5 Celebrities Who Ruined Their Careers in 2022

The bigger they are the more glorious the fall. There’s something about human nature that loves to see people with power and fame get knocked down a peg, especially when they do something stupid or horrendous. People do love a scandal, after all.

The celebrity scandal has existed for as long as celebrities. Even the silent film actors got in on it. Charlie Chaplin loved young women. Rock pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis loved young women. Errol Flynn…well you get the point.

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately if you’re the famous actor about to get named in this article, Hollywood scandals still exist, and actors continue to do really dumb things that put their whole careers in jeopardy. This year was no different. Here are the best of the worst.

Will Smith – The Slap Heard Round the World

This one’s a warm up. Almost everyone with eyes over the age of 9 is aware that Will Smith slapped Chris Rock on live television at the 93rd Oscars telecast, but we’re still coming to terms with the fallout. One thing is for certain, Will Smith was one of the most famous man on the planet at the time.

He was loved the way people love mayonnaise. He was the kid picked first all the time on the playground. He literally could do no wrong, until he did. Everything came crashing down when Chris Rock was on stage presenting Best Documentary Feature, and he made a lame joke.

Even Rock knows it was a lame joke. It was a reference to an old 1990s movie where Demi Moore played a soldier with her head shaved. He said, “Jada, I love you. G.I. Jane 2, can’t wait to see it, alright?” Smith, seated at the primo spot right in front, initially chuckled before he got up, walked on stage, slapped Rock, and then sauntered back to his seat.

In that moment, he might as well have set himself on fire because his carefully crafted public image fell apart in an instant. He won Best Actor that night and made a rambling speech about how the Devil got to him. Then he didn’t apologize for a while. He saw everything just slip away. He’s not allowed at the Oscars for 10 years.

It’s too early to say if he’ll bounce back, but honestly he probably will.

Amber Heard – The Courtroom Gamble

At least it was entertaining. From about mid-April to the first of June, nothing was more in the forefront of popular culture than the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard defamation trial. The trial was the culmination of the two actors’ marriage, divorce, and subsequent attempts to destroy each other.

Before the trial, Depp was the one who was vilified. The couple married in February of 2015 after meeting in 2009. They filed for divorce in 2016. Heard claimed Depp physically abused her and wrote an op-ed in 2018 claiming as much. Depp’s roles dried up, and he saw his years as a beloved public figure destroyed. His career seemed over, and the trial came across like a last-ditch “Hail Mary pass” that would never work. Until it did. The trial was live streamed and people took to Depp and turned on Heard.

She suddenly became a person of ridicule, a staggering turnaround that happened live in court. Then she lost the case and was ordered to pay Depp $10 million. Which, does she have? She doesn’t get movie roles anymore. Many called her a bad actor during the trial.

The only movie she has coming out is Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom on March 17, 2023, and there’s talk that her scenes were cut, too. Any way you look at it, things aren’t going great for Heard this year.