Social media can be a dangerous thing, and a great place to find the newest celebrity scandal. We all know that you have to be careful because once you post something, it’s out there forever. When it comes to celebrities, a lot of our faves had to learn the hard way that you must post with caution. Celebrity scandals are pretty much unavoidable no matter what, but even more so now that nearly everyone has Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter — you name it. So, whether they tweeted some off-color testaments or got caught Photoshopping a selfie, here are 18 of the biggest celebrity social media scandals in recent history:
18. Kim Kardashian’s nude selfie
This is one of those celebrity scandals that really didn’t need to be a scandal at all. If you somehow haven’t heard about Kim’s legendary nude selfie, allow us to explain. Basically, she posted a nude selfie on Twitter (which wasn’t even really nude because she censored her body using black bars, but whatever) and the internet completely freaked out. *Gasp* a woman not ashamed of her body? The audacity!
Conservative commentators blasted the reality star, trolls called her out for it ~obviously~ being a throwback pic, and certain feminist celebrities targeted her for “setting a bad example.” Kim obviously came back with a few iconic clap backs and honestly the whole family got involved defending Kim’s right to post. Kim’s gonna do what she wants; let’s let the woman live.
17. Blac Chyna and Rob’s fight over Instagram
Few celebrity scandals in history are as messy as the breakup of Rob Kardashian and Blac Chyna. This absolute dumpster fire of social media drama happened not too long ago when Chyna allegedly walked out on Rob with their child. He took to Snapchat, in tears, telling everyone what happened. They got back together, only to break up again, which is when Rob decided to post nude photos of Chyna to the internet without her consent – a move which many dubbed “revenge porn,” an act that’s actually illegal in several states. Chyna then sued him, and the two are battling it out to this day.
16. James Franco creepy Instagram DMs
Let’s just start this one off with… ick. James Franco is pretty known for being a huge creep and alleged predator at this point in time. However, his reputation started to falter when he exchanged Instagram direct messages with a younger fan. A seventeen-year-old fan, to be exact. They took an Instagram video together after she saw one of his shows on Broadway, and he asked her to tag him. They began messaging on Instagram, then texting, and then he asked to meet up with her. She, of course, didn’t end up doing it because she was visiting NYC with her mother (you know, as a minor does), but the whole thing went completely viral. Preying on younger fans? Not a great look.
15. Kendall and Kylie’s Tee Shirt Line
As we already know, nobody does celebrity scandals like the Kardashian-Jenners. In this situation, Kylie and Kendall were the guilty ones. In what seemed like an absurd lack of thought, Kylie and Kendall released images of the newest tee shirts for their clothing line all over social media. The shirts were essentially exact copies of famous images and logos of musicians such as Biggie Smalls, Tupac Shakur, and Ozzy Osbourne with the youngest Jenners faces superimposed on top of them. Aside from being kind of ugly, it turns out they didn’t own the rights to the images they used, and fans of the musicians went off, including Biggie’s mom. Awkward.
14. Justin Bieber at Yakusuki Shrine
Justin Bieber has been the king of celebrity scandals for the past few years. Most of them are for just being completely thoughtless, kind of like the time he took a photo at the Yakusuki Shrine in Japan. On his trip, he posted an Instagram of himself outside of the shrine with the caption “Thank you for your blessings.” As it turns out, the Yakusuki Shrine is pretty controversial. The shrine honors Japanese soldiers from World War II, some of whom committed violent war crimes against Chinese and Korean Soldiers. Not a good look, Justin.
13. Katy Perry’s Big Brother-Style Livestream
Katy Perry does not joke around when it comes to social media and celebrity scandals. She combined these two passions during the promotion of her album Witness. Basically, she livestreamed her entire life, Big Brother-style for a few days. At one point, interviewer James Corden asked her about her love life. Katy ended up ranking her exes by how good they were in bed. Talk about kissing and telling. Damn, girl. (FYI: John Mayer was #1.)
12. Kim’s Halloween costume
Kim Kardashian is no stranger to celebrity scandals, especially when it comes to cultural appropriation. Many people feel that a lot of her style and various looks are appropriative of several different cultures. In this case, people weren’t thrilled about her 2017 Halloween costume, when she dressed up as the late Latina musical icon, Selena Quintanilla and posted tons of photos to Twitter on Instagram. Many people on Twitter expressed their discomfort with the idea of a white woman dressing as a Mexican woman, while others doubted that Kim was truly a Selena fan who would give the costume the respect it deserved. Either way, people had a whole lot to say.
11. Amanda Bynes’s Bizzare Tweets
Very few people would have ever thought that Amanda Bynes would be at the center of one of the most memorable celebrity scandals of all time. After flying under the radar for a few years, Amanda started going on some seriously bizarre Twitter rants, some of which she directed at rapper Drake. (In one, she said she’d like him to “murder [her] p*ssy.”) Her Instagram posts and tweets became increasingly more frequent, and people even spotted her acting strangely in public. What started as something weird and funny-turned-serious, as it became clear that Amanda was seriously struggling with her mental health. After running into legal trouble, Amanda cleaned up and sought help, and has recently been appearing interviews looking great. We could not be happier for her.
10. Jake Paul and Alissa Violet’s relationship drama
Why do people keep letting the Paul brothers remain in the public eye? Much like his brother Logan, Jake Paul has also been at the center of a few celebrity scandals himself. Most notably, the time he and ex Alissa Violet battled it out via social media. They moved into a house together with a few other social media “influencers,” only for Alissa to begin tweeting about how Jake was kicking her out. He came back and accused her of cheating on him. Of course, many vlogs were made about the whole thing from both sides. Moral of the story, YouTube stars need to calm the f*ck down.
9. Beyoncé caught photo-shopping
It’s sad to say, but even Beyoncé can’t avoid celebrity social media scandals. As someone who’s such a vocal feminist and champion of body positivity, fans were pretty upset when a few of Bey’s Instagram posts were very obviously photoshopped. In 2014, some pics had been altered to make her thighs appear slimmer and her waist look smaller. Upon closer inspection, it became pretty clear that parts of the images were off-kilter and warped. If Queen B can’t post a picture feeling totally confident, can any of us?!
8. Madonna posting the N-word in an Instagram caption
The only thing to really say about this social media flub is… yikes. As if Madonna needed to somehow make her career more controversial, she decided to post a racist Instagram caption. It’s inexcusable when the N-word is thrown around by ignorant white teens, but to see a totally grown woman use the word to refer to her son is truly some next-level sh*t. She posted an Instagram of him, with a caption that read: “No one messes with Dirty Soap! Mama said knock you out! #disn—a.” In what actual world did she think that would go over well? It’s also worth noting that while she had adopted black children, it was her white son that she referred to the N-word. While she apologized afterward, the whole thing was seriously messy.
7. Chris Brown’s Homophobic Twitter Rant
In one of the most unsurprising celebrity social media movies ever, Chris Brown was a huge piece of human garbage on Twitter. As if his reputation wasn’t bad enough, he decided to go on an absurdly offensive Twitter rant. He got into some dumb argument with Raz-B and decided to respond by insinuating that Raz-B is gay as if it were an insult. His exact words were “Tell me this @razb2k!! Why when the money was coming in u won’t complaining about getting but plugged! #homothug!!!.” First of all, grow up. Second of all, I don’t know why anyone seemed surprised that Brown was homophobic.
6. Kendall’s Pepsi campaign
Kendall Jenner’s Pepsi campaign was one of the biggest celebrity scandals in recent history, mostly because it went completely viral overnight. How the ad campaign managed to go through so many levels of approval without getting rejected is the biggest question here. Basically, the video shows Jenner entering a protest, and when the protesters are met by the police, Jenner hands him a Pepsi and everyone has a grand ol’ time. The whole thing was totally tone deaf and offensive to protesters who have faced police brutality. Yikes. Kendall talked about the campaign misfire on a future episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, saying, “I genuinely feel like sh*t, and I have no idea how I’m going to bounce back from it.” It’s safe to say she bounced back.
5. The Met Gala Cigarette Scandal
Some celebrity scandals don’t seem like that big of a deal, but then get completely blown up. In this case, there were a few celebrities who got caught smoking cigarettes on social media. The real issue, however, was that they decided to do so in the bathroom of the Met Gala. Dakota Johnson, Rami Malek, Marc Jacobs, Courtney Love, and Bella Hadid were some of the celebs pictured. Health department officials, Met supporters, and concerned fans immediately blasted the celebs for promoting the habit and doing so indoors, no less, especially in a place as historical as the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Talk about entitlement.
4. Taylor’s Instagram Makeover
Taylor Swift always seems to be at the center of celebrity scandals and feuds with other people. In this case, however, the public was freaking out over a social media scandal that involved Taylor alone. It turns out it was all to promote her most recent album, and it totally worked. Basically, she completely deleted all of her Instagram pictures in order to promote the “new” Taylor. People totally freaked. Suddenly, creepy videos of snakes started appearing on her page. The whole thing was honestly pretty cheesy, but definitely got T-Swift the attention she was looking for with her upcoming album.
3. Bella Hadid’s Endorsement of The Fyre Festival
Out of all the celebrity scandals in history, none are quite as hilarious as the Fyre Festival. This absolute disaster began with a viral social media campaign, in which celebrities such as Bella Hadid and Ja Rule endorsed this too-good-to-be-true festival. The advertisements promised a weekend in paradise: celebrities, yacht rides, a star-studded lineup, and tons of lavish goodies and extras. It turns out the festival was a complete scam, and concert-goers who spent thousands of dollars on tickets were left in the Bahamas with tiny tents, horrible food, no water, and absolutely no kind of regulation/security. They eventually postponed the concerts after the audience had arrived. Lol?
2. Ashton Kutcher’s response to Joe Paterno’s firing
Talk about cringe-worthy celebrity scandals. In this social media disaster, Ashton Kutcher seriously put his digital foot in his mouth. After it came out that Joe Paterno was a serial predator, abuser, and child molester — he was *obviously* fired. Ashton somehow didn’t hear the full story, and took to Twitter saying, “How do you fire Jo Pa? #insult #noclass as a hawkeye fan I find it in poor taste.” It was a disaster. The real question is, exactly how big was the rock he was clearly living under? Once he heard the news, he tweeted again saying, “Fully recant previous tweet! Didn’t have full story. #admitwhenYoumakemistakes.” At least he held himself accountable!
1. Logan Paul in Japan
This is one of those celebrity scandals that was just straight-up stupid. At what point did YouTuber Logan Paul think it would be okay to film a vlog in a place called the suicide forest? On his trip to Japan (where he did countless other disrespectful things on film), he decided to grab a couple extra views by heading into the Aokigahara forest with his squad of dummies. The forest is known globally due to the high number of suicides that occur there, and Logan and his friends stumbled upon a dead body. He then filmed the body up-close and uploaded it to YouTube. It was as gross and disrespectful as you would think and viewers immediately called for his channel to be deleted. It wasn’t, but with his continued ignorance, it seems only like a matter of time.