Stars who dare to brave live television are big risk-takers.
That's because you never know how a segment might go down, even if you're a seasoned industry
vet.
These are the celebs who destroyed their careers on live TV this past decade.
Megyn Kelly is no stranger to controversy, so it wasn't too surprising when she incited
major backlash following an October 2018 segment on her show Megyn Kelly TODAY.
The drama went down when Kelly and her guest panelists, Today co-host Jenna Bush Hager,
NBC News correspondent Jacob Soboroff, and TV host Melissa Rivers, entered into a discussion
about offensive Halloween costumes.
"But what is racist?
Because, because truly you do get in trouble if you are a white person who puts on blackface
at Halloween or a black person who puts on white face for Halloween."
Kelly argued that blackface was "okay" when she was a kid as long as you were dressed
up as a character.
When she received pushback from her panelists, she responded,
"I can't keep up with the number of people that we're offending just by being normal
people."
Amid widespread outrage and following an on-air apology from Kelly, NBC officially canceled
Megyn Kelly TODAY a few days later.
Kelly hasn't landed a big job since then.
Brian Williams was once one of the most trusted news anchors in America.
But that all changed following a February 2015 segment for NBC Nightly News, during
which the journalist gave a tribute to Sergeant Major Tim Terpak, who served in the Iraq War.
Williams told viewers about a terrible moment a dozen years earlier during the invasion
of Iraq when the helicopter he was traveling in was forced down after being hit by an RPG.
"Our traveling NBC News team was rescued, surrounded, and kept alive by an armor-mechanized
platoon from the U.S. Army 3rd Infantry."
The problem was that the version of events as recounted by Williams never actually happened.
Sergeant 1st Class Joseph Miller, who rode with Williams in 2003, denied the claims to
the military publication Stars and Stripes, explaining how the chopper was never under
fire.
Although three helicopters flying ahead of Williams were under attack, their chopper
landed due to an impending sandstorm.
Williams apologized to NBC Nightly News viewers and Stars and Stripes, but it was too late.
Lester Holt took over the anchor position from Williams, who was demoted to anchoring
MSNBC News.
He also took a substantial pay cut, and his credibility was forever damaged.
Celebrity chef Paula Deen's career melted down in 2012 when news broke of a lawsuit
filed by a former employee that accused Deen of cultivating an environment of "violent,
sexist, and racist behavior" in her restaurants.
The lawsuit alleged that Deen not only tolerated racism at the restaurants she owned but that
she also exhibited racist behavior herself.
This included allegedly expressing a desire to hold a, quote, "Southern plantation-style
wedding" with an exclusively black waitstaff.
Instead of using the experience to apologize and grow, Deen leaned into the skid, going
on the defensive by playing the victim card in an interview on the Today show.
She deflected criticism, seemingly expressing shock that people were offended by what she'd
said.
"I'm just so distressed that people I've never heard of are all of a sudden experts on who
I am."
With two of Paula Deen's Family Kitchen restaurants having closed in November 2019, it's still
clear that Deen has never fully recovered from the hit to her reputation.
It's no secret that Kate Gosselin is used to criticism, having received continuous backlash
for her parenting as seen on the TLC reality series Jon & Kate Plus 8.
The public outcry against her reached a fever pitch in January 2014, following a disastrous
interview on Today with her twin daughters, Mady and Cara.
Kate was there to defend putting her kids on TV, an argument that didn't go in her favor
when the twins refused to answer Savannah Guthrie's questions about how they were doing
in the spotlight.
Kate, who appeared visibly frustrated, snapped at one point:
"Mady, your words."
"No, it's hard.
It's a hard question."
"It's your chance, spit it out.
Oh!"
As for Guthrie's reaction to the cringefest, she told Andy Cohen on an episode of Watch
What Happens Live that she "felt bad" for the twins.
She also added,
"I honestly was just thinking, 'This is crazy.
Is this as crazy as it feels inside?
Does it look as crazy?'
And then I checked my Twitter feed, and I knew, it was crazy."
Not only did the Today mess make national news, it also didn't help Gosselin's "Mommie
Dearest" image one bit.
Her life today seems to be a consequence of this interview, as Kate Plus 8 ended its run
on TLC in 2017, and her spin-off show, Kate Plus Date, doesn't seem like it's headed toward
long-term success.
It's probably true that nothing short of the End of Days could really end the career of
Mariah Carey.
But she hasn't always done herself a lot of favors, making the sorts of unforced errors
and left turns that would surely topple the career of just about anyone else.
She had one especially high-profile mishap on live TV in 2016 when she closed out the
New Year's Rockin' Eve show in Times Square with a cringe-inducing nonstarter of a performance.
As the music played and her dancers twirled around her, Carey pitched her song to the
audience, walking the stage and running out the clock, unable to hear and unwilling to
sing.
She announced that she was trying to be a good sport as the song wrapped, before moving
on to another song that was largely lip-synced.
Her team and the show's production staff would later blame each other for the audio mishap.
But all of the headlines focused on Carey and her rough performance.
Her response was a succinct "s--- happens" and a GIF of herself shrugging on Twitter.
Now that's how you deal with the media.
"Direct quote from Mariah Carey's manager: 'She should have walked off and thrown the
mic at somebody's head.'
End quote."
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