Top 10 Most Scandalous Historical Women You've Never Heard Of
History is full of scandalous women, some better known than others. Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the most shocking women you won’t find in the history books.
Transcript
00:00 "She was a bad girl, she was loose, she was immoral, and it's so underselling Lola."
00:05 Welcome to Miss Mojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the most
00:09 shocking women you won't find in the history books.
00:12 "Ah, I see you want to talk about my generous gifts."
00:15 "I don't know, I haven't seen them."
00:16 "To the monastery."
00:17 Number 10, Betty Page.
00:19 We all know the phrase "pin-up girl", but Betty Page, she was THE pin-up girl.
00:24 "During the 50s, Betty's picture was everywhere. On hundreds of books and magazine covers,
00:29 monthly calendars, and even playing cards."
00:32 With her iconic look and propensity for style, Page made an indelible mark in the pin-up field
00:38 and set the standard for those who came after her.
00:40 "They keep saying that I'm some sort of sexual innovator. I never thought of any of my poses
00:47 as being sexual in any way. I never had anything like that in my mind when I was posing."
00:53 Her modelling career started in the early 1950s when she became one of the world's
00:58 first famous bondage models, posing for pin-ups with strong BDSM themes.
01:04 She later became one of the first Playboy Playmates of the month,
01:07 taking the centrefold spot for January 1955.
01:11 Page and her approach to sexuality took the world, and the 1950s, by storm.
01:16 "Betty Page is the last great icon of the 1950s. Like James Dean and Marilyn Monroe,
01:21 she brought something modern to the era."
01:22 Number 9, Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire.
01:27 "Georgiana, this has gone much too far. It is beneath our dignity. All London is talking."
01:32 "Let them talk."
01:33 Some might have considered Princess Diana a bit of a scandalous lady in her own right,
01:37 but one of her ancestors has her beat. Georgiana Cavendish, the Duchess of Devonshire,
01:42 is the great-great-great-great-aunt of Princess Di. And boy, does she have a story to tell.
01:48 "I have many faults, as you well know. Not least among them is my ability to draw attention.
01:56 Perhaps we could use that to our advantage."
01:57 Georgiana lived in the late 18th century, but she didn't let the morals of the time restrain her.
02:02 Although married, she had her own affairs, and at one point, her husband's mistress
02:07 openly lived with the couple. She had a famously ruinous gambling addiction,
02:11 reportedly spending in one night what some people could live on for 20 years.
02:16 If you want to know more about Georgiana, you can check out 2008's The Duchess.
02:21 "We come away to Bath to get away from London, and all of London has come away to Bath."
02:26 Number 8, Émilie du Châtelet. You've probably heard of Isaac Newton,
02:31 the guy who discovered gravity, and one of the guys who developed calculus.
02:35 But we're willing to bet you probably haven't learned of Émilie du Châtelet.
02:39 "She started with, 'How do we know anything with any kind of certainty?
02:44 How do we know what we know?' Then she talked about the role of God.
02:47 Then she talked about space, about time, about matter. What is it?"
02:51 This French philosopher and mathematician was extremely important to Newton's legacy,
02:57 and a maverick in her own right. She is responsible for the French translation
03:01 of Newton's book of the Basic Laws of Physics, a translation still considered the standard today.
03:06 "I leave it to you to look at the list of her total published works,
03:10 and you'll see that on the one hand there are these works of moral philosophy,
03:14 many of which she did the initial reading for with Voltaire,
03:18 and then these works of physics and of what we would call science."
03:23 She also had a famous romance with the philosopher Voltaire,
03:26 and for a long time was only known for her involvement with him.
03:30 Well, we're here to set the record straight that this maligned woman was important in her own right.
03:35 "Madame du Châtelet forged an intriguing middle path between the Leibnizian view
03:41 and the Newtonian view that was prominent in her day. And most intriguingly, finally,
03:46 in that way she actually prefigured some of the work that we would associate with Kant."
03:51 7. Sidonie Gabrielle Collette
03:54 There are so many famous one-named icons - Cher, Madonna, Beyonce.
03:59 Well, go ahead and add Collette to this list.
04:02 "And her whole career can be read as conquests for self-emancipation, for independence, for freedom."
04:13 Collette, whose full name was Sidonie Gabrielle Collette, was a French author and intellectual
04:19 who sometimes moonlighted as an actress, journalist and mime.
04:23 Her most famous works include Gigi and The Tendrils of the Vine.
04:27 Throughout her life, she attributed her ability to focus on her writing to her husband,
04:31 Henri Gautier Villar, one of France's most well-known libertines at the time.
04:36 "You! You could write."
04:39 "What?"
04:40 "Those stories you told me of Saint-Sever last year."
04:42 "My school stories?"
04:43 "Yes, that could be Willy's next novel."
04:45 Gautier Villar introduced Collette to the bohemian lifestyle in Paris,
04:49 and even encouraged her romantic entanglements with women. What a guy.
04:53 However, she and Gautier Villar did eventually divorce,
04:57 leading Collette to come into her own without the help of a man.
05:00 "You found me when I knew nothing. You molded me to your own designs, to your desires.
05:07 And you thought that I could never break free. Well, you're wrong."
05:13 6. Tallulah Bankhead
05:14 "Are you in entertainment?"
05:16 "Yes, darlin'."
05:18 If there's one place you're going to find a scandalous, strong-willed woman, it's Hollywood.
05:23 Mae West comes to mind when thinking about the women of the classic film era who didn't care
05:28 what anyone thought of them. But nobody did things quite like Tallulah Bankhead.
05:32 "Why don't you take about 20 or 30 seconds and describe yourself?"
05:35 "30 seconds? Gracious. Well, now let me see, if I may be wildly optimistic,
05:42 I would say that I was, um, divinely impossible."
05:46 Bankhead was passionate about liberal courses, helping foster children and assisting families
05:51 who needed to escape during the Spanish Civil War. She also had numerous affairs with both men
05:56 and women that she was unapologetic about. She was romantically connected to such notable women
06:02 of the time as Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, and Billie Holiday.
06:06 "Life is short. We only pass this way once. Why not live a little?"
06:16 5. Mary Wollstonecraft
06:18 "I earnestly wish to point out in what true dignity and human happiness consists.
06:25 I wish to persuade women to endeavour to acquire strength, both of mind and body."
06:30 Mary Wollstonecraft might have been once best known for being the mother of author Mary Shelley,
06:35 or for her unconventional romantic dalliances. But now, while we still love to discuss those
06:41 more sordid aspects of her life, this scandalous woman was also one of the most important feminist
06:47 philosophers. "A radical publisher agreed to publish
06:49 Wollstonecraft's first book, Thoughts on the Education of Daughters, and she went on to
06:55 become a regular contributor to the Analytical Review literary magazine."
06:58 Her most important work took on the idea that women were fundamentally inferior to men,
07:03 arguing that men and women should be treated the same. She had two affairs when she was unmarried,
07:09 not caring that she would be looked down on by British society. This was a woman who didn't mind
07:14 what anyone thought. "She acknowledged the existence of
07:16 female sexual desire and criticised the impact marriage was having on women's lives.
07:21 Today, Wollstonecraft is also recognised for paving the way for women to explore the
07:27 possibilities of same-sex and non-traditional relationships."
07:31 4. Lola Montez
07:33 Started from the bottom, now we're here. If there was anyone who embodied that
07:37 sentiment, it was Lola Montez. "Not just a performer and able to
07:41 manipulate, which we do know she was able to manipulate people, but also that there
07:45 was an intelligence behind it and she was doing it to further her career and to look after herself,
07:51 like who of us wouldn't want to do that?" Reportedly the inspiration for the Sherlock
07:55 Holmes character Irene Adler, Lola was born Eliza Gilbert in Ireland. She married at 16,
08:02 but when she separated from her husband five years later, she decided to take the stage name
08:06 Lola as a professional dancer. "That was her meal ticket, dancing. But
08:11 really what she loved was power and politics." She had numerous affairs before she became the
08:16 mistress of King Ludwig I of Bavaria. The king made her a countess, and with her newfound power,
08:23 she pushed the country towards liberalism and anti-Catholicism. Montez might have started as
08:29 just a dancer, but she became one of the most powerful women in Bavaria.
08:33 "Are you upset with me because I can perform deeds that have left their mark on society,
08:38 or that you cannot? I'm not merely consisted of living a life that contains drinking tea,
08:46 powdering, flirting, going to the opera and sleeping."
08:48 3. Evelyn Nesbitt
08:51 If you're the woman at the centre of the crime of the century, then you're definitely going to
08:55 be on this list. Nesbitt was an American actress, model and chorus girl, perhaps most famous for
09:01 her marriage to railroad mogul Harry Kendall Thor and what ensued after.
09:06 "It had everything. Society, money, rage, lust, envy."
09:11 Thor was older than Nesbitt and had a history of mental instability. Things came to a head
09:16 when he murdered the architect Stanford White, who had been romantically involved with Nesbitt
09:21 before their marriage. "She is obsessed with Stanford.
09:25 That is the way, she can't get away from Stanford. She goes with the person
09:31 obsessed with hatred of Stanford, which is really just the other side of the coin."
09:35 The sensationalist reporting was extremely unfair towards Nesbitt,
09:39 who was only in her early 20s at the time. She eventually made a small career in show
09:43 business, including vaudeville, burlesque and films. "I get drunk, I go out to take a drink,
09:50 and I don't have to worry what some hubby's going to think. I'm no fag, it's normal now."
09:56 2. Agrippina the Younger
09:59 It's always the woman behind the scenes. And, as the wife, and niece, unfortunately.
10:05 To Emperor Claudius and the mother of Nero, Agrippina had a lot of sway.
10:10 "The best connected woman in the Roman Principate, and arguably in the whole of Roman history,
10:15 up to the lifetime of Tastus at least. And a very powerful one."
10:19 During the Julio-Claudian dynasty of the Roman Empire, she was one of its most prominent
10:24 female figures. Nero wasn't originally supposed to be in line for the throne,
10:28 but Agrippina was the one who schemed him into succession.
10:32 "Create the ideal emperor. Vanity." "No. Only if pride leads you to it."
10:41 Claudius found out about this plot, but died before he could do anything to stop it.
10:46 Rumours swirled that Agrippina had poisoned him.
10:49 She would continue to have great power over her son as emperor until her untimely death.
10:54 "Her influence over her son was said to be so great that he was haunted by her ghost
11:00 for the rest of his life." Before we unveil our top pick,
11:03 here are a few honourable mentions. Hypatia, the great Roman martyr of philosophy.
11:08 "She refined scientific instruments, wrote math textbooks, and developed a more efficient method
11:14 of long division. But perhaps her most significant contributions to intellectual
11:18 life in Alexandria came through her teaching." Isadora Duncan, a trailblazer of dance,
11:24 who met a tragic end. "You've got attractability!
11:27 You'll make your fortune here!" "It's not my fortune I'm after,
11:30 it's my destiny." Lady Godiva, riding naked through town on a horse that definitely gets
11:35 you remembered. "Where did you hear this?"
11:37 "Well, it's a story from the early 13th century, and then I guess people changed it and added
11:43 stuff like beeping Tom." "So the earliest reports of this story
11:46 are 150 years from now. How do those people know anything about me?"
11:52 "Yeah, fair point." Eleanor of Aquitaine,
11:54 the queen of not one, but two countries. "I dressed my maids as Amazons and rode
11:59 bare-breasted halfway to Damascus. Louis had a seizure and I damn near died of windburn.
12:05 But the troops were dazzled." Agnès Sorel, a royal mistress and muse.
12:16 "And for her to have the love of a king and be the first official mistress,
12:21 she sits next to the king and her children carry the Valois name."
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12:40 Number 1. Julie Dubini
12:44 "There's a lot of mystery surrounding Jules, even for her most basic biographical information.
12:48 So, I'm gonna try my best and you'll just have to believe me, OK?"
12:52 While Julie Dubini has inspired so much lore, it's rare that we ever really talk about her.
12:56 Known as Mademoiselle Mopin, or La Mopin, she was a fencing master, a world traveler,
13:03 and an opera singer. She had a penchant for dressing in men's clothing, and had many romantic
13:08 relationships with both men and women. One of the greatest stories has Dubini blatantly kissing a
13:13 woman at a ball, and then proceeding to defeat three men in three separate duels.
13:18 "She beat them all, like, badly, like, they were all super embarrassed and cried like little babies."
13:25 She sang in operas across Europe, only retiring to a convent once the love of her life passed away
13:31 in 1705. If we missed your favorite scandalous historical women, let us know in the comments
13:37 below. "What did you say?" "I told her given the choice between them and me, you choose me."
13:46 Do you agree with our picks? Check out this other recent clip from MsMojo.
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