Top 50 Rumors That Turned Out to Be TRUE
Sometimes the truth is staring us right in the face. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the Top 50 Rumors that Turned out to be True.
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00:00 In all seven of your Tour de France victories, did you ever take banned substances or blood dope?
00:07 Yes.
00:08 Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the top 50 rumors that turned out to be true.
00:14 As this was our most popular topic of the year, we've put together a mashup of all kinds of rumors from the realms of show business, gaming, sports, politics, and more.
00:24 "When you look at the whole thing, it was just so horrible, what it did to the kids and what it did to my wife."
00:31 Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber were a couple.
00:34 You could write an entire novel about the drama between these two child stars.
00:38 "Justin Bieber, you know I'm a hitter with the ether. One's out, wiener, but I gotta keep an eye out for Selena."
00:45 But back in 2009, everyone was wondering if the pair was a romantic couple or just friends.
00:50 "I saw so many pretty faces. I saw you, you, now all I see is you."
00:58 Frequently spotted together, Selena and Justin played off their relationship, with Selena even calling Justin her little brother.
01:04 "He's little. No, no, he's like my little brother. That's weird to me."
01:11 It wasn't until they stepped out together at the Vanity Fair Oscar party in 2011 that their romance was confirmed.
01:17 The pair dated off and on until 2018, when they finally split.
01:20 Justin married model Hailey Baldwin the following year, sparking rumors that she had stolen Justin from Selena.
01:26 The women have since quashed those rumors, but that doesn't stop fans from speculating about pretty much every move these three make.
01:33 Macaulay Culkin's violent parent
01:35 If you were a movie fan in the 90s, you couldn't avoid seeing this child actor brightening a cinema screen.
01:40 "You're the only one acting up. Now get upstairs."
01:43 With his iconic role as Kevin in Home Alone and his traumatizing funeral in My Girl,
01:48 Macaulay Culkin became a household name before he was even a teenager.
01:51 Unfortunately, this successful career came with a price.
01:55 Rumors soon began circulating that Culkin's father was abusing his power and overworking his young son.
02:00 In 2018, Culkin appeared on Marc Maron's WTF podcast and confirmed his dad's physical and mental abuse.
02:06 "I was able to actually walk away from the business. I even wanted to take a break for a while,
02:10 and eventually I was like, 'I'm done. I'm done, guys. I hope you all made your money, because there's no more coming from me.'"
02:18 Thankfully, he successfully sued to remove his parents' control of his trust fund.
02:22 "Mom!"
02:24 "I'm here."
02:26 "Mom!"
02:28 Drew Barrymore's wild childhood
02:33 Who doesn't love Drew Barrymore?
02:34 She's had a decades-long career in Hollywood since her first film, E.T. at age 7.
02:39 "What's that?"
02:41 [Drew whistling]
02:43 [Drew whistling]
02:44 But in the 80s and 90s, rumors swirled about her being the ultimate wild child.
02:48 Drew published her memoir, Wildflower, in 2016, confirming many of the rumors.
02:53 These included attending Hollywood parties with people triple her age,
02:56 going to Studio 54 when she was only 9, and having a substance use disorder by 12.
03:01 "Not very normal to see a 9-year-old at a big Hollywood party drinking."
03:05 She even did a few stints in rehab as a teenager.
03:08 Thankfully, Drew has cleaned up her act and her image over the years.
03:11 She's now sober, hosts a daytime talk show, and recently launched her own magazine.
03:16 "When I finally let go of that, it made me realize that I was capable
03:20 of great change that I totally rebelled about. I was like, 'I will master this toxic behavior of mine.'"
03:28 We're rooting for you, Drew.
03:29 Neil Patrick Harris voiced Disney's California Screamin'.
03:32 "5, 4, 3, 2, 1, go!"
03:36 Anyone visiting Disneyland in November 2010 may have heard a familiar voice.
03:40 Visitors noticed the safety announcer before the California Screamin' roller coaster
03:47 sounded a lot like Hollywood actor and Broadway star Neil Patrick Harris.
03:51 Fans were convinced that grown-up Doogie Howser, MD, was narrating the ride.
03:55 NPH himself even tweeted a cryptic clue around that time.
03:58 It didn't take long for Disney Parks to confirm that, yes,
04:01 it was the How I Met Your Mother star's voice.
04:03 "Girl, I will shamrock your world."
04:08 Sadly, California Screamin' shut down in 2018 to make way for the Incredicoaster,
04:12 an Incredibles-themed ride. So, Harris' big announcement is now a thing of the past.
04:17 Aaliyah's teenage marriage
04:19 She's been dubbed the "princess of R&B,"
04:22 but Aaliyah's influence hasn't stopped her from being followed by a rumor for over 25 years.
04:26 "I'll be waiting there with my trips, my lows, my high, just so I'm low-key."
04:32 Did she really marry R. Kelly with forged documents when she was underage?
04:36 "What is the deal with you and R. Kelly? Are you all married or not?"
04:39 "No, I'm not married. Robert's doing his thing, I'm doing my thing. He's a great producer,
04:43 great artist, who I do admire."
04:45 Regrettably, the answer is yes. Aaliyah was 15, and Kelly was 27.
04:50 The marriage was later annulled, and Aaliyah refused to talk about the relationship.
04:54 Unfortunately, she was tragically killed in a plane crash without ever telling her side of
04:58 the story. R. Kelly, on the other hand, is paying the price for his many misdeeds,
05:02 serving 30 years for bribery, sex trafficking, and additional charges. Thankfully, we still
05:07 have the legacy of Aaliyah's music, which continues to inspire artists to this day.
05:12 Nikki Sixx's Near-Death Experience
05:21 As the co-founder and bassist of the heavy metal band Motley Crue,
05:25 Nikki Sixx was a rock music staple throughout the 80s.
05:28 "I'm a girl, girl, walking in Atlanta every time I'm in town."
05:35 But at the peak of his career, Sixx struggled with substance use disorder,
05:39 which gravely affected his personal and professional life. In fact, at one point,
05:44 it was rumored that the musician had overdosed on heroin and died. This was technically true,
05:50 for two minutes.
05:51 "Do you see the light? You know, people say they see a light."
05:54 "I can tell you things I saw."
05:56 "What'd you say?"
05:57 "That I shouldn't have been able to have seen. Like, I saw the hotel hallway,
06:02 I saw the ambulance, I saw the limo that was there."
06:05 According to reports, on December 23, 1987, Sixx was rushed to the hospital after overdosing on
06:11 the substance. He was pronounced clinically dead for two minutes before a paramedic pumped him with
06:16 two shots of adrenaline and revived him. The out-of-body experience reportedly inspired
06:21 Sixx to write the band's 1989 anthem, "Kickstart My Heart."
06:25 "Oh, yeah, kickstart my heart, kickstart my heart."
06:31 Prince Evangelized Door to Door for Jehovah's Witnesses
06:35 For the better part of his remarkable career, Prince was known for defying societal expectations
06:40 with his brazenly provocative music.
06:43 "So brazenly, this is nuts."
06:46 For that reason, many were shocked when he decided to become a Jehovah's Witness in 2001.
06:52 The iconic musician was said to have taken his newfound faith very seriously,
06:57 and it was once reported that, like many members of the religion, he practiced door-to-door evangelism.
07:03 "The Prince was honored by members of his religious community at the Jehovah's Witness
07:07 Kingdom Hall in Minnetonka, Minnesota on Sunday."
07:10 While that remained a rumor for years, a Minnesota couple later confirmed that Prince
07:15 once knocked on their door to proselytize to them. Apparently, the purple star would wear
07:20 disguises and introduce himself as Brother Nelson to evade being recognized.
07:25 But when you're as famous as Prince, that can be a pretty daunting task.
07:29 "No need to worry, no need to cry, I'm your messiah and you're the reason why."
07:36 Michael Jackson Wrote Music for Sonic the Hedgehog 3
07:39 The video game Sonic the Hedgehog 3 was released in 1994 to critical and commercial acclaim.
07:45 While many fans were in awe of the much-improved gameplay, some others noticed striking similarities
07:51 between the music and that of pop music icon Michael Jackson.
07:55 Jackson's involvement in the Sonic soundtrack remained a rumor for years,
08:06 until it was seemingly confirmed by one of the game's creators, Yuji Naka, in 2022.
08:12 This was never something confirmed by Sega, even though multiple developers and people close to
08:17 Jackson have said that it's true. Apparently, Jackson and his team had
08:20 recorded complete tracks for the soundtrack, but just as production on the game was underway in
08:25 1993, the musician was hit with assault allegations. This seems to have played a
08:30 part in Jackson receiving no credits for his involvement.
08:39 Ozzy Osbourne and the Ants Heavy metal icon Ozzy Osbourne has admittedly
08:44 done a lot of outrageous things throughout his long, storied career.
08:48 But this one takes things to a new level of extreme.
08:51 While on his Bark at the Moon tour in 1984, Osbourne stopped over at a Florida hotel alongside
09:02 opening act's Motley Crue. The story goes that on one particular afternoon, the former Black
09:08 Sabbath frontman took a straw and snorted a line of ants with it. While this may horrify the average
09:14 person, it probably won't be much of a surprise to anyone familiar with Osbourne's antics.
09:20 The rumor was confirmed in the band's autobiography, The Dirt,
09:24 and depicted in the same titled Netflix film.
09:34 Bloodgate In 2009, rugby union side Harlequins were
09:38 losing to Leinster in the European Rugby Champions Cup. After Nick Evans was subbed off due to injury,
09:43 his replacement also had to go off. This left the team without a good kicker, but the problem
09:47 was resolved when Tom Williams got a blood injury, allowing Evans to return. This caused
09:52 the Leinster staff to go live it. They knew something was up, and boy was it.
09:55 Williams was handed a blood capsule to feign injury and was purposely cut later to mask the
10:03 deception. Yet Harlequins still lost the match.
10:05 Williams was banned for four months after an appeal. The physio was struck off for two years,
10:24 and then-director of rugby Dean Richards was banned for three years.
10:32 Match-fixing wrestlers For years, the world of sumo
10:35 wrestling has been connected to rumors of match-fixing stemming from organized crime.
10:39 Even the suspicious passing of Kotetsu Yuma Toyoya in 1996 was speculated to involve the Yakuza.
10:45 In 2000, the legendary wrestler Itai Keisuke publicly claimed that match-fixing was rampant
10:51 in the sport. By 2011, the proof came out. After several wrestlers were found to have been involved
10:55 in a Yakuza-run betting ring, the police found evidence of sumo match-fixing on their cellphones.
11:00 Those involved conspired to script the ending of bouts, even choosing the final moves in exchange
11:04 for cash. Many wrestlers and trainers were found guilty of the deception and were forced to retire
11:09 from the sport. Spain's Paralympic basketball team
11:12 As Spain entered their men's intellectually disabled basketball team in the summer Paralympics
11:27 in Sydney, Australia in 2000, it started really strong. Too strong. Soon, there were rumors that
11:32 the Spanish team wasn't what they said they were. Regardless, the team went on to win the gold.
11:36 Then, Carlos Rigoborda, a member of the winning squad as well as a journalist,
11:49 leaked the truth.
11:50 "At the beginning, I thought that it was totally impossible for someone to be capable of carrying
11:54 out something like this. It just seemed completely incredible. And that was the reason why I got
11:59 involved."
11:59 Fernando Martín Vicente, the then-president of the Spanish Sports Federation for People with
12:04 Intellectual Disability, had smuggled non-disabled athletes into the team. Only two of the 12
12:09 players had a disability. The Spanish side was stripped of the gold.
12:12 "They'd lost a spectacular gamble and in doing so had given the International
12:16 Paralympic Committee its greatest PR disaster of all time."
12:20 Spiky
12:21 Shortly after Bill Belichick became the head coach at the New England Patriots,
12:27 the NFL side began a dominant run in the early 2000s. While most credit it to great tactics,
12:32 some other franchises thought something else more deceptive was going on. And in September 2007,
12:37 after the Patriots beat the New York Jets, the truth was discovered. A video assistant
12:41 was spotted in an unauthorized place filming hand signals by the Jets' defensive coaches,
12:46 breaking the league's rules. The NFL was livid.
12:49 "If they know before the snap of the ball what your coverage basically is,
12:54 they can chew you up and spit you out."
12:56 They fined the Patriots $250,000 and were stripped of their first-round draft pick
13:00 in 2008 if they made the playoffs, while Belichick was fined the maximum of $500,000.
13:05 "Forget about that. If we were wrong, then we've been disciplined for that."
13:10 Mass Grave - E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
13:13 The awfulness of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600 is positively legendary.
13:24 The game is nearly single-handedly responsible for the video game crash of 1983.
13:29 Atari planned for the game to do much better than it did and ended up with many unsold copies.
13:34 One long-held gaming urban legend was that the unsold copies were all buried in the desert in
13:38 New Mexico.
13:39 "It's E.T. the video game, intact in its box."
13:42 In 2014, an excavation in Alamogordo, New Mexico confirmed that E.T. cartridges were buried there,
13:51 along with over 700,000 other Atari games.
13:54 While E.T. may not have been the only bodies buried there,
13:57 this mass grave was still plenty to phone home about.
13:59 Kiss Inject Their Blood Into Comic Books
14:08 In the 1970s, New York band Kiss took rock music by storm. The original four-man lineup
14:14 was known for their signature white and black makeup and comic book-style costumes.
14:19 In 1977, at the height of their popularity, the group teamed up with Marvel's Stan Lee to create
14:30 a series of Kiss comic books. Seemingly as a marketing ploy, each member of the band was
14:36 reported to have drawn a bit of their blood, which was then mixed with the printing ink for the
14:41 comics. Turns out, this was in fact true, as confirmed by Kiss founding member Paul Stanley
14:47 and Lee himself.
14:48 "I said, 'You guys are out of your mind.' He said, 'No, no, it's great. It'll get a lot of publicity.'"
14:53 If that's not the most shock-rock-esque thing to ever happen in the comic book universe,
14:58 we don't know what is.
15:05 Cass Elliott and Keith Moon Died In The Same Apartments
15:09 While their paths may never have crossed, Cass Elliott and Keith Moon shared more
15:14 similarities than they could imagine. Not only were they members of music groups,
15:18 but they both met their untimely demise at the age 32.
15:31 Even weirder, this reportedly happened at the same apartment, only four years apart.
15:37 "They announced the death of Keith Moon, who died from a drug overdose."
15:41 The Mayfair London flat belonged to Harry Nilsson, a singer-songwriter, mutual friend of theirs,
15:47 who was mostly on the road and rented it out to his musician pals. Elliott died there on July 29,
15:53 1974, while in London for a concert. Four years later, Moon moved into the apartment,
15:59 where he also passed away from a drug overdose.
16:01 "Of course it's sad, you know, when somebody that huge, that bombastic, that alive,
16:09 is no longer on the planet."
16:11 Unsurprisingly, Nilsson moved out of the flat and sold it off.
16:14 Mick Jagger and David Bowie's Intimate Relationship
16:19 Two revered icons, Mick Jagger and David Bowie,
16:22 are both regarded among the most influential musicians of the 20th century.
16:26 "New Orleans and New York City."
16:31 The two were first linked in the early 70s and soon grew so close that rumors
16:36 of an intimate relationship between them filled the media. They even released a duet cover of
16:41 the song "Dancing in the Street", which hit number one in their home country of the UK.
16:45 "It's swing and sway, a wrecked man, a dance center in the street."
16:52 In 2012, journalist Christopher Anderson released a shocking biography of Jagger,
16:57 in which he seemingly confirms rumors of an affair. According to the book,
17:01 Bowie's then-wife Angie found both men naked in bed together. While she didn't seem to interrupt
17:07 anything, Angie was absolutely dead certain something had in fact happened between them.
17:14 "So we had a lot of fun times and, uh, yeah, so it was, you know, nice to remember them."
17:20 Charles Manson Wrote A Song For The Beach Boys
17:22 Before he founded and led the infamous Manson Family cult,
17:27 Charles Manson was a struggling musician hoping for a big break.
17:31 "Manson went to Los Angeles for no purpose other than to become a rock and roll star."
17:37 After leaving prison in the late 1960s, Manson made the acquaintance of the Beach Boys drummer
17:43 Dennis Wilson, who hoped to sign him to a recording contract. Although that never came
17:48 to fruition, Manson actually wrote a song titled "Cease to Exist" for the band. The
17:53 lyrics were eventually reworked and released in 1968 as "Never Learn Not to Love."
17:58 This served as the B-side of their moderately successful single "Bluebirds Over the Mountain."
18:08 "The initial idea may have been Charles's, but he had given it to Dennis and been compensated for it
18:16 and the Beach Boys were taking it and embellishing it as they do and making it their own."
18:24 In the end, Manson received no writing credit for the song,
18:27 and a little over two years later, he was convicted of the Tate and LaBianca murders.
18:32 Katy Perry Collected Celebrity Hair
18:35 Alright, this one is straight up unusual. Katy Perry was always rumored to do odd things,
18:40 but this is strange even for her. The word on the street was that Katy collected hair from
18:44 her fellow celebrity BFFs. Well, as weird as this seemed to be, the rumor turned out to actually be
18:50 true, and it was confirmed by Katy herself. She said that she got to share a dressing room with
18:56 Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift one day, and just casually asked each of them for a lock of their
19:01 hair. "You did this to me. You cut my hair." They agreed, and then, according to Katy,
19:09 she even put little bows on the locks and put them in her purse.
19:13 Arnold Schwarzenegger's Illegitimate Child with His Maid
19:16 "People are concerned that this state is going to go off the cliff."
19:20 Around the time Schwarzenegger left office as governor of California in 2011,
19:26 there were reports that he had an affair with his longtime housekeeper, Mildred Patricia Baena,
19:31 and even fathered a son, Joseph, who bore a striking resemblance to the action star.
19:36 "She was reportedly pregnant about 13 or 14 years ago, that's according to the New York Times,
19:42 and that's the same time that Maria Shriver was pregnant with the couple's youngest child."
19:46 These rumors were later confirmed by Schwarzenegger himself,
19:49 and it was also discovered that he secretly gave money to his maid to support his son.
19:54 "Disastrous situation that I have created, and it's the worst thing that I've ever done."
19:59 Prior to these revelations coming out in May 2011,
20:02 Schwarzenegger separated from his wife, Maria Shriver, and Shriver later filed for divorce in
20:08 July. "I really feel like I'm to blame for it. It was me that screwed up."
20:12 Taylor Swift and Jake Gyllenhaal's entanglement
20:17 OK, Swifties, this one's for you. Before Taylor released the 10-minute version of her popular song
20:22 "All Too Well," Swift fans had their own theories about who this song was about.
20:26 "For your sweet disposition, my wide-eyed gaze, we're singing in the car."
20:34 While Taylor and Jake were in a relationship, neither of them spoke publicly about their
20:38 dating life or their breakup. Well, that is, until the 10-minute version was released,
20:43 and Swifties got to hear exactly what happened in their short-lived romance.
20:47 "You just treated me differently." "What do you mean I treated you differently?"
20:51 "You didn't even look at me once!"
20:53 And it's safe to say that we all had a collective breakdown when the "I'll get older,
20:58 but your lover stay my age" line came on. A true heartbreak masterpiece.
21:03 "And I was never good at selling jokes, but the punchline goes,
21:09 I'll get older, but your lover stay my age."
21:15 The feud between Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall was real. It's heartbreaking when you
21:20 hear reports that the cast of your favorite show actually didn't get along on set.
21:24 "You never really got on." "We've never been friends. We've been colleagues."
21:29 Rumors of the feud between Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall were running rampant for years.
21:34 However, they were finally confirmed in 2018 when Kim addressed Sarah publicly after Parker
21:40 reached out when Cattrall's brother passed away. Kim posted on Instagram, saying she doesn't need
21:46 Sarah's love and support. She warned Sarah to stop exploiting the tragedy and claimed she was only
21:51 doing so in order to restore her "nice girl" persona. "Am I right?" "Not getting involved."
21:58 "I'm with her." "You know what? I don't need this."
22:02 It was pretty clear that the behind-the-scenes of "Sex and the City" were full of drama.
22:06 "I don't know. I found it very upsetting because that's,
22:08 you know, that's not the way I recall our experience."
22:13 Liberace's sexuality.
22:16 "We're living in such a permissive world that I don't think anybody really much cares what
22:20 anybody does behind closed doors."
22:22 For many years, rumors circulated that legendary musician Liberace was gay.
22:27 Liberace fought this rumor the best he could by being seen in public dating various women.
22:33 In 1959, when the Daily Mirror ran an article that suggested he was gay,
22:38 the singer sued the tabloid for libel and won 8,000 pounds.
22:42 "I think in the 50s, any publicity along those lines was very daring and it called for defense."
22:56 However, even after ex-lover Scott Thorson sued Liberace for palimony,
23:01 he still refused to admit he was gay.
23:03 "I didn't get dressed like this to go unnoticed."
23:07 Though Liberace never came out during his lifetime, celebrities who knew him,
23:12 such as Betty White and Debbie Reynolds, later confirmed what people had long suspected.
23:17 "Can't believe Liberace was gay. And then women loved him. I didn't see that one coming."
23:23 The 1988 Olympics fallout.
23:25 "Everybody cheats. Who doesn't cheat in life?
23:28 Everybody cheats in taxes. Everybody cheats in everything. Why Ben Johnson?"
23:33 Shortly after Ben Johnson won the 100-meter race at the Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea,
23:38 grabbing the moniker of "the world's fastest man" as he smashed records,
23:41 it was discovered he was doping.
23:43 "Johnson's urine sample tested twice in this laboratory. Came up positive both times."
23:48 With the Canadian stripped of his accomplishments,
23:50 murmurs began to erupt about other athletes.
23:52 Before Johnson's deception was discovered, Bulgarian weightlifters Angol Genchev
23:57 and Mitko Grablev were already stripped of their gold medals.
24:00 Judo athlete Kareth Brown from the UK had his bronze medal taken away for failing.
24:04 Afghan wrestler Alidad was disqualified.
24:07 And Hungarian weightlifter Andor Sani had his silver medal removed,
24:10 among several other athletes who were also doping.
24:13 It was a pretty dark time in Olympic history.
24:15 "I dope and I'm sorry. I have to live with that."
24:18 Rosie Ruiz
24:19 "I know what I did and I will prove it again in the future."
24:22 Having finished in a respectable place in the 1979 New York Marathon and securing her position
24:27 at the 1980 Boston event, newcomer Rosie Ruiz did the impossible by winning the race.
24:32 To top it off, her time meant she was the fastest woman in its history.
24:35 But as soon as she finished, there were doubters.
24:37 "Have you been doing a lot of heavy intervals?"
24:39 "Someone else asked me that. I'm not sure what intervals are."
24:43 Ruiz didn't look too tired after running the grueling 26 miles.
24:46 Then her resting heart rate was 76, much higher than the average top marathon runner,
24:51 which would be closer to 50.
24:52 With this in mind, investigators discovered that Ruiz only appeared in images in the last
24:57 stretch of the race. So they stripped her of her Boston win and later her New York result from her.
25:01 "I believe that maybe after this, whether you prove me guilty or not, which I am not,
25:07 there will be more coverage of women crossing the finish line during 26 miles. It's not fair."
25:13 Hans Niemann
25:15 In September 2022, world champion chess player Magnus Carlsen suddenly resigned from the
25:19 Sinkfield Cup tournament. Immediately, the chess world lit up with murmurs that the Norwegian was
25:24 hinting at the Americans cheating. When the two faced each other again, Carlsen withdrew after
25:28 one move. "What happened? That's it?" He then hinted at something untoward going on.
25:34 This was confirmed when Carlsen came out and accused Niemann of cheating.
25:37 "He pointed to Niemann's unusual mannerisms during the game he lost to the American."
25:42 Then, Chess.com released a report that claimed Niemann cheated in over 100 matches,
25:47 sometimes with prize money involved. The American grandmaster denied the allegations and issued a
25:51 lawsuit against Carlsen, Chess.com, and others for $100 million in damages.
25:56 "This is a targeted attack, and if you look at my games, this is not,
25:59 it has nothing to do with my games." Alex Rodriguez
26:02 "For the record, have you ever used steroids, human growth hormone, or any other
26:07 performance enhancing substance?" "No."
26:10 In 2009, after years of denial, baseball legend Alex Rodriguez publicly admitted he used steroids
26:17 during his tenure with the Texas Rangers from 2001 to 2003. "I did take a banned substance,
26:23 and for that, I'm very sorry and deeply regretful." From there, his reputation was in tatters.
26:32 So much so that when the Biogenesis of America scandal happened in 2013,
26:36 where several baseball players were found to be using performance enhancing substances,
26:40 A-Rod was immediately linked to it. With enough evidence, the MLB banned Rodriguez for the 2014
26:46 season. "Commissioner Alan Selig announced today that third baseman Alex Rodriguez of the New York
26:50 Yankees has been suspended without pay for the remainder of the 2013 championship season and
26:56 postseason and the entire 2014 championship season for violations to the joint drug prevention and
27:05 treatment program and the basic agreement." He publicly and strongly denied the allegations by
27:10 unsuccessfully appealing the ban. He even went so far as to sue the MLB before dropping the case.
27:16 But then in 2014, A-Rod admitted to using PEDs. "This is essentially rock bottom for Alex Rodriguez.
27:23 This was someone who was a three-time league MVP, a World Series champion, and now he's on
27:29 the same level as Lance Armstrong." Russian Athletics While there had been secret speculation
27:43 for a few years in the sporting world that Russia was running a mass doping scheme,
27:47 the spotlight really shone on the nation after the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
27:51 "Athletes whose national federation is suspended by the IWF are ineligible for competition held
27:59 under the IWF rules, including the Olympic Games." At that point, the host nation topped the table by
28:06 winning a whopping 33 medals. In 2016, Grigory Rodchenkov, who was the director of Russia's
28:12 anti-doping agency, came forward with proof that the country had been using performance-enhancing
28:16 substances for years. In 2017, the International Olympic Committee banned Russia from the 2018
28:38 Winter Olympics. This was followed by a four-year ban in 2019, which was reduced to two years,
28:43 for Russian athletes at major worldwide events. "This represents the most severe
28:47 sanction yet for a doping scandal which shocked the world." Tiger Woods' Infidelity
28:52 Tiger Woods' cheating scandal became international news in 2009, but before then, these were nothing
28:59 but rumors, as both Tiger and his wife, Ellen Nordegren, refused to speak about the issue.
29:05 Ellen allegedly chased him out of the house with a golf club after she found out about the affair
29:09 on Thanksgiving night after snooping through his phone. "His car first hit a fire hydrant,
29:15 then a tree." A few weeks later, Tiger confessed,
29:19 "I have let you down. I have let down my fans."
29:23 Afterwards, many women came forward and claimed to have been involved with Woods while he was
29:28 still married to Ellen. Tiger confessed to serial infidelity, and the scandal took a huge toll on
29:34 his public reputation. "I owe a lot of people an apology. I hurt a lot of people,
29:39 not just my wife, my friends, my colleagues, the public."
29:45 Caitlyn Jenner's transition
29:47 In 2014, rumors started to circulate that the culturally prominent former
29:51 athletic star was a transgender woman. "Is that a bunch of malarkey?" "I just,
29:55 it's silly. I mean, they've been saying that since the 70s."
29:58 These rumors were dismissed by close family members, who assured the media it was all nonsense.
30:04 But in April 2015, she came out as transgender through a highly publicized interview with Diane
30:10 Sawyer. "I can't do that any longer. So can I take my ponytail out?"
30:15 In the interview, Jenner told Sawyer about all of the struggles with gender identity she had to go
30:20 through all of her life. After coming out, Jenner also changed her name to Caitlyn.
30:24 "Wake up in the morning, be yourself, get dressed, get ready to go out, and just be like a normal
30:34 person." Prince Charles cheated on Princess Diana
30:37 "Flash forward 20 years, he's back in Los Angeles, and they have a secret rendezvous at the Bel Air
30:43 Hotel that no one knows about." In 1981, Prince Charles married Lady Diana when she was 20 years
30:49 old, despite a 13-year age gap. "Behind closed doors, it was widely believed that he wasn't in
30:55 love with her. And it turned out later he did admit that he was never in love with her."
30:59 On the outside, things looked pleasant, but secretly, Charles was having an affair with
31:03 ex-girlfriend Camilla Parker Bowles. The alleged relationship was written about in the 1992 book
31:10 "Diana, Her True Story," but in 1994, Charles admitted his misdeed in a documentary.
31:15 "Charles was actually forbidden to marry Camilla because she was Catholic,
31:19 and many believe that Diana was forced upon him."
31:22 The marriage was also rocked with another affair, this one between Princess Diana and Major James
31:27 Hewitt. "Another, written in March 1988, says, 'You have just left, and it all seems very empty
31:33 here to me, and that includes one bottle of champagne, too.'" Unable to put their differences
31:38 aside, the two divorced in 1996, and one year later, Diana tragically died in a car crash.
31:45 "Within the last few moments, the Press Association in Britain, citing unnamed British sources,
31:52 has reported that Diana, Princess of Wales, has died."
31:55 Accusations Against Bill Cosby
31:58 Given Bill Cosby's wholesome image from movies and TV shows, the accusations against him were
32:03 a horrifying shock in every way. It all started to come to light in 2014, when stand-up comic
32:09 Hannibal Burress brought up Bill Cosby's alleged past behavior during a show in Philadelphia.
32:14 "I can talk down to you because I had a successful sitcom."
32:18 When this stand-up segment went viral, it became a story in the public conscience.
32:23 Soon after, more and more women started coming forward with terrible claims about Cosby.
32:28 "I was 17, my agent introduced me to him to groom me, to mentor me, to get me ready for
32:34 show business, and part of that was bringing me to New York City."
32:38 He was convicted of aggravated indecent assault in 2013,
32:41 but then the conviction was later vacated in 2021.
32:45 "I hope that we are creating a new platform for those people to say, 'I'm not alone,
32:52 and I don't need to be alone anymore. It wasn't my fault.'"
32:56 The Brangelina affair broke up Jennifer Aniston's marriage to Brad Pitt.
33:00 "So that's settled then, yeah?"
33:02 "Okay."
33:03 Shortly after the filming of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Jennifer Aniston separated from Brad Pitt in
33:08 January 2005 and filed for divorce in March. One month later, the media reported Pitt was dating
33:15 Mr. & Mrs. Smith's co-star Angelina Jolie, leading the public to believe an affair between the two
33:20 actors broke up Aniston's marriage. "Chance to poke around the engine?"
33:25 For years, Brad denied having an affair with Angelina during production,
33:29 though Pitt admitted in a 2008 interview that he fell in love with her while they were making the
33:34 film. However, one of their bodyguards told Us Weekly in 2016 that the two of them fooled around
33:40 while on set. "Lance Armstrong was doping."
33:46 "People are not stupid. They say, 'Has Lance Armstrong ever tested positive?'
33:50 No. Has Lance Armstrong been tested? A lot."
33:53 Even though his legacy is tarnished, there is still no bigger name in cycling than Lance
33:58 Armstrong. This athlete broke through the cycling community to become a bona fide celebrity.
34:02 A big part of that was his cancer survival story and seven consecutive Tour de France wins.
34:07 But many believed that he was a little too good and accused him of doping. In fact,
34:18 allegations began almost immediately, with writer Christoph Basens writing about widespread
34:23 cheating within professional cycling. Armstrong denied the rumors for years,
34:27 until the United States Anti-Doping Agency revealed that Armstrong was heading a massive
34:32 doping conspiracy. Basens was proven right, and Armstrong was stripped of all his accomplishments.
34:43 Jeffrey Epstein was a predator.
34:45 "He was known as this sort of Gatsby-like figure of mystery in New York."
34:52 While he's now a household name, Jeffrey Epstein didn't make mainstream news until the mid-2000s.
34:57 For a long time, Epstein was a nondescript owner of a brokerage firm. But around 2005,
35:03 rumors started spreading that Epstein was a sexual predator. They began in March of that year,
35:07 when a Florida woman accused Epstein of targeting her stepdaughter. This accusation drew the
35:12 attention of the FBI, who discovered that Epstein was running an extensive sex ring.
35:16 However, Epstein only spent one year in custody, after agreeing to a plea deal negotiated by the
35:33 infamous Alan Dershowitz with State Attorney Alexander Acosta. Epstein was famously arrested
35:38 again in 2019, but died in prison before he could be convicted. Russia interfered in the 2016
35:51 election. The 2016 presidential election was a historic one, with billionaire real estate
35:56 mogul Donald Trump writing a populist, nationalistic sentiment to a shocking victory.
36:07 Rumors soon emerged that Russia had interfered in the election. It sounds made up,
36:12 but turns out it was true, and US intelligence agencies, including the CIA, FBI, and NSA,
36:18 had the proof. Russian agencies hacked into Democratic email accounts and computer networks,
36:35 and created thousands of fake social media accounts to sow discord in the United States,
36:40 criticize Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, and support Trump.
36:43 A Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee concurred with these conclusions.
37:00 7. The Government is Spying on Us
37:03 There are a ton of kooky conspiracy theories out there. For a while,
37:19 the government is spying on us through an intricate global surveillance program
37:22 sounded like one of them. Well, in 2013, whistleblower and former NSA contractor
37:28 Edward Snowden revealed mass surveillance programs undertaken by the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance,
37:33 consisting of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
37:38 Leaked documents revealed that data was being harvested through covert wiretaps,
37:47 commercial partners, servers, and even undersea cables. The information obtained ranged from
37:53 metadata to actual text messages, emails, images, and video chats. Yeah, browsing history is the
37:59 least of your worries. US officials cast Snowden as a traitor, while public opinion was divided,
38:05 with some seeing him as a hero. 8. The Catholic Church Scandal
38:20 For years, there have been rumors of rampant sexual misconduct within the Catholic Church.
38:24 It's the type of rumor that no one wants to believe. After all, the church is supposed
38:29 to represent the divine will, an institution of benevolence and safety. Rumors of this sort began
38:34 in earnest throughout the 1980s, although the alleged abuses go back even further.
38:38 The rumors picked up steam throughout the 90s, before the Boston Globe blew the story open in
38:43 2002. Their investigation proved that there were systemic issues within the Catholic Church,
39:02 and the work led to numerous criminal prosecutions. The team would go on to win
39:06 the Pulitzer Prize for their journalism. Politicians used stolen Facebook user data.
39:23 By having hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Americans undertake this survey,
39:27 we were able to form a model where we have somewhere close to four or five thousand
39:34 data points we can use to predict the personality of every adult in the United States.
39:39 Is our social media for sale? A rumor suggesting this began in December 2015,
39:44 when journalist Harry Davies reported that Ted Cruz was using Facebook data harvested from a
39:49 British consulting firm called Cambridge Analytica. Reports in a similar vein followed,
39:55 and the rumor that American politicians were using stolen Facebook data quickly gathered traction.
40:00 The truth was uncovered in 2018, when whistleblower Christopher Wiley came forth
40:05 and revealed that, yep, those reports were bang on the money. We just spent 14 months working on
40:11 the Ted Cruz campaign and had collected a huge amount of voter data and research,
40:17 which we were able to hand over to the Trump team. Cambridge Analytica had harvested nearly
40:22 90 million Facebook profiles and sold them to the political campaigns of Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.
40:27 And with that, social media and our trust in it was never the same.
40:31 So you have to understand how your data is affecting your life.
40:37 Our dignity as humans is at stake. The U.S. let guns flow into Mexico.
40:45 The political storm that erupted today over an undercover government operation gone very wrong.
40:51 It is called Fast and Furious. In January of 2011, Iowa Senator Chuck
40:56 Grassley wrote to the acting director of the ATF, or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms,
41:01 and Explosives. Rumor was that the ATF were allowing assault weapons to cross the Mexico
41:07 border. An investigation involving ATF whistleblowers confirmed the rumor.
41:11 Attorney General Eric Holder has always denied knowing anything about the program,
41:15 but for more than a year, House Republicans have been pushing him
41:18 to disclose what he and other officials knew. It was called Operation Fast and Furious,
41:24 and it saw the ATF selling guns to purchasers who would then give them to Mexican cartels.
41:29 The hope was that these guns could be traced to high-ranking members,
41:33 thereby leading to their arrests. However, the project was an unmitigated disaster.
41:39 And documents obtained by CBS News indicate some of the weapons were recently found
41:43 at a drug cartel shooting of a Mexican government helicopter.
41:47 Most of the guns were lost, no cartel bosses were arrested, and the guns were used in violent
41:52 crimes, including the killing of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.
41:56 There are mysterious goings-on at Bohemian Grove.
42:00 What if I were to tell you that every year, America's most powerful men,
42:05 politicians, CEOs, even presidents of the United States, gather at a secret retreat in Northern
42:10 California? Powerful leaders, politicians, and media executives get together and hatch nefarious
42:16 plots about world domination. It's one of the most popular conspiracy theories out there,
42:21 and it's true. Well, kind of. There's a place called Bohemian Grove, and it's where powerful
42:27 leaders, politicians, and media executives, all male, get together every July for a summer retreat.
42:34 As far as we know, nefarious plots about world domination do not occur there.
42:38 It's a concentration of powerful people in one place at one time.
42:41 Are they doing anything nefarious? No. Right.
42:44 But are there results from what happened in the world because of these men's power and what they're
42:50 doing in the world? Yes. In fact, the retreat is designed as a getaway from their high-stress jobs,
42:55 and business talk is strongly discouraged. Unfortunately, we don't really know what
43:00 goes on there. Attendees are sworn to secrecy, membership is highly exclusive,
43:04 and the press is not allowed in. They don't want us in there really badly.
43:09 Now I feel like, yeah, there's something really interesting going on.
43:13 Bill Clinton had relations with Monica Lewinsky.
43:16 I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.
43:22 It's one of the most famous lines in American history, and it was a complete load of baloney.
43:29 Rumors of an affair between then-President Clinton and White House intern Monica Lewinsky
43:33 had been circulating before the story broke in January 1998. The aforementioned quote was spoken
43:39 at a press conference soon after. Debate raged for the next couple of months, but the story was
43:44 put to rest on August 17th, when Clinton admitted to the affair in a televised statement.
43:49 Indeed, I did have a relationship with Miss Lewinsky that was not appropriate.
43:54 In fact, it was wrong. It constituted a critical lapse in judgment and a personal failure on my
44:00 part. This admission came after the FBI had found traces of Clinton's DNA on Lewinsky's dress.
44:06 Clinton subsequently became the first president in over a century to be impeached.
44:11 As a somber House of Representatives voted for only the second time in American history
44:16 to impeach a president of the United States. The government made alcohol unsafe to drink.
44:21 At the request of the city of Chicago, the federal government, specifically the department
44:26 and the treasury has inaugurated a special program to deal with the flow of illegal liquor
44:30 and the violence which it creates. There's no getting around it. Prohibition was a mess.
44:35 Few people supported it. It led to a rise in organized crime. It ruined the economy,
44:40 and people died from drinking poisoned alcohol. Yep, knowing that bootleggers converted industrial
44:46 alcohol into moonshine, the government mandated that manufacturers add toxic chemicals to their
44:52 alcohol. Bootleggers knew that their sources have been poisoned, but they continued to make
44:57 moonshine anyway. Meanwhile, Howard and me hammered out four 300 gallon submarine stills.
45:02 They were the biggest deals Franklin had ever seen. This led to a 600% increase in alcohol
45:09 related deaths, with some sources claiming that up to 10,000 people lost their lives.
45:13 The government poisons your booze sounds like a wild and baseless conspiracy theory,
45:18 but in this case, it was at least partly true. To prevent industrial alcohol from being consumed,
45:24 the government required manufacturers to add harmful chemicals,
45:28 leading to thousands of poisoning deaths. Bernie Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme.
45:33 I just can't continue this charade any longer. And that's what caused me to
45:41 acknowledge to my family that I had been committing this fraud.
45:46 For a long time, Bernie Madoff was a respected financier. He ran Bernard L. Madoff Investment
45:53 Securities and served as chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Exchange. But his reputation came under
45:58 question thanks to persistent rumors that he wasn't so above board. Whistleblowers,
46:03 including an executive named Harry Markopoulos, had continuously claimed that Madoff was running
46:08 a Ponzi scheme. As today's testimony will reveal, my team and I tried our best to get the SEC to
46:14 investigate and shut down the Madoff Ponzi scheme. Madoff was even investigated six times by the
46:20 Securities and Exchange Commission, but they never found anything. It wasn't until his own sons,
46:25 Mark and Andrew, came forward that action was finally taken. Madoff was arrested and a Ponzi
46:31 scheme worth nearly $65 billion was eventually uncovered. Markopoulos was vindicated and has
46:37 fiercely criticized the SEC, even publishing a book called "No One Would Listen." There's nothing
46:43 to be proud about in this case. I feel horrible about the result. It's been a total disaster
46:47 for the victims. Americans sold guns to Iran. During his presidential campaign,
46:52 Reagan promised to assist anti-communist insurgencies around the world. In 1979,
46:57 Nicaragua underwent a revolution, leading to a battle between the socialist government and a
47:01 group of rebels called Contras. This battle lasted throughout the 80s, and the Contras were directly
47:06 funded by the American government. Where exactly did this money come from? If the rumors were to
47:12 be believed, it was through the secret selling of weapons to Iran, despite that country having an
47:16 arms embargo. The deal with Iran didn't just secretly secure the release of the hostages
47:21 in exchange for weapons. There was money involved. People had been whispering about this possibility
47:26 for years, and a Lebanese magazine called Ashira wrote about the secret business dealings in 1986.
47:33 It was this report that broke the story open, and President Ronald Reagan admitted to the initiative
47:38 10 days after its publication. No operation is so secret that it must be kept from the
47:43 commander-in-chief. I had the right, the obligation, to make my own decision.
47:49 The White Sox threw the World Series. The White Sox losing to the Cincinnati Reds
47:54 in the 1919 World Series. The scandal that followed stained the sport's reputation.
47:59 It was October 9th, 1919, and the Cincinnati Reds just beat the Chicago White Sox to win the World
48:05 Series. This wasn't just an upset. Many people literally couldn't believe it, and rumors abound
48:10 that the Sox had intentionally thrown the series. It was this play that first alerted baseball
48:15 insiders that something funny might be going on. The three-second clip shows the White Sox botching
48:21 a chance to turn a double play against the Reds. The rumor continued to swell until 1920,
48:26 when a grand jury uncovered the truth. Jewish mafia crime boss Arnold Rothstein made tons of
48:31 money on the series through his illegal gambling syndicate, and eight members of the team received
48:36 kickbacks for throwing the games. This Chicago grand jury, the first ever filmed,
48:41 takes statements in September 1920 from the eight players. Three of them confessed to throwing the
48:48 series. The integrity of baseball was utterly shattered, and the players were banned from
48:53 both the sport and future Hall of Fame eligibility, including the iconic shoeless Joe Jackson.
48:58 Enron's numbers didn't add up.
49:01 If there's a single name that evokes corporate malpractice, it's Enron. This Texas energy company
49:17 was huge in the late 90s and early 2000s, with massive stock price gains that made people tons
49:22 of money. This rate of growth was substantially higher than that of the S&P 500, but it wasn't
49:34 all champagne and yachts. Some believed that the company was valued way too high, and even
49:39 professional economists couldn't make sense of their balance sheets and financial statements.
49:43 Nothing added up, and rumors and malfeasance began to circulate. Everything collapsed in 2001,
49:48 when it was revealed that Enron was cooking their books and hiding depths and losses for
49:52 financial gain. With that fraud exposed, Enron filed for bankruptcy.
49:56 Harvey Weinstein's Predatory Practices
50:05 For decades, producer Harvey Weinstein was a Hollywood titan, but in 2017,
50:16 bombshell articles in the New York Times and The New Yorker reported dozens of accusations
50:21 of sexual abuse and assault. More and more women courageously came forward,
50:34 sparking the #MeToo movement. In March 2020, Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years behind bars.
50:40 But rumors had actually circulated for years. Gwyneth Paltrow alluded to Weinstein as being
50:45 coercive back in 1998. Other celebrities like Courtney Love and Seth MacFarlane dropped public
50:57 references, and 30 Rock included not-so-subtle jabs about it. It was less rumor and more open
51:10 Hollywood secret. Justice eventually prevailed, and Weinstein's crimes were finally acknowledged
51:15 and punished. The second Gulf of Tonkin incident never occurred.
51:19 On August 2nd, 1964, North Vietnamese forces attacked the USS Maddox,
51:29 which was on patrol in North Vietnamese waters.
51:44 Two days later, a second attack allegedly occurred against the USS Maddox and the USS Turner Joy.
51:50 President Lyndon B. Johnson used this incident to justify open warfare in Vietnam.
51:54 However, many questioned whether the second attack had ever happened.
52:08 This was finally confirmed decades later, when it was revealed that the second attack
52:12 was based on wrongly interpreted communication intercepts. Even though the evidence was dubious
52:16 at best, Johnson ran with it and never looked back. Nixon's role in Watergate
52:38 was a key factor in the investigation.
52:44 Not a crook, eh? On the night of June 17th, 1972, five men broke into the Democratic National
52:50 Committee headquarters, having already wiretapped phones in a previous break-in. Naturally,
52:55 suspicion fell on Republican President Richard Nixon's administration, despite strong denials.
53:01 Subsequently, a Senate committee, journalists at the Washington Post,
53:14 and audio recordings of Nixon himself exposed his administration's complicity.
53:19 The burglary had been orchestrated by Nixon's committee for re-election.
53:22 Nixon had obstructed justice by attempting to cover it up.
53:25 Facing certain impeachment, Nixon resigned on August 9th, 1974.
53:29 "I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to
53:36 every instinct in my body." He was pardoned by his successor, Gerald Ford, who had been
53:41 his vice president. Did you enjoy this video? Check out these other clips from WatchMojo,
53:46 and be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to be notified about our latest videos.