Hollywood is notoriously unforgiving: luckily for celebs, though, actual fans aren't nearly
as fickle.
These once-disgraced stars had some pretty big scandals, but for some reason or another,
everyone pretends they never happened.
America's sweetheart, Reese Witherspoon doesn't appear to have a disorderly bone in her body.
Yet, here we are.
"It's one of those nights, you know.
We went out to dinner in Atlanta.
And we had one too many glasses of wine.
We thought we were fine to drive, and we absolutely were not."
Witherspoon was arrested for disorderly conduct in 2013 after her husband, Jim Toth, was pulled
over and arrested for driving under the influence.
To make matters worse, our fair lady of Sweet Home Alabama pulled the "Do you know who I
am?"
card, a move favored by child stars who've gone off-the-rails.
Witherspoon was arrested on a Friday, and by that Sunday night, the Wild star had released
a heartfelt apology, stating:
"I clearly had one drink too many and I am deeply embarrassed about the things I said.
It was definitely a scary situation and I was frightened for my husband, but that is
no excuse… I'm very sorry for my behavior."
Over the last couple years, we've managed to completely wipe Matthew McConaughey's naked
bongo incident from our brains.
Unfortunately, that doesn't mean it never happened.
"Alright, alright, alright."
In 1999, everybody's favorite Lincoln spokesperson was busted on suspicion of marijuana possession.
According to the infamous police report, he was dancing around naked playing bongo drums
while another man cheered.
The charges were dropped, and McConaughey nonchalantly described his visit to the slammer
as somewhere he wouldn't want to "rent a place" but "it was a nice stay for a night."
Chris Brown is known for some pretty abhorrent things.
So, amidst all the headlines, it's easy to forget that he also had a day-long standoff
with a SWAT team in 2016.
"Police just arrested singer Chris Brown after a day-long standoff at his Tarzana mansion."
The incident began when Brown allegedly pulled a gun on a woman.
She attempted to flee, so Brown reportedly followed her in a Jeep, but she escaped into
a neighbor's yard and hid under an SUV.
The neighbor called the police.
Brown reportedly refused to let law enforcement in his home without a warrant, so police set
up camp outside, as Brown embarked on a bizarre police standoff-slash-Instagram rant as helicopters
circled overhead.
"Come on my n-----, what the f--- else do you want from me, bro?"
Brown was eventually arrested for felony assault with a deadly weapon.
All that, and yet fans seem to wear blinders when it comes to Brown's behavior.
Case in point: In May 2018, Spotify removed numerous abusers from its official playlists,
yet Brown's catalog remained inexplicably untouched.
In the #MeToo era, it's kinda shocking that everyone seems to ignore the 1989 sex tape
Rob Lowe shot with an underage girl.
According to Yahoo, the St. Elmo's Fire alum was in his early 20s when he picked up two
women at a nightclub.
The girls agreed to be videotaped, and Lowe filmed their enthusiastic romp.
The video was circulated around the world, which wouldn't necessarily have been a huge
deal had one of the participants not been 16 years old.
Lowe believed the girl was at least 21 because he'd picked her up at a club where he'd been
carded.
"The problem is: People don't know the facts of the case.
They don't know it's a bar where I get carded going in.
So, why wouldn't I assume everybody else is 21?"
Unfortunately, after the video surfaced, he was slapped with a lawsuit by the teen's mother,
and his scandal was plastered across tabloids.
He received a mere 20 hours of community service for taping the encounter with a partner under
18, and his career barely suffered.
The following year, Lorne Michaels let Lowe host SNL, and everything was more or less
forgotten.
Before he became Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor, or Santa Claus, Tim Allen served a 28-month
sentence for trafficking cocaine, and it could have been a whole lot worse.
According to Defamer, Allen was nabbed by undercover state troopers at the Kalamazoo
airport after selling one and a half pounds of cocaine for a whopping $42,000.
He ended up taking a plea deal in exchange for information.
As a result, the most serious charges were dropped, saving him from a mandatory life
sentence.
After the experience, Allen swiftly turned his life around.
He went from jail time to Tool Time, and today most of us either don't know about his sordid
past or pretend the whole thing never happened.
What a tool, man.
Bruno Mars has hit every possible career milestone a musician could hit.
As much as we'd like to forget, there was once a time when the young pop star almost
uptown funk-ed up his career with a felony cocaine charge.
In 2010, Mars was arrested in the Las Vegas Hard Rock Hotel after he was nabbed with 2.6
grams of what E! News describes as a "white powdery substance believed to be cocaine."
Shocker: it was, in fact, cocaine.
E! News reports that he was charged with felony cocaine possession, but that was dismissed
after he performed 200 hours of community service, paid a $2,000 fine, and underwent
eight hours of drug counseling.