Hollywood is the dream for most, and having your name among the stars means you’ve made it. But not quite. See, even the stars can fall with one wrong step. It could be criminal charges, social media, behavior, or simply stepping on the toes of someone powerful.
Check out this list of celebrities who got blacklisted for all sorts of behavior and unfortunate circumstances. They’re still around, it’s just that they don’t shine as bright anymore.
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1. Corey Feldman
Feldman was a child star in Lost Boys and The Goonies. It became known that he was an alleged victim of a ring, but it was never taken seriously. Feldman turned to substance abuse to deal with the pain but his habits removed his name from any acting roles. Feldman was blacklisted for unfortunate reasons.
2. Rose McGowan
Rose McGowan came out as an alleged victim of Harvey Weinstein, which was the time when the horror-film Scream was released. The industry soon began closing off on McGowan when she began to speak out against Weinstein.
3. Roseanne Barr
Barr was a proud republican and staunch supporter of President Trump’s presidency. In 2018, she made a racially charged joke about President Obama’s former Senior Advisor, Valerie Jarrett. The reboot of Roseanne was canceled, with the president of ABC tweeting that Barr’s actions were, ”abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values.”
4. Charlie Sheen
Sheen was a huge Hollywood and TV star, but in early 2011, he took it too far when he publicly decried show co-creator, Chuck Lorre. This was at the time when Sheen was in rehab all while dealing with several domestic abuse claims. He even asked for a 50% raise on his current $1.8 million per-episode salary.
5. Randy Quaid
Quaid was filming The Merry Wives of Windsor (2007), when his behavior toward the crew turned into trouble. His wife, Evi, got involved by sending emails to the cast and crew which crossed lines of professionalism. Rules established by Quaid’s acting union, Equity, meant he got fired, fined $81,000 for his and his wife’s behavior, then banned from the same union.
6. Dalton Trumbo
Trumbo was part of the “Hollywood Ten”. These were people in the entertainment industry that refused to deny their involvement with the Communist Party. Trumbo was initially blacklisted but did go on to work on Roman Holiday and The Brave One (both Oscar winners) under a pseudonym. His name reappeared in Kirk Douglas’ Spartacus and Exodus and as word got out about his continued involvement, the Writers’ Guild of America began to credit Trumbo’s name in all back-produced films.
7. Kirk Cameron
Cameron was a child star in Growing Pains and Life Father Like Son, but nowadays, he is vocal primarily about Christianity. His religious and political views effectively blacklisted him from any mainstream film or television roles.
8. Isaiah Washington
The former Grey’s Anatomy regular cast member is not exactly blacklisted from Hollywood, but Washington cut his opportunities and career short when he called one of his Grey cast mates a homophobic slur. He was removed from the show but that didn’t stop him from using the slur again when Grey’s Anatomy won a Golden Globe.
9. Mel Gibson
Gibson was once a Hollywood powerhouse but a widely-discussed anti-Semitic rant and several controversial public meltdowns put him in a bad light. Gibson returned in 2016’s Hacksaw Ridge as director, but the industry has not forgotten his past hateful remarks and actions.
10. Cee-Lo Green
His song “F**K You: came out in 2010, skyrocketing his career where he got his show as well as a seat on The Voice. Then some of his tweets , causing him to be cast aside in Hollywood. His show was canceled and he was removed from The Voice.
11. Jim Caviezel
Caviezel was a Hollywood regular before Gibson offered him the role of Jesus Christ in Gibson’s R-rated Passion of the Christ. The film received great criticism and controversy for its unnecessarily violent depiction of the bible story. Gibson told Caviezel that he might be blacklisted by Hollywood but he took the role either way.
12. Vince Vaughn
Vaughn was a former comic-in-film powerhouse but he couldn’t shake off that comedic style for more serious roles. Then he said that guns in schools would be able to stop mass shootings. Hollywood wasn’t amused and Vaughn soon disappeared from the lights.
13. Stacey Dash
Dash was once a TV mainstay but her conservative views also got in the way. She once said that Black History Month should end and even shared questionable comments about the transgender community. She soon found herself blacklisted.
14. Katherine Heigl
Heigl was once a Hollywood princess starring in Knocked Up and Grey’s Anatomy. But rumors spread that she was difficult to work with. She would lock herself in her trailer through creative differences, demand ridiculous wardrobe substitutions, and even questioned script decisions.
15. Justin Bieber
The young Justin Bieber was a bit of a wild child. He’s had various high-speed run-ins with the law, resisting arrest, and even his controversial and unexpected life choices had many doubting whether to cast him for roles. He still performs his music to this day though.
16. Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker was an unforgettable screenplay in the 1930s and 40s. She’s worked on Saboteur, Trade Winds, Suzy, and A Star is Born. The problem was she was labeled a Communist after WW2, which barred her from the industry immediately.
17. Martin Lawrence
Lawrence was invited to host an episode of Saturday Night Live in 1994. He ended up discussing female hygiene during his “altered” monologue. The bit was removed and Lawrence was banned from the show forever. He still makes homophobic comments to this day, and not in a positive note.
18. Natalie Maines
Natalie Maines is the lead vocalist of the Dixie Chicks. She criticized then-President Bush about the invasion of Iraq in 2003. She did apologize but completely rescinded the apology in 2006. The band found itself blacklisted by many radio stations but have since come back on the scene.
19. Josephine Baker
Baker was a naturalized French actress and the first Black woman to lead a motion picture in 1927. She criticized a reputable columnist in 1951, and was soon accused of Communist sympathies. She never recovered from the accusation causing her US Work Visa to be canceled. Baker returned to France and it would be another 10 years before she was allowed back into the US.
20. Snoop Dogg
Snoop Dog is known to enjoy his illegal substances. He’s not blacklisted in the US, but is completely banned in other countries for attempting to smuggle the substance for his pleasure.
21. Orson Welles
Considered to be one of the most respected, and even the greatest, filmmakers of all time, Welles was investigated by the FBI for his involvement with the Communist party. His film, Citizen Kane, still receives praise to this day.
22. Tara Subkoff
Subkoff was a hit in Hollywood thanks to films like As Good as It Gets, All Over Me, and The Last Days of Disco. She found her career halted after she rejected the advances of Hollywood mogul and later-convicted offender Harvey Weinstein.
Years later Subkoff explained, “It became impossible for me to get work as an actress after this, so I then had to start a new career path and started Imitation of Christ, a fashion and art label.”
23. Mira Sorvino
Sorvino was another victim of Harvey Weinstein. “There may have been other factors, but I felt iced out and that my rejection of Harvey had something to do with it,” she said.
Director Peter Jackson also confirmed that Weinstein told him to “avoid” Sorvino, and that she was a “nightmare” to work with.
24. Ashley Judd
In the same interview, Peter Jackson also confirmed that Harvey Weinstein spoke to him about Ashley Judd. Judd sued Weinstein, saying that the disgraced mogul sabotaged her career because she turned down his advances.
25. Tobey Maguire
Maguire was the star of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy. But after his starring turn in 2013’s The Great Gatsby, Maguire dropped off the Hollywood radar. Rumor was that it was his personal choice but it seemed like Hollywood no longer saw him pulling in any money.
26. Freddie Prinze Jr.
He was one of the late 90s and early 2000s screen heartthrobs and teen idols, with his fame peaking in the successful live-action Scooby-Doo films. For some reason, Prinze’s starring roles have stopped all together but he’s been doing voiceover work, writing, and is still married to Sarah Michelle Gellar.
27. Taylor Lautner
Lautner was to be Hollywood’s next star after playing Jacob Black in the Twilight franchise. But audiences grew tired of the franchise, while Hollywood power brokers thought he didn’t have the talent to move forward.
28. Jennifer Grey
Grey’s roles in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Dirty Dancing made sure she had one of the most iconic faces of the 80s, but a nose job ruined her chances of becoming a bigger star.
Grey was known for her nose, but as her career soon fizzled out in the early ’90s, she got a nose job. The surgery left her unrecognizable, and with it, her chances of being cast in more projects.
Grey once said, “It was the nose job from hell. I’ll always be this once-famous actress nobody recognizes because of a nose job.”
29. Wesley Snipes
Snipes was an “A-List Celebrity” on top of the Hollywood mountain, but he made the mistake of not paying his taxes. He was found guilty of willfully not filing taxes for three years so the actor served a year for each year he failed to do so.
That’s $17 million in taxes and penalties. Snipes’ tax evasion put a stop to his career, and its only recently that he’s been finding new projects.
30. Michael Richards
Comedians have hecklers in the crowd. These people let them know when they’ve officially crossed a line. Seinfeld’s Michael Richards found himself arguing on-stage with a heckler, and he answered the man’s criticism with racial slurs, demanding that the African-American customer be thrown out.
His audience was shocked and Richards left the stage without finishing his routine. A public apology on Letterman did nothing to save his career.
31. Tila Tequila
Tila ‘Tequila’ Nguyen attracted MTV and they capitalized on her online fanbase by giving Tequila her dating show, A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila in 2007. She made her first film appearance in “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” but it all ended after a bizarre post on her website.
She posted an article about Adolf Hitler expressing her sympathy for him. She wrote that she had “learned the truth about the war and what Hitler truly did,” insisting that “he was not a bad person as they have made him out to be.”
There was massive outrage and everyone knew that her career hit a dead end.
32. Lindsay Lohan
Lohan was a star in films like The Parent Trap, Freaky Friday, Mean Girls, and Herbie: Fully Loaded. But in 2007, she was taken to a Beverly Hills hospital after a car accident. The toxicology reports had Hollywood creating distance with Lohan following repeat offenses.
33. Paul Reubens
Pee-wee Herman’s public perception changed in 1991 after he was arrested for indecent exposure at an adult movie theater. Reubens retreated from the public eye, disappearing for much of the ’90s.
He returned in 2016, starring in the critically acclaimed Netflix film Pee-wee’s Big Holiday.
34. Mark Salling
Salling rose to fame thanks to Glee. In December 2015, he was arrested in Los Angeles on charges that he possessed and distributed underage photos. A miniseries called Adi Shankar’s Gods and Secrets dropped Salling quickly and in a statement said, “The innocence of our planet’s children is something that must be protected at all costs.”
35. Amanda Bynes
The star of The Amanda Show and She’s The Man got blacklisted from Hollywood thanks to her public meltdown on Twitter following her arrest. She made raunchy and obscene comments at Drake, Rihanna, Miley Cyrus, and Jay-Z.
Bynes is trying to get her life back together, attending Los Angeles’ Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising to learn about clothing lines.
36. Paula Deen
Paula Deen was a cooking show mom on shows like Top Chef, MasterChef, and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. She also had a role in an actual film, Elizabethtown. But in 2012, her career crashed following several racially charged comments. Her statements were verified in district court, leading to the Food Network refusing to renew her contract.
37. Kathy Griffin
Griffin posted a picture of herself holding a bloody Donald Trump mannequin head in May of 2017. She claimed to be mocking Trump’s remarks that reporter Megyn Kelly had “blood coming out of her wherever.”
That had Griffin dropped from her schedule with CNN and released from her Squatty Potty endorsement. Griffin apologized,saying, “I don’t think I’m going to have a career after this. I’m going, to be honest, he broke me.”
Her stand up tour was canceled since the theaters began receiving threatening letters for hosting her.
38. Brendan Fraser
Fraser was a “Hollywood Hunk” and a lead actor in the early 2000s. His career peaked thanks to his role in the “The Mummy” franchise. He then accused the former president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, Phillip Berk, of unbecoming behavior. That’s when Fraser’s acting opportunities began to disappear. “The phone does stop ringing in your career, and you start asking yourself why. There are many reasons, but was this one of them? I think it was.”
39. Elisha Cuthbert
Cuthbert’s starring role in ‘The Girl Next Door’ was one of her most popular but its cult following wasn’t enough to push the actress into the limelight. Her most notable work was on Netflix’s The Ranch alongside Ashton Kutcher and Sam Elliot. Netflix canceled the series but she could have other projects planned.
40. Stephen Collins
Collins was beloved for his role on 7th Heaven. But in a 2012 therapy session, he confessed that he was guilty of assault. His then-wife Faye Grant secretly recorded the sessions, which got leaked to TMZ in late 2014. Collins’ career is over and, according to Entertainment Weekly, Seth MacFarlane fired him from Ted 2 after.
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