Page 16 - Edge: Issue 6 March/April 2019

Fall From Grace
Finding out that someone you idolized is a terrible person? Not fun.
Story by Rhiannon Drysdale
What do you do when the famous become infamous?
Or, rather, what should you do? As time goes on, the story has repeated itself too many times to count. Someone becomes a celebrity, and soon gains lots of fans and admirers across the country or maybe even the world. Then—perhaps at the height of their fame, perhaps after they have already begun to fade into obscurity— things come to light that paint an entirely different picture of them, and not a positive one. Associates personal and professional distance themselves, and as for those that thought the world of them? They are left reeling, and wondering, why?
One example which may be better known by parents and teachers is that of Bill Cosby. For a generation of children and teenagers, his comedic routines and his hit television sitcom, The Cosby Show (which was the number one rated television show for five consecutive season), made him a household name. It seemed everyone wanted to be like him, and even when his show was no longer in its heyday, those people still remembered, and idolized him.
Rumors about Cosby’s inappropriate relationships with women started in the early 1980s, Jokes were made about it on
shows like
Saturday Night
Live and 30
Rock, but
nothing was
ever substantiated. All that changed in 2014, when comedian Hannibal Buress’s routine included a joke about how Burress didn’t like how Cosby told other black men how to live, while Cosby had been accused of rape. Someone recorded his routine and the video went viral. Women started coming forward detailing their experiences with the mega-star, dating back to the 1960s. While many of the incidents allegedly happened too long ago to be prosecuted, some more recent incidents were investigated and Cosby was tried and convicted of three counts of sexual assault. Now, many of those that idolized him once can barely even think about him without being horrified.
A more recent example is that of Justin ‘Jussie’ Smollett. Smollett was once best known as an actor on the TV show Empire. On January 22, he received a threatening letter—and not eight days later, he was attacked early in the morning by white supremacists. Or, at least, that was what everyone believed.
Initially, the police investigated it as a hate crime against him, but by mid-February, it was suspected that Smollett orchestrated the attack—and the letter—in an attempt to advance his own career and gain a higher salary. Fans of Empire and other productions Smollett acted in were devastated.
Then, there is the case of Robert Kelly, better known as simply R. Kelly: a songwriter, singer, and musician. Early this year, a six-part television documentary entitled Surviving R.
Kelly was released chronicling a history of alleged sexual abuse. This led to many other artists
denouncing him, several radio stations banning his music, and Kelly being
charged for ten separate counts of sexual abuse, some of which was with minors.
In the end, finding out about things like this leaves a bad taste in your mouth and more questions than answers. Why do people do things like this? Why does anyone do things like this? Why did anyone ever like these horrible people? Well, to start off—would you have liked them if you had known everything you know now? Chances are, the answer is no. Unfortunately, some people are very, very good liars, and just as there are terrible people anywhere in the world, there are terrible people that happen to be famous. Terrible people are, fortunately, the minority, and yet scandals come out often enough that sometimes, the tabloids have nothing to make up.
The long and short of it is, idolizing people is perfectly fine within reason, although hero worship can get excessive. However, when someone thought to be truly the best turns out to be far, far less than that—learn from it. Grow from it. Take what they did wrong, and do the opposite. If things
come down to it, be your own hero, and leave the ones that are truly terrible people where they belong: in
the past.
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Sister Circle Live [CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Jussie_Smollett_2018.png