles, Diana met John F. Kennedy Jr. in a hotel room overlooking Central Park.

"We started talking, one thing led to another - and we ended up in bed. It was pure chemistry," Diana said according to Simone Simmons, Princess Diana’s energy healer.

"My mouth dropped open. I cried out: 'What! You're joking, aren't you?' and I really thought she was. She replied: 'No, I'm not. It happened. And he was an amazing lover - a ten, the tops,'" she said.

Diana was good at keeping her relationships after her divorce out of the public eye, until finding love with Dodi al-Fayed, the millionaire with whom she died in the car accident in Paris.

On the night of her death, her car was being chased by paparazzi through a tunnel in Paris when the driver lost control.

To this day, Prince Harry, who was just 13 years old at the time, still holds anger towards the people who stood by and took pictures of the wreckage.

"I think one of the hardest things to come to terms with is the fact that the people that chased her into the tunnel were the same people that were taking photographs of her while she was still dying on the back seat of the car," said Harry. "She'd had quite a severe head injury but she was very much still alive on the back seat. And those people that caused the accident, instead of helping, were taking photographs of her dying on the back seat."

When Xavier Gourmelon and his ten-man team arrived at the scene of the crash, he reportedly heard the Princess’s final words.

“The car was in a mess and we just dealt with it like any road accident. We got straight to work to see who needed help and who was alive," he recalled. "Diana said to me, 'My God, what’s happened?’"

Moments after Diana was removed from the wreckage and given oxygen, she went into cardiac arrest.

“I massaged her heart and a few seconds later she started breathing again. It was a relief of course because, as a first responder, you want to save lives — and that’s what I thought I had done," Gourmelon said. “To be honest I thought she would live. As far as I knew when she was in the ambulance she was alive and I expected her to live. But I found out later she had died in hospital. It was very upsetting."

Diana suffered internal injuries and was pronounced dead at 4 AM that morning. Dodi al-Fayed and driver, Henri Paul were also killed in the crash.

Just as the world was coming to grips with the tragic loss of Princess Diana, a massive scandal was about to rock the very foundation of our country's government

7. The Political Scandal That Puts Even Today's News To Shame

Scandals and politics go together like peanut butter and jelly, and we like to sink our teeth into them just as much as the sandwiches. The '90s, specifically the Clinton administration, had its share of scandals, but one stands above all the rest: The Lewinsky Affair.

Bill Clinton, depending on who you talk to, was a fairly successful president who navigated his way through troubled waters for 8 years. At his peak he had a 73% approval rating, and left office with 65% of Americans saying he had done a good job, higher than any other president since Harry Truman. Even so, stories of his sexual misadventures dogged him throughout his presidency, and long after.

Allegations of sexual assault and harassment should be enough to sink any political candidate, but Clinton actually thrived under them. He was charming, relatable and the economy was beginning to take a nose dive. All those things combined led to a Clinton victory over George H.W. Bush, a rare defeat of an incumbent president.

Paula Jones

Ironically enough, it wasn't Clinton's sexual history that would get him in to trouble, it was his loose connection with the truth. Hard to believe that a politician might almost lose his job, and go to jail, because of a lie rather than sexual assault - but that's the world we live in.

We probably wouldn't know about any of the allegations if it wasn't for a woman named Paula Jones. She was the first woman to accuse then President Clinton of improper behavior, although the encounter she described happened while he was Governor of Arkansas.

In 1991 Jones worked for the state and was present at a conference that Governor Clinton attended. She alleges that at a certain point a state police officer approached her, and informed her that Clinton wished to speak with her. She was escorted to a hotel room where she met Clinton. After the door closed he removed his pants and exposed himself, propositioning Jones for sex.

"I'm not that kind of girl," she claims to have responded before leaving the room. She says Clinton advised her to "keep it between themselves" before she left.

She did not.

In 1994 Jones went public with the allegations and launched a lawsuit against now President Clinton. The case slowly made its way through the courts, and was eventually settled in 1998. Clinton was forced to testify under oath about the incident, and was asked several questions about his sexual history. He denied any wrongdoing and the case was eventually dismissed. By that point however, the damage had been done.

One of the questions related to a 22-year-old White House intern named Monica Lewinsky, a name the world was about to hear a lot of.

Secret Recordings

Lewinsky worked closely with Clinton until being relocated to the Pentagon. There she met a woman named Linda Tripp, who would be come a close friend of the young Lewinsky. It was Tripp that Lewinsky confided in, spilling all sorts of details about her affair with the president. She wouldn't have known it at the time, but Tripp was recording the conversations.

During one stage of the Jones case Lewinsky was asked about her relationship with Clinton. She denied any inappropriate behavior and urged Tripp to do the same. Instead, Tripp released her recorded tapes to Independant Investigator Kenneth Star.

Star was investigating the Clinton administration over yet another scandal, but, with proof of a White House Intern perjuring herself, quickly changed the focus of his investigation.

Breaking News

In January of 1998 the story about the Lewinsky tapes broke, but in bizarre fashion. The initial story was that Newsweek was sitting on a report about the president's affair. This appears to be true, since their investigative reporter was contacted by one of Tripp's agents. The Washington Post eventually printed a story dictating the sordid details of Lewinsky and Clinton. The adminstration quickly responded, denying any and all allegations.

Still the rumors swirled, and Clinton was forced to make a public statement along side his wife Hillary Clinton. It's one of the most enduring moments of his presidency, and one he probably wants back.

"I'm going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky," he said to the press.

Hillary herself took to the airwaves in support of her husband. Claiming a "vast right-wing conspiracy" was trying to pull her husband down.

The story persisted for months, with talk show hosts and radio personalities arguing "if he did it" and if his lie actually broke any laws. Lewinsky herself refused to comment about it and would not testify about the affair.

In July of 1998 everything changed.

Devil In A Blue Dress

Lewinsky received immunity from the Starr investigation in exchange for testimony concerning her relationship with the president. She also agreed to handover a semen-stained blue dress that Tripp had convinced her to keep.

With hard evidence in hand, Clinton had no choice but to confess.

In August of 1998, he offered taped testimony to a grand jury where he engaged in an "improper physical relationship" with Lewinsky. Later that night he gave a televised statement to the nation admitting the same thing.

During the Jones case Clinton had denied having a sexual relationship with Lewinsky, but the blue dress clearly proved otherwise. Starr decided that his past statement was perjury and thus an impeachable offense.

Definitions

In the late '90s Clinton's Democratic party was the minority in both Senate and the House of Representatives. After Starr recommended impeachment the opposing Republican party quickly passed legislation to impeach the president. Clinton became just the second president ever impeached, with Andrew Jackson being the first, 130 years earlier.

What followed was a 21-day Senate trial where Clinton was eventually acquitted, and allowed to remain president. All Democrats and 10 Republicans voted to acquit on charges of perjury. He was also acquitted on obstruction of justice charges.

At the center of the case became the definition of the word "sex" which also led to another memorable claim by Clinton: "That depends on what your definition of the word 'is' is."

Ultimately, since Clinton only received oral sex, and the law, as written, stated that sexual intercourse involved the touching of genitals, breasts, thighs or anus, Clinton didn't in fact have sex, and thus, didn't lie.

Fallout

Two months after the Senate failed to convict him, Clinton was held in civil contempt of court and ordered to pay $90,000 to the court. He was also banned from practicing law in Arkansas for 5 years.

Even so, he finished his term with most people approving of the job he did. Over time opinion seems to have soured on Clinton, and the scandal played a large role in his wife's eventual campaign for president.

The story Clinton's affair is definitely wild, but one A-list celebrity had a romantic scandal that seemed straight out of a movie.

8. The Hollywood Romance That Made Julia Roberts Pull A Runaway Bride

While her career has struggled more lately, there was a time not that long ago when Julia Roberts was not only one of the biggest names in Hollywood, but, thanks to her iconic smile, was literally "America's Sweetheart."

While her part in 1989's Steel Magnolias won her a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress, it was her role as Vivian Ward, the hooker with a heart of gold, in 1990's Pretty Woman that made her a household name.

While she would star in some more serious roles, in the '90s she was best known for her romantic comedies, thanks to starring roles in movies like My Best Friend's Wedding and Notting Hill. In 1999 she would reunite with Pretty Woman co-star Richard Gere for the rom-com Runaway Bride.

But what most of us never realized was that Julia's character, Maggie Carpenter, wasn't the only one experienced in leaving someone at the altar. In fact, it's something Julia herself was all too familiar with.

The same year she would get breakthrough role in Pretty Woman, she would also star in the sci-fi horror Flatliners. It was on the set of that movie that she would meet, and fall in love with, co-star Kiefer Sutherland.

Sutherland had already made a name for himself thanks to his roles in movies like Stand By Me and Young Guns, but it was his role as the vampire David in The Lost Boys that would turn him into an '80s bad boy icon.

The drama surrounding their romance was pretty much there from the start. Sutherland was still married to then-wife Camelia Kath, while Roberts broke off her engagement to Steel Magnolias co-star Dylan McDermott in order to be with Sutherland.

To almost rub salt in the wound, Roberts would end up including Sutherland in her acceptance speech after winning the Golden Globe for Steel Magnolias, thanking her “best friend — my beautiful blue-eyed, green-eyed best friend, who gives me everything.”

Considering her relationship with Sutherland was the third time she began dating a co-star (before her engagement to Dylan McDermott she dated Satisfaction co-star Liam Neeson), we probably should have seen that as a sign of things to come....

The two young actors would quickly become one of Hollywood's power couples. Sutherland moved into Roberts's Hollywood Hills home, and the future seemed bright for the superstar duo. In 1991, Pretty Woman would net Julia Roberts her second Oscar nomination and her second Golden Globe win, this time for Best Actress. But behind-the-scenes, things were not as they appeared.

Kiefer Sutherland's struggles with alcohol began to put a strain on the relationship. At one point he ended up moving out of their shared mansion and into a seedy motel, supposedly to help prepare him for an upcoming role. During that time, he was seen in the company of a 24-year-old go-go dancer named Amanda Rice.

He returned home after a few weeks, and everything seemed to return to normal. But that wouldn't last.

Three months later, in May of 1991, Amanda Rice sold the story of their affair to the tabloid Globe. In the published story, she claimed Sutherland told her that her role in Pretty Woman turned Roberts into "an ice princess" who was overly possessive and insecure about her looks.

After the story broke, Sutherland's team worked on damage control, saying that while he knew Rice, their relationship was neither sexual nor romantic. Two days later, Roberts was admitted to Cedar-Sinai Hospital for "a bad bout of the flu."

During her five-day stay, Sutherland was seen visiting her often. They seemed to have worked through their issues, as almost immediately after leaving the hospital the couple announced their engagement, with the wedding to follow four weeks later on June 14, 1991.

The wedding was set to be a lavish affair. The 150-guest ceremony was to take place at 20th Century Fox's Soundstage 14, which had been decorated to look like a massive garden. Bundles of roses were to serve as centerpieces, and guests would be served gourmet beef filets and champagne.

Roberts had chosen a custom-made gown that reportedly cost $8,000, and their planned cake was a four-tier monster decked out with violets and sea-foam green icing. Everything seemed to be ready for the fairy tale wedding of two of Hollywood's finest. Then, three days before they were set to say "I do," everything fell apart.

Roberts called off the wedding, and ended things with Sutherland. Reportedly, he found out not from his former bride-to-be, but from a mutual friend who called to tell him her decision.

On what would have been his wedding day, Kiefer Sutherland moved from their mansion to his own apartment. The would-be bride, on the other hand, spent it eating a turkey burger with a different '80s heartthrob, Jason Patric. The same Jason Patric who was supposedly still friends with his fellow Lost Boys co-star, Kiefer Sutherland. Ouch.

Apparently, while Sutherland was making sure their honeymoon getaway was ready, Roberts headed to Canyon Ranch spa with some friends for some R & R before the wedding. The same Canyon Ranch spa where one Jason Patric would arrive that same day, and reportedly be seen eating dinner with, and comforting the actress.

This supposedly led to Sutherland uninviting Patric to the wedding, which kicked off an argument with him and his future wife. It was clearly, however, too little, too late, as the wedding was called off and Roberts jetted off to Ireland alongside Jason Patric. Understandably, the press went wild.

Upon their return, they made their relationship public. But their romance wasn't meant to last either, as they'd break things off the following year.

Roberts would go on to marry Lyle Lovett in 1993, later divorcing him in 1995. She also dated Benjamin Bratt from 1998 to 2001, before eventually marrying cameraman Daniel Moder in 2002. The two are still together and have three children.

Kiefer Sutherland, meanwhile, would marry Kelly Winn, though they would separate in 1999 before filing for divorce in 2004. He also dated Bo Derek during the 2000s. He recently made his relationship with Cindy Vela public, though the two have reportedly been dating in secret since 2014.

Kiefer Sutherland has made it clear that he has no hard feelings over being left at the altar. In a 2016 interview with People's Jess Cagle, he said "I think it took a lot of courage, even amongst all of that other stuff, to be able to say, 'I can't do this.'"

As for his feelings towards Jason Patric, he told Rolling Stone in 2006, "We were friends, and I'm surprised that I never got a call from him saying I've fallen in love with da-da-da. Instead, I found out from a stranger."

Though more recently, it seems they have smoothed things over. In 2011 they were co-stars once again in the Broadway revival of That Championship Season (coincidentally written by Patric's father, Jason Miller). In an interview, Jason Patric told Vulture "We had drinks last night and he said that was one of the best summers of his life when we did Lost Boys...and wow, 25, a quarter-century later there’s Kiefer and now he’s playing my brother. Something interesting about it as far as the cosmos go.

h/t: People/Yahoo

It was a completely different kind of "romance" that landed a beloved children's celebrity in hot water...

9. Pee-wee Herman's Scandalous Night At The Movies

The character Pee-wee Herman was intended for kids and was a complete necessity in the '80s. But when the actor behind the bow tie was arrested in 1991, the whole country quickly realized he wasn’t as wholesome as he seemed.

Paul Reubens made a name for himself as a comedy icon, but his role as Pee-wee Herman was one that could not be topped by any of his other characters. It didn’t seem to matter that Pee-wee wasn’t real, everyone just assumed they were one and the same. That was, until Reubens was arrested in 1991 for indecent exposure.

But how did this all happen? Well, on Friday, July 26 1991, Reubens entered an adult theater. They were showing a triple bill of the X-rated films Catalina Five-O Tiger Shark, Nurse Nancy, and Turn Up The Heat when the sting operation took place. The authorities arrested three men in the theater for violating Florida State Statute 800.03: Exposure of Sexual Organs.

Apparently he may have been able to walk away with only a $219 fine, but because he decided to reveal who he was to the cops, things took a worse turn.

According to an Entertainment Weekly article published shortly after the event, Rubens “quietly told the detectives his famous pseudonym and, according to the police, made a novel, Pee-wee-esque attempt at a buy-off.”

Apparently he offered to make an appearance at a children’s charity event as Pee-wee Herman if the officers would drop the charges, but they didn’t go for it. He was lucky they didn’t charge him with bribery, but apparently the department spokesman said that ”the deputies did not feel at that time that they had enough probable cause” to make the charge.

Even if he hadn’t mentioned his job to the cops, he still would have had it rough. His arrest was found out by the media the very next day, and the details were published alongside his mugshot. The whole ordeal caused quite the controversy, and people everywhere started to think about the famous character differently.

Reubens was forced to come out and deny the accusations, saying that he “never exposed himself or engaged in any other improper activities,” but then quickly retreated from the public eye. His career took a hit as the entire country seemed to turn on him at once. The reruns of his television show, Pee-wee’s Playhouse, were removed from television, Disney stopped using the narration he had done for a backstage tour, and stores removed the Pee-wee Herman dolls from the shelves. Everything that he had previously been so proud of was now tainted and ruined.

He stepped out of the spotlight while waiting for the trial to begin, with his management saying that he was “on an extended vacation.” His publicist, Richard Grant, said that “Paul, who is emotionally devastated by the embarrassment of the situation, is currently in seclusion with friends and eagerly anticipating his complete vindication.”

Reubens’s celebrity friends were quick to defend him. Valeria Golino played Pee-wee Herman’s girlfriend on the show said that ‘Paul Reubens is why I am in America. He is a gifted and sensitive man with a great sense of humor. I find it very hypocritical. They have these porno movies…and they put police in the theaters? I don’t understand this. I don’t care if he did it or not — he’s a great guy.”

Actress Annette Funicello didn’t understand why the world was being so hard on him. “What is the big deal? He has given so much pleasure to little kids, and what they’re doing to him is sad. I like him a lot. If I were able to call him now, I would say, ‘So many people are on your side. We love you. Just hang in there — it will blow over. These things do.”

Others hoped that it would help him evolve. Randal Kleiser was the director of Big Top Pee-wee and he said, “in a way, fate may have stepped in to help him change his direction. People forget that the original Pee-wee Herman used to put mirrors on his shoes and look up girls’ dresses. He has a wonderful sense of humor, and I think what he’s probably going to do now is re-invent himself the way that David Bowie and Madonna do from time to time.”

As for the public, audiences were divided on how to react to the incident. When polled by Entertainment Weekly, 40% of readers thought that Reubens was getting a “raw deal from the media”. More than half of those surveyed believed that Reubens was treated unfairly by the sheriff’s department, and 49% would still let their children watch TV shows or movies starring Pee-wee Herman.

While the case would cause his career to stumble, he managed to make his way back into the popular media. It hadn’t been his first time dealing with authorities, and it wouldn’t be his last.

In 1971 he was arrested for marijuana possession and placed on a two year probation. In 1983 he was arrested for loitering and prowling at another adult theater, but the charges were dropped.

After successfully surviving the indecent exposure charges, Reubens found himself in trouble with the law again in 2001 when a search of his home revealed images that were categorized as child pornography. He claimed they were just part of his “historical art photography collection,” but he was still registered as a sex offender and fined $100.

How does Paul Reubens feel about all of this? Well, he feels like he was wrongfully accused in both cases. Reubens is convinced that had he not pled “no contest” the trial would have revealed that he was innocent.

In an interview in 2010 he said, “Had we gone to trial, we had ready an expert from the Masters and Johnson Institute who was going to testify that in 30 years of research on masturbation, the institute had never found one person who masturbated with his or her non-dominant hand,” Reubens revealed. “I’m right-handed, and the police report said I was (masturbating) with my left hand. That would have been the end of the case right there, proof it couldn’t have been me.”

As for the child pornography charges, he said that “the police had been given a false tip in an alleged sting operation and came to my house. They thought the wrong thing, and they were there for the wrong reason, and when that became clear, they should have left. Or they should have taken all my computers like they did but spent three minutes looking through them and realized they were wrong. … The state eventually realized I had nothing offensive, but the city attorney decided to put me through three years of hell anyway.”

He has tried to move on from these incidents, but they have followed him throughout his life. Luckily for him he has a positive attitude about it. “Much as I like to pretend it’s not there or imagine most people know nothing about that one, it’s there. It’s always going to be a footnote. But you know what? At this point the footnote is neither here nor there for me. It has no effect on me. I’m cool with it.”

While this next "scandal" ended a storied career, it actually changed the world for the better

10. The Routine Blood Test That Changed How The World Saw AIDS

The Los Angeles Lakers of the 1980s and early '90s were pop-culture icons. Known as the "Showtime Lakers," they wowed crowds across the U.S. with their uptempo style of play, combined with their style and flare. They were led by the ever smiling Earvin “Magic” Johnson, and he was just that, "Magic."

The ever smiling Johnson was the face of league before Michael Jordan would even come onto the scene. Drafted 1st overall in the 1979 NBA draft, he helped lead the Lakers to an NBA Championship as he filled in for Hall of Fame center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, earning the NBA Finals MVP award. This would be the first of five titles that Magic would end up leading the Lakers to during his 12 year career. That smiling face was still making a huge impact on the game as he started off the 1991 NBA season.

Everything changed in November of 1991 when Johnson made an announcement that would shock not only the sports world, but the entire world at large.

On November 7, 1991, Earvin “Magic” Johnson took to the podium in Inglewood, California for a press conference. The NBA was abuzz with what could possibly be getting announced, no one expected, or could have predicted what came next. When Magic spoke, he announced that he would be retiring from the NBA at the beginning of what was his 13th season because he had tested positive for HIV. Johnson found out that he was HIV positive after taking a routine blood test for a life insurance policy.

In the early 1990s, HIV/AIDS was still a wildcard. People didn’t fully understand the ramifications of what contracting the virus actually meant. Most people were terrified of just being near someone who had contracted the virus, and everyone, including many physicians considered it to be a death sentence.

The media's response to his announcement only proved how important this moment was.

During his retirement press conference, Johnson thanked everyone who had come out there to support him, and told the media assembled, using his trademark smile, that he planned on being around for a long time and living a fulfilling life.

There was a somber, controlled atmosphere to the press conference, something that is not normal for such massive announcements as journalists couldn’t ever wait to start screaming questions at the speakers. But this time they sat and listened. They listened as Johnson told the world that he would become a spokesperson for the fight against HIV/AIDS. They listened as he said that he planned on working with the league (and hopefully the Lakers) to continue to propagate the game of basketball around the world. They listened as he spoke about how he would miss basketball, “but life does go on.”    

This was one of the major turning points in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Few public figures, and none as prominent as Magic Johnson had ever publicly announced that they were fighting off the potentially deadly virus. His announcement and poise were praised by health professionals.

"I hope that Americans everywhere will understand better today that AIDS is not a remote disease that only strikes 'someone else,' " Dr. Louis W. Sullivan, secretary of Health and Human Services, said in a statement. "Everyone must be aware that the AIDS epidemic can reach them. I am very heartened by the announcement that in the months and years ahead, Magic Johnson will help carry a lifesaving message to young people across our nation."

Up until that November 1991 announcement, HIV/AIDS was considered to be a disease of the poor and disenfranchised. A disease of drug addicts and homosexuals. It was not something that you spoke about in “polite” company. It was also considered to be universally fatal to anyone who contracted it, Magic changed all that.

He was not poor, and definitely not disenfranchised. He was not a drug addict, nor was he gay. He was the face of the Los Angeles Lakers, and one of the most popular athletes the world over. Magic’s brave stance in the face of the virus that could potentially end up taking his life changed the way we see the virus, and the AIDS disease that follows after.

Magic stood with poise and class as he spoke eloquently about what he would miss most about the game that had given him so much.

"I'm going to miss it. I'm going to miss coming in at 5 o'clock (before games), saying hello to the security people, the ushers. Getting to see you guys (reporters) at 6 o'clock: 'Magic, what about this, what about that?' I'll miss that. I'll miss the battles and the wars but most of all I'll miss the camaraderie with the guys. . . .”

It wasn’t the end of his basketball career though. He came back for the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. He was a member, and one of the leaders, of the original “Dream Team” comprised of the best basketball players the world had to offer. Magic went out on top, winning a gold medal beside the likes of Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Scottie Pippen and a long list of future Hall of Fame players.

Now, 26 years later, Earvin “Magic” Johnson is still alive and living life to the fullest. He is working with the Lakers as their President of Basketball Operations. He hopes to lead them back to the glory days of the Showtime Lakers of the 1980s and early '90s.

Magic Johnson was a hero, but the '90s also saw the rise of one of America's biggest villains.

11. The True Story Behind "The Trial Of The Century"

In one of the biggest scandals of the '90s, O.J. Simpson went from hero, to zero, somehow back up to hero, all while being on trial for a double murder.

Now, the scandal wasn’t really the murder (even though that’s a big deal), but moreso the fact that Simpson walked away a free man, despite damning evidence against him.

Simpson started out as a football player, setting NCAA and NFL records with ease, and doing his best to inspire black youth across the country.

"I'm going to take the challenge of helping black kids in every way I can," he said. "I believe I can do as much for my own people in my own way as a Tommie Smith, a Jim Brown, or a Jackie Robinson may choose to do in another way. That's part of the image I want, too."

The image he ended up with, however, was historical for a different reason.

Marriage to Nicole Brown

In 1985, Simpson married Nicole Simpson, a small-town waitress. The couple seemed like the ideal match: a football superstar with the young, blonde bombshell. Together, they had two kids, Justin and Sydney. However, their marriage was far from perfect.

In 1989, O.J. Simpson plead no contest to spousal battery after he and his wife got in an argument at a New Year's Eve party. Nicole claimed O.J. threatened to kill her.

"We had a fight," O.J. Simpson said. "We were both guilty. No one was hurt. It was no big deal, and we got on with our life."

Three years later, Nicole Brown Simpson filed for divorce. Two years after that, she was found dead.

The Murders and The Chase

On June 12, 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ronald Goldman, were found stabbed to death outside her home. All evidence pointed to O.J. Simpson as the killer, and a warrant for his arrest was issued. Simpson tried to flee, which led to one of the most iconic car chases of all time.

Simpson was in the back of a white Ford Bronco while ex-NFL player, Al Cowlings, drove. The pursuit was broadcast on live television, and is credited with being the "birth of reality television."

Simpson was found in possession of a gun, his passport, a disguise, and $9,000. However, he remained adamant that he was "absolutely, positively, 100 percent not guilty". That lie was just the beginning of what would be "The Trial Of The Century".

Simpson plead not guilty to both murders, and he was held without bail. A jury was compiled, which was difficult considering the amount of media coverage surrounding the case. The prosecution, lead by Marcia Clark, chose not to seek the death penalty for the murders, but rather a life sentence.

The Trial

The trial of O.J. Simpson was unlike anything the world had ever seen.

Cameras were allowed in the courtroom, and the public had full access through television broadcasting. People were glued to their TVs at all times.

The prosecution consisted of Deputy District Attorney Marcia Clark and Deputy District Attorney Christopher A. Darden.

Simpson hired a full team of high-profile lawyers, including F. Lee Bailey, Robert Kardashian, Robert Shapiro, Alan Dershowitz, Johnnie Cochran, Gerald Uelmen (then the dean of law at Santa Clara University), Carl E. Douglas and Shawn Holley.

Simpson's trial began on January 24, 1995, and was must-see reality television. Judge Ito was criticized for not doing enough the regulate the media allowed in the courtroom, and essentially turning it into a wild circus.

"When [it] began, all of the networks were getting these hate-mail letters because people’s soap operas were being interrupted for the Simpson trial," Marcia Clark later revealed "But then what happened was the people who liked soap operas got addicted to the Simpson trial. And they got really upset when the Simpson trial was over, and people would come up to me on the street and say, ‘God, I loved your show.’

TIME Magazine

During the trial, TIME magazine published a cover story titled "An American Tragedy", with a photo of O.J. Simpson on the cover. The publication faced extreme backlash when it was pointed out that editors had manipulated the photo of Simpson, making his skin appear darker as a way to make him seem more menacing. They were accused of racist editorializing, and later publicly apologized.

Things only got crazier as the trial got underway.

The Evidence

We watched as Nicole Brown's blood was found on Simpson's socks. We watched as Brown's and Goldman's blood were found on Simpson's Bronco. We watched as bloody footprints were found at the crime scene, coming from an extremely rare pair of shoes (only 29 were sold in the United States), matching O.J.'s footprints.

His legal team argued there was no way to prove he had ever owned or worn a pair of the shoes, but a photograph from a public event just a year before showed Simpson wearing them.

And of course, we watched as O.J. Simpson tried on a blood-soaked glove that was too small for his hand. His lawyer, Johnnie Cochran, coined the now infamous phrase "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit."

Racism

Though the evidence mostly pointed to O.J. Simpson as guilty, the trial ran into major credibility issues when it was uncovered that Mark Fuhrman, the Los Angeles Police Detective leading the case, had racial bias.

Most of the incriminating evidence (the gloves, the socks, and the blood on the Bronco) was found by Fuhrman, and it lead to doubt among the jury.

Fuhrman was charged with perjury after the trial, claiming that he had not used the n-word in over 10 years. This turned out to be a lie. Not only that, but Fuhrman pleaded the Fifth amendment to protect himself against self-incrimination, after being asked "did you plant or manufacture any evidence in this case?"

These allegations against Fuhrman were only heightened, as just four years prior, footage of LAPD officers beating Rodney King was released. Racial tensions were through the roof in Los Angeles, and Fuhrman's history was only making things worse.

The Jury

Before the jury selection and sequestration took place, an article was published in The New Yorker, reporting that the defense was going to use the "race card" to win their case.

It also detailed that Mark Fuhrman had undergone psychiatric interviews in 1981 and 1982, in which he used racist language and boasted about beating young African-Americans.

As the final jurors were selected, they were asked how much exposure to the case they received from The New Yorker, and were asked their opinions of Mark Fuhrman.

Prosecutor Marcia Clark claimed that people were lying to get onto the O.J. Simpson jury. It was no secret that Clark and her team wanted white jurors on their team, but Clark also wanted a disproportionate number of women, believing they responded to her courtroom style.

She was wrong, however, as simulated jury tests showed that women responded poorly to a hard-edged and hostile prosecutor, like Clark. Each potential juror had to fill out a 75-page questionnaire to ensure they were right for the case.

12 jurors were selected for the trial, with 12 selected as alternates. Over the course of the trial, 10 jurors were dismissed for a range of reasons. By the time the trial was over, only four of the original jurors remained.

In the end, the jury consisted of eight African-Americans, two Hispanics, one half-Caucasian/half Native-American, and one Caucasian. There were 10 women and two men.

The Alibi(s)

YOU get an alibi! And YOU get an alibi! O.J. Simpson claimed he was sleeping at the time of the murder. Then he claimed he was hitting golf balls outside his home.

Then he claimed Rosa Lopez, the neighbor's housekeeper, saw him parked in his car outside his house at the time of the murder.

The last alibi was corroborated by Lopez, but was ultimately pulled apart by the prosecution when it was determined that Lopez could not be sure of the precise time she saw the Bronco outside.

The Verdict

On October 3, 1995, O.J. Simpson was found not guilty of all charges. Tensions were so high, President Bill Clinton had been briefed on how to handle potential riots should the verdict be controversial.

It's estimated that almost $480 million in lost productivity occurred as the verdict was announced, with water usage declining significantly since people were afraid to go to the bathroom and miss it.

Some of the jurors claim they believed Simpson did commit the murders, but that the prosecution failed to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.

The Book

O.J. Simpson wrote a pretty telling book, called "If I Did It", in 2006. The entire book was a hypothetical detail-for-detail account of just how he would have murdered Brown and Goldman.

This is an excerpt from the book, referencing the famous moment when he was asked to try on the alleged gloves used in the murder and they didn't fit.

“If I had actually done it… I would have brought my good gloves that day. I would have thought it was shame they shrunk when I left them out on the patio, but I would have brought them just the same. They were my lucky gloves, and I would have needed them cause I was going to stab my slut of a wife… hypothetically.”

"This is a historic case, and I consider this his confession", publisher Judith Regan told The Associated Press.

The Civil Suit

Though Simpson was found not guilty on criminal charges, Ron Goldman's parents filed a civil suit against Simpson for wrongful death. Brown's estate also filed a "survivor suit" against Simpson.

Brown's estate was awarded $12.6 million for Simpson's kids, Justin and Sydney. Both families were awarded $33.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages, thereby finding Simpson "responsible" for the murders.

The Robbery

Simpson may not have gone to prison for murder, but he was sentenced to 33 years in prison for armed robbery and kidnapping.

Simpson robbed two sports memorabilia dealers at gunpoint along with a friend, but Simpson claims he was just trying to reclaim possessions that were stolen from him.

"It was my stuff. I followed what I thought was the law," the former running back said. "My lawyer told me I couldn't break into a guy's room. I didn't break into anybody's room. I didn't try to muscle guys. The guys had my stuff, even though they claimed they didn't steal it."

Parole

O.J. Simpson was finally granted parole in July of 2017, after nine years in prison.

"I've basically spent a conflict-free life,” he said. “I was never a guy who got into fights on the street. I’ve done my time. I’ve done it as well and as respectfully as anybody can. ... I’ve not complained for nine years, all I’ve done is try to be helpful.”

Unlike OJ, Hugh Grant's "trial" happened entirely in the court of public opinion

12. An Evening Stroll Down The Sunset Strip Almost Destroyed Hugh Grant's Career

Up until 1995, life had been good for Hugh Grant. The 34-year-old British actor recently got his shot at stardom for his role in the movie, Four Weddings and a Funeral, he was dating supermodel Elizabeth Hurley, and was out promoting his latest flick, Nine Months, in Hollywood.

Then everything came crashing down.

On the evening of June 26, 1995, Grant had been caught in a sexual act with a prostitute. He had been strolling down LA’s notorious "Sunset Strip," and met Estella Marie Thompson, who went by the name Divine Brown. He had paid her $50 to perform oral sex on him in public, but the pair were discovered by undercover police officers.

Grand and Brown had been caught in the act and were promptly charged with “lewd conduct in a public place.”

It wasn’t long until media outlets got wind of Grant’s scandal, and he and his PR team were immediately forced to do damage control.

“Last night I did something completely insane,” Grant said in a statement released the next day. “I have hurt people I love and embarrassed people I work with. For both things I am more sorry than I can ever possibly say.”

Tabloids from across the Atlantic had a field day with Grant’s fall from grace, but they also duked it out to interview Brown, in order to be the first to publish her side of the story.

In the end, News of the World scored the coveted tell-all, by paying her a rumored $100,000. Among the intimate details, Brown said Grant reportedly told her, “I always wanted to sleep with a black woman. That’s my fantasy.”

The following month, Grant was ordered to pay a fine of $1,000, attend an AIDS awareness class and sentenced to two years of probation. Conversely, Brown was sentenced to 180 days in prison and fined $1,350 after pleading no contest. She had already been on probation due to previous prostitution charges.

Grant went on a mass “apology tour,” begging for the public’s forgiveness on late-night television, beginning with an appearance on NBC’s The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

“I’ve done an abominable thing, and she’s [Liz Hurley] been amazing about it, and contrary to what I read in the paper today, she’s been very supportive, and we’re going to try to work it out,” he said during the interview.

Since then, Hollywood seemed to forget about Grant’s high-profile scandal, and he was able to revive his shattered career. He starred in a series of successful movies, including Notting Hill, Bridget Jones Diary, About a Boy, and Love Actually. The well-known playboy has become a father of four, and is still friends with his ex-girlfriend, Hurley.

But he wasn’t the only one who’s done well for himself.

In 2010, Daily Mail interviewed Brown - who reverted back to her given name, Stella Thompson - to see what her life had been like since the sensationalized ordeal.

The mother of three said she prefers to remember the infamous incident as “God’s work” that’s brought her to where she is now.

She has moved away from Los Angeles to Atlanta, Georgia where she had wisely invested a portion of the $1 million she had made from multiple interviews and appearances.  

Thompson’s  two oldest children are in college, she has long since quit prostitution, and runs a music production company with her fiancé Richie Fediccinni. She said her life couldn’t get any better.

“I have the most wonderful life now,’ she said. “I’ve got a nice new home with three bedrooms and four bathrooms. It’s very pretty and I have a beautiful garden with flowers. There’s no pool, but I do have a picket fence. I thank the Lord every day.”

Sources: The Guardian, The Independent, Daily Mail,

How many of these scandals do you remember?