Politicians, scientists, actors, authors: some of the most respected and acclaimed
people in human history were also, it turns out, total jerks. So which
of your idols were truly deplorable? Let's lift the curtain on history and find out!
The beloved "Little Tramp," Charlie Chaplin, wasn't nearly as goofy in real life. In fact,
he was downright predatory, particularly with teenage girls. Two out of his four wives were
under 18 when he married them. Oona O'Neill was 18 when they married - he was in his 50's - though
they began dating when she was 17. And Paulette Goddard was 26 when they married, but only 22
when they began seeing each other - and she had actually lied to Chaplin, who thought she was 17.
But if it's somehow not skeezy enough that he simply married underage girls,
how about the disrespectful way he treated them? Take his first wife Mildred Harris,
whom he married at 16 because he thought she was pregnant. She started getting movie offers,
but Chaplin was unsupportive, thinking she was too young to have any real talent.
Not too young for him to romance, of course, but too young for anything else.
Then there's Lita Grey, whose poor treatment at Chaplin's hands was documented in her 1927 divorce
papers. Thirty-five-year-old Chaplain impregnated Grey when she was 16, and quickly suggested an
abortion. When that didn't happen, he married her, but treated her terribly. According to the
LA Times, he would cheat on her with other young actresses, called her "lowly born and greedy",
paid little attention to their children, and would demand, as she put it, quote, "revolting,
degrading and offensive" acts in the bedroom, some of which were illegal at the time in California.
Doesn't seem quite so funny now, huh.
Queen Victoria had nine children and 42 grandchildren. But Victoria was not maternal.
For starters, she hated being pregnant: it interfered with her ability to rule, and according
to the BBC, she experienced postnatal depression. She also wrote that she found babies ugly.
All of which is fine. Except she took it out on her kids.
Ironically, the child she treated the worst was the one that she most needed as Queen.
The future Edward VII was a huge disappointment to both his parents because he struggled with
his father Prince Albert's strict education system. The BBC reported that Victoria also
mocked his appearance and intellect. Worse, after Albert died shortly after visiting Edward,
she blamed Edward for her beloved husband's death. She refused to involve him in matters
of state, writing, quote, "I never can or shall look at him without a shudder."
Her other children didn't fare much better. Victoria either ignored them or was unbearably
controlling, trying to prevent them from leaving home. She banned her youngest daughter
Beatrice from marrying, stopped speaking to her when she did, and eventually made
the newlyweds live with her. She sent spies to monitor her grown children's activities,
interfered with their parenting decisions, and called Vicky's pregnancy, quote, "horrid news."
Talk about being a helicopter parent - before helicopters were even invented!
The life of beloved author Charles Dickens has been highly romanticized by Hollywood.
But in reality, Dickens was very much a Scrooge in his own personal life.
"What do you think of when I say the word 'darkness’?'"
Dickens married Catherine Hogarth, the daughter of his editor George Hogarth, in 1833,
and they ultimately had 10 children together. But far from being a fan of kids, Dickens didn't want
them because they cost too much money. Somehow, he blamed his wife for having the kids — as
though he had, you know, nothing to do with it — and by the 1850's he was stepping out on her.
First, he tried to rekindle an old flame, but after deciding that she was too fat for him,
the 46-year-old Dickens began an affair with 18-year old actress Ellen Ternan. In what may
have been an attempt to clear the decks for his new lady, Dickens went so far as to try and have
his wife sent to a mental asylum despite the fact that she was in full command of her faculties.
That incredibly cruel plan failed. Instead, she found out about the affair and the two separated;
she was sent off to live with family members
while it's believed that Ternan secretly moved in with Dickens.
Mastering relativity doesn't make you an expert at relationships. Albert Einstein was a legend in the
lab but a misery at home. Einstein's relationship with his first wife Mileva Marić started out like
the kind of love story that gets turned into a glossy Hollywood biopic - they met in college,
where she was the only female physics student, fell in love, and had a family.
All good so far! But in 1912, Einstein began an affair with his cousin Elsa. He was cruel
about Marić in letters, describing her as, quote, "an employee whom I cannot fire." In July 1914,
Einstein wrote a list of demands for Marić, including doing his laundry,
cooking his meals, and expecting, quote, "no affection from me." They separated that year,
and Marić had a breakdown. Einstein and Elsa married in 1919, the year his theory of general
relativity was published. Einstein continued to have affairs throughout his second marriage.
Marić's relationship with Einstein also cost her own promising career in physics.
After they married it was expected that she would focus her attention on being a housewife and
mother, and she was forced to drop her research - though some scholars believe she was heavily
involved in Einstein's work behind the scenes, even though her husband took all the credit.
Slavery has been called America's original sin, and one of the original sinners was
Founding Father Thomas Jefferson. Although he publicly claimed to oppose slavery,
he personally was responsible for over 600 people he kept in bondage. He needed their
free labor to provide the resources to allow him to become a big time politician, after all.
Jefferson only freed seven of those enslaved people. And they were freed
for a very specific reason: they were all related to Sally Hemings,
an enslaved woman who historians believe was the mother of six of Jefferson's children.
Speaking of moral depravity, then, it should be noted that not only was she enslaved,
and therefore legally unable to refuse any advances made by her owner, but she was just 14
at the time it's believed their physical relationship began. He was in his 40's,
and a widower — and oh, by the way, his deceased
wife was Sally Hemings's half-sister. So just in case this wasn't gross enough.
Yes, he's one of America's founding fathers. But Jefferson's slave-holding and personal
abuse of power are as much as part of his history as his achievements.
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