Top 5 Celeb Scandals of 2009

By Heather Huntington on December 28th, 2009

There’s nothing better than a good celebrity scandal – unless it’s an end of the year retrospective of the best celebrity scandals of the past year.

5. Letterman

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The king of late night TV hardly seemed a controversial figure. Oh how wrong we were, as we discovered when the jaded ex of one of Letterman’s former lovers tried to extort him for $2 million to keep quiet. Letterman called his bluff – contacting authorities to nab the would-be extortionist and then going live on TV to fall on his sword, apologizing to his wife and his staff for what turns out to be multiple affairs over the years with female staffers. Oh Dave, you rascal.

4. Chris Brown/Rihanna

Chris Brown and Rihanna seemed like R&B’s ultimate fairytale couple, until Brown lost his sh!t, got arrested for beating the balls off her on the way to the Grammys, and then the photos of the damage he did to her leaked all over the Internet. Months later, Rihanna is weathering the storm and Brown is whining about the bad press/stores refusal to stock his albums/etc. That’s what you get for being an abuser. You dick.

3. The Gosselins

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I think they are the ultimate example of schadenfreude. How do you pick just one thing from this year? The divorce? Stealing the money? They affair with Hailey Glassman? The affair with Kate Major? Pulling the plug on the TLC show? Getting sued for breach of contract by TLC? It’s just the gift that keeps on giving.

2. Michael Jackson

MJ had spent years as a joke, as a blip on the radar, until his surprising and untimely death last summer turned the tide of public opinion back towards him. Turns out he was a major drug addict who used surgical-grade anesthesia to sleep at night. Nothing about him wasn’t grand and shocking.

1. Tiger Woods

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Well, someone has been running a good PR campaign for years – acting like America’s sweetheart (well, male sweetheart. Of golf.) when it turns out he was cheating on his wife so often one wonders how he actually walked. While most of us are surprised to find out the truth, the real shocker may be that it was kept under wraps for so long. And that Tiger was such a … tiger.