Earliest Scandal You Remember?

This one.

Anthony & Cleopatra

Claudine Longet - The actress / singer who was married to entertainer Andy Williams (14 years her senior) from 1960-75. AFter her divorce, Longet was arrested and charged with fatally shooting her boyfriend, Olympic skier Vladimir "Spider" Sabich, at his home in Aspen, Colorado, on 21 March 1976. At the trial, Longet repeated the claim that the gun had accidentally fired when Sabich was showing her how to use it. The jury convicted her of negligent homicide.

I was 12 years old.

This was covered extensively in the media (newspapers, magazine, television). I remember my parents and older relatives were glued to the television as the nightly news reported on this each day. It was the 'big event' for a short while.

OJ Simpson. I was 7 years old when it happened. It was everywhere.

Assault of Nancy Kerrigan

Watergate, I was eight, & only had a vague understanding of it.

Was Jackie Kennedy marrying Onasis considered a scandal? I was pretty young but I remember my nonna calling her a "puttana" when it happened.

Watergate when I was nine or ten, but I had no idea what the scandal really was all about.

I remember Sonny and Cher breaking up and it being a scandal, at least for Rona Barrett.

Jackie O's marriage was a total scandal.

Cain and Abel

Peaches and Daddy

The Governor and the Stripper!

Finding out that Rock Hudson, Jim Nabors and Liberace were Gay

Queen Caroline being locked out of Westminster Abbey for George IV's coronation

Miss Piggy being snubbed for an Oscar nomination for "The Muppet Movie".

R7 OMG! Jackie marrying Onassis was a HUGE scandal. Front page news.

Michael Landon leaving his wife and marrying a younger woman, during the filming of LHOTP. Also, Elvis dying on the toilet, and a vague recollection of a People magazine cover with a story of John Lennon having an affair.

Born in 1963....Watergate, probably.

Before that, the biggest political scandal was Chappaquiddick, but I have no recollection of it.

I have a vague memory of my Mom telling my Dad that RFK was shot, as he arrived home with my older siblings from an outing. Same with a fuzzy memory os seeing MLK's funeral on a B&W television set.

r13 How'd you find out?

^ I was at Rock's house when he started to fuck me as Jim Nabors sang "Love is a Many Splendored Thing" and Liberace accompanied him on the piano. I want to say that Paul Lynde was there doing stand-up, but it's all kind of hazy now

When Bill Clinton pulled out that cigar.

I remember hearing about the Iran-Contra scandal. Don’t know what it was about. I was 7 or 8.

I was five when the Watergate hearings were happening. I didn't get what was happening, but it was preempting my favorite TV shows.

Watergate. I hated it because the hearings bumped all my regular shows off their daytime schedule. I only understood that the president did something wrong and that there was a burglary.

Damn, r23, I was on the verge of posting!

I think my babysitter hated Watergate even more than me because she had to find something for me to do instead of planting me in front of the set to watch I Love Lucy.

Adam and Eve and something to do with an apple and being naked.

Nixon/Watergate scandal - it was on the black and white tv non-stop in our home when I was little.

In my neighborhood in East Falls, it would have to be Jackie Kennedy marrying Ari Onassis after RFK was murdered. All the "stay at home" moms predicted that would happen, they were saying Jackie was the #1 Kennedy to kill, plus the 2 kids. The EF wives said Onassis had more $$$ than God& could protect her.

Watergate, specifically Nixon's televised goodbye to his administration / staff on the day he left the White House. My mother was in tears.

I also remember Nixon getting on the Army One helicopter to depart the White House.

When Friesland fucked Renfro

What Memories- remember all of these-they didn't affect me so it was a fun distraction to follow these stories.

When Elizabeth had her cousin Mary of Scots executed.

Not a really a political scandal, but I remember the Roseanne national anthem drama when I was 5.

Chappaquiddick for me

Watergate

I do remember my mother fussing about not getting to watch her “stories” while watergate was airing.

President Trump getting shot.

I remember my mom watching the Watergate hearings, assuming that counts.

r33 Definitely doesn't need to be political!

The Crédit Mobilier Scandal

Watergate I was 8

Marvin Gaye being murdered by his father

[quote] Michael Landon leaving his wife and marrying a younger woman, during the filming of LHOTP.

Hilarious. Very DL answer. This type of stuff leaves an impression in the memory bank (of a young DLer).

[quote]Finding out that Rock Hudson, Jim Nabors and Liberace were Gay

Whatchu talkin' bout Willis ? They ain't gay.

Bill Clinton face fucking Monica in the oval office.

Watergate

Biden dropping out of the presidential race.

The murder of Johnny Stompanato by Lana Turner's daughter (who took the rap for her mother.)

Watergate, though like the others, I didn't have a super clear idea of what was happening (I was 4 or 5).

Then the Jonestown massacre and, a few months later, a local killing spree where two men killed a few people on a spree that lasted a few weeks. Very scary times. Not sure if that's technically a scandal but it felt like it to my approximately 10 year old mind.

For me it was probably Patty Hearst and Jonestown. I was young, but obsessed with both.

King Henry the Eight beheading his wives. What a time to be alive (pun intended) !

There is no indication of a pun in your post.

I think the first 'scandal' I recall was Sophia Loren getting in trouble for tax evasion...it was either that or John Lennon being shot...

R52 It's beyond your reach.

Superman committing suicide

I was a young teen at the time, but I definitely remember the Vanessa Williams/ 1st black woman to win Miss America/ nude photo scandal. Seems quaint now unfortunately. I also remember the Madonna nude photos scandal which happened shortly after and how well she handled that- it actually made her a bigger star.

Jonestown, being born in 1969.

R20 How sad. You think you know comedy. You don't. You think you are the funniest storyteller at the party. People ridicule you when you exit a room.

Jonestown. I was 7 years old. I remember a lot of the footage of the dead bodies.

Not exactly a scandal I know.

As a non-American born in 1995, among of the earliest scandals I remember from American showbiz when I was a kid were the Madonna-Britney kiss at the VMAs, the Nipplegate, Paris Hilton's sex tape, Brad dumping Jen and marrying Angelina.

Watergate. I delivered the afternoon newspaper and read the stories as I walked from house to house. I was 9-10 years old.

@r58, I do think you are a very bitter stalker for whatever reason, but have another drink and forget about what a total loser you are

R62 Thankfully you didn't try comedy again. Thank you for that.

Nixon and Watergate.

Lana Turner and Johnny Stompanato. Either she or her daughter stabbed him to death.

Sammy Davis, Jr and Kim Novak

Lana Turner (or Cheryl) knifing Johnny Stompanato. That and the real reason why Arthur Godfrey fired Julius La Rosa live on the air. Nana and her crew were still talking about it five years later.

Piss drinking

Kennedy assassination, Jack Ruby killing Oswald (Im a patsy!) on live tv to shut him up.

Not the earliest but I remember seeing the shocking story of how late 40s June Lockhart was dating the young male lead of Jesus Christ Superstar. My grandmother said, "Has she lost her mind? She must be 'on drugs' with him!"

The Army McCarthy hearings at the HUAC hearings. I was a young kid and didn't understand it all but my dad was mad about The Hollywood Ten being blackballed.

Britney Spears shaving her head. I was 5 or 6 years old and saw her on the cover of a tabloid, and asked my mom why the "Oops" lady had no hair. This was followed closely by the Vanessa Hudgens nude photo scandal, which quickly spread around the playground as "High School Musical" was the biggest thing in the world at the time.

Matthew Broderick’s "Car Accident"

@r63, As if you had the IQ to understand comedy 😂

Why are you such a miserable piece of shit? Are you still mad that I won't fuck you?

Does Nixon resigning count as a “scandal”? That’s the earliest big “real world” thing I remember. I didn’t fully understand what was happening, but my parents were watching him resign live and I knew something BIG was happening. They had voted for him but felt betrayed because he turned out to be a crook.

I lived in the Netherlands as a kid, so I remember hearing about two scandals involving the Dutch royal family. The first one was the "Greet Hofmans affair": Queen Juliana (who reigned from 1948 to 1980) had fallen under the spell of a kooky "faith healer," a woman who became the queen's confidante, was considered a 'Rasputin' type, and was eventually removed from the royal court. The second one was the Lockheed scandal involving Prince Bernhard, Queen Juliana's husband. It emerged that he had received a $1.1 million bribe in the early 1960s from Lockheed to ensure that the Lockheed F-104 would win out over the Dassault Mirage 5 for a purchase contract. These were obviously more innocent times, and scandals, in a small country like the Netherlands, tended to be big. You do tend to remember when you first become of the concept of a scandal, and that adults try to hide their nefarious actions. (Note that there have been several other smaller and bigger royal scandals in the Netherlands since.)

R66 I think you mean May Britt.

I remember local scandals more than national (US) scandals.

I lived in a town with an organized crime presence involving "dirty" cops & dirty politicians. When I was in maybe 6th or 7th grade, there was a sweep (arrests). My classmate's father (police officer) got arrested. It was highly-publicized. One of the items seized (search warrant) was a gun with a silencer (IIRC, my classmate's father was the owner). That part (the silencer) shook me up.

I was not paying that much attention to the news and my parents weren't, either.

However, when I got to school, it was a topic of gossip.

Liz and Dick. That's the print that was on all the magazine covers when Taylor and Burton got together, lol.

Probably Liz and Dick. But I was six when it happened. I only remember the adults talking about it.

Alex Baldwin Kills.

JR getting shot

Reagan getting shot, if that counts. Also Natalie Wood's death the same year.

Teapot Dome

I lost my Sonny&Cher viewing privileges because they were divorced. And the show inspired hyperactivity.

Probably the Lewinsky scandal, although I didn't really understand what was going on. I vaguely remember the kids at school doing impressions of Bill Clinton saying "I did not have sexual relations with that woman."

I did think Jim Bakker was handsome back in the day-I apologize

r87 eeeeewwww

That was quite a while ago r87. In all that time, I hope you have found a good ophthalmologist.

R50

I remember Patty Hearst, too - that was a huge story and a fascinating one.

OJ.

Some racial thing involving a very young Lucille ball

Watergate and the Manson murders.

To be clear, I was born a few years AFTER Marilyn Monroe died, but as a small child in the early 70s, I remember her death was still being talked about some 10 years later, and the circumstances were considered shady. I remember one of the local news programs ran a week-long report, "Was Marilyn Monroe Really Murdered?"

[quote]Probably Liz and Dick. But I was six when it happened. I only remember the adults talking about it.

Which Liz & Dick scandal? Hookup/marriage 1, divorce 1, marriage 2, or divorce 2?

Jim Baker...also everyone was pearl clutching over Madonna in the late 80s.

[quote]I think you mean May Britt.

R77 Nope. Sammy and Kim were a thing. She was 'forced' to give him up.

One of the earliest scandals I remember was the time the neighbor lady told me my mother was a whore and was fucking her boyfriend. She then shared the news with my dad. It was a whole thing.

The Killing of Sister George

The Killing of Sister George

—X rated

Amy Fisher/Joey Buttafuoco

R72, I still think that Brittney shaved her head to avoid hair drug testing in her custody case — not necessarily because of a breakdown.

My grandma’s pussy odor

Grandpa fletcher fucked grandpa sticks

Karl Schranz cheated out of the Olympic Gold Medal by that racist pig Avery Brundage.

Peewee Herman

I was born in 1963; it was Watergate.

UK here.

The Jeremy Thorpe case had saturation coverage here, and I was fascinated and appalled. Nobody I have spoken to believes he was innocent, and it was the first time I realised how the Establishment protects its own.

Iran-Contra

I was really little, but Elvis's death was on tabloid covers at the supermarket checkout and their lurid headlines of ELVIS DEATH PICS imprinted themselves on my psyche. I think it was my first inkling that the world could be a pretty grubby place.

I was a kid. It was the mid '50's and mom n dad were having one of their wildass, drunken, pot smokin' Hollywood parties. It was shocking to find out all of these hollyweirdos were laughing about how Rock Hudson had just got married to (gasp) a woman. The gossip going around was weird for a kid that was kid-dumb, but I'd heard lots of their Hollywood friends before, laughing and talking about him and how he banged guys.

CDaN must read here they used this topic today

When my mother wore white shoes after Labor Day.

Pope Sixtus IV fucking his nephew and making him a cardinal with the lad later poisoned at age 28!

MADONNA/BRITNEY/CHRISTINA

UK here too. The first scandal I remember is Eastenders actress Gillian Taylforth’s court case against The Sun, which had published a story alleging she was caught giving her boyfriend a blow job in a lay-by.

Considering I grew up to be an excellent giver of blow jobs, this must have been a very formative encounter with current affairs.

I was going to say Baby Jessica (not really a scandal, per se), but I see Iran-Contra happened first.

I watched so much of that damn Oliver North hearing without the faintest clue what they were talking about.

My bestie and I would throw a fit in the country club clubhouse upon discovering As The World Turns was preempted by the Iran-Conra hearings. Instead, I’d give him a blow job at the tennis court and we’d share a Salem afterwards. We were 11.

R117 with you about the Oliver North/Iran-Contra thing...I remember seeing his face all over the place but I had zero clue what all that was about, I was too young. But I definitely remember Baby Jessica.

[quote] What Memories- remember all of these-they didn't affect me so it was a fun distraction to follow these stories.

I'm glad my horrible death allowed you some happy moments of diversion.

1987 was the Year of The Scandal. Iran-Contra, Jimmy Swaggart , Jim Baker, and Gary Hart

Jayne Mansfield's death

Probably the infidelity and divorce between Charles and Diana. I’m Canadian so this shit was on the news and talked about amongst adults everywhere. It bored me. The first scandal that fascinated me was the Amy Fisher trashiness. .

Separation not divorce. I remember all these old British people were on tv reading the announcement and crying.

Watergate - The first sex & politics scandal I remember was Wilbur Mills and Fanne Fox in the Tidal Basin.

Might not technically be a scandal, but the Iran hostage crisis.

My aunt Pat getting pregnant out of wedlock and then Watergate.

Vanessa Williams being dethroned due to explicit photos

The pics were somewhat scandalous in their day

R128 My then somewhat elderly boss wanted to see those photos. I brought that month’s Penthouse into the office and must say he was very impressed. We never saw that issue again, either.

My cousin was on her second pregnancy when my mom took her in. She was 14, so that was 1984.

R128 R129 Nothing compared to the Melania pix.

R132 Williams went on to a successful career

Wasn't she sniffing the chicks butt in one of the pictures? That's what the blacked out images shown on the local news seemed to suggest. Also, I wonder what the other woman from the photos is up to these days?

At the time many comedians including Joan Rivers and David Letterman said that Williams should have been named Miss Congeniality

My siblings and I were scandalized when the Bionic Women cursed in one episode. We had thought she was so nice!

It was network television. What could she possibly have said R136 that was so scandalous?

The Fanne Foxe / Congressman Wilbur Mills scandal was huge in 1974.

Annabel Battistella, known professionally as Fanne Foxe, was an Argentine-American stripper best known for being involved in a 1974 sex scandal surrounding Arkansas Congressman Wilbur Mills. At the time, Mills was the chair of the United States House Committee on Ways and Means and a powerful Democratic politician. The scandal was one of the most reported political sex scandals of the 1970s. In 2009, Foxe was on the Time list of top 10 mistresses, and her affair with Mills was on the Bloomberg list of top 10 U.S. sex scandals.

I came to post the same thing, r138, but I misremembered it as Mills’ jumping into the Tidal Basin.

Chicago Democratic Convention 1968

I recall all of the aforementioned-took the focus of the work-a-day routine. Thankful and keep it up.

[quote] Watergate, specifically Nixon's televised goodbye to his administration / staff on the day he left the White House. My mother was in tears.

Was her name . . . Mary?!

The Profumo Scandal, about which I knew nothing. Then, the events at 10050 Cielo Drive, which made me afraid to be in the world that year.

Here's one I definitely remember, and hasn't been mentioned: A "Romper Room" hostess, "Miss Sherri," went to Sweden to have an abortion.

R143, I was just scrolling from the top to see if the Profumo affair had been mentioned. You just beat me to it. As a US resident & being only 6 in 1963, I don’t know how that reached my attention. Around the same time, I have a memory of the Bobby Baker scandal circling VP Johnson.

Watergate

Like R1, I remember the murder of Spider Sabich. I was 12 or 13.

I recall my Mom watching the Watergate hearings, when I got home from school.

The biggest scandals when I was in high school were the murder of the Scarsdale Diet doctor by his mistress Jean Harris and the Sunny von Bulow case in 1980.

I remember Ted Kennedy's divorce from his wife Joan being somewhat scandalous. Of course, Chappaquiddick was by far more scandalous. And Princess Margaret cavorting with her boy toy.

And then there was the death of Nelson Rockefeller. They must have paid his mistress off handsomely.

Ms Marshack got a townhouse on the Upper East Side, BPC.

And signed an NDA for Happy and the kids and never broke it.

For a moment, I thought the person in the OP was Herve Villechaize.

OJ, and my obsessed aunt who wrote him in prison, she was CONVINCED he was innocent.

Clinton, a cigar, and a stained dress. I remember wondering what kind of slob wouldn't launder such a thing.

Brad Pitt leaving Jen Aniston for Angelina Jolie.

R1 one of the bigger, stickier scandals happened after the second divorce in the early 1980s when they toured together in a revival of Noel Coward’s “Private Lives.”

Miss Taylor had a standing order from Rebecca’s Bakery on Charles Street for a 12 inch pecan pie (then about $30) delivered daily to her suite at the Copley Plaza during the run of the show in Boston.

JFK assassination ....I guess not a scandal really.....

The janitor at my school, Tom Jackson, told me, and my mother picked me up in her new 164 1/2 black Mustang convertible...

Take it to back, Jack, and get your dates straight.

The 1964.5 Mustang was introduced at the New York Worlds Fair in April of 1964, six months after JFK died.

I was wondering if someone would catch that... however, my mother got the first one to arrive at a dealer...very pre...and actually did have it

Very pre-what, Jack?

FoMoCo used pre-production pilot cars (more or less hand-built to perfect specs and dimensions to show the assembly line workers how to put them together as they went down the line) for the NYWF introduction because they were both perfect and because they had so few. None went to dealers before early-mid April and those were embargoed, meaning they weren't supposed to so much as show them to anyone (though I'm sure some did), let alone display them in the showroom before the official introduction, but if a dealer sold one prior to April 17th, they were warned they could lose their Ford franchise. If a newspaper published an unauthorized photo, they would lose Ford's advertising. Uncle Lido didn't spend millions to have Walt Disney help unveil their new model only to have the impact diminished because people had already seen it.

So I'm interested in knowing how your Mom had one in November of 1963, given that production of the first coupes and convertibles didn't start until late March of 1964.

Not my first scandal, but the murders by Cullen Davis at his home were huge in Fort Worth, Tx—and Texas in general. My best friend’s brother used to attend parties at the mansion, where the coke flowed freely in the late 70’s. Davis murdered his poor step-daughter, she was my age, about 11 or so. He also murdered Priscilla’s boyfriend, and Priscilla barely survived her injuries.

He was a millionaire who paid everyone off, and got away with it. He had another trial because he tried to have a judge assassinated, and got away with that, too. During the first trial, it was a big deal that he “turned to Jesus, or whatever.

My grandmother had sex with her daughter's husband.

I just looked him up, for the first time in years. Can’t believe he’s still alive, he’s 91. Probably afraid of dying and going to hell.

Definitely Watergate. I was six. My dad cursed at the TV and walked outside with a dark expression in his face. He almost never lost his cool or uttered profanity.

Big fail r154

9/11

There's a few that come to mind

The persistent rumor in the early 60s that Dinah Shore had a mixed baby. I remember our maid and my mom talking about it one day they decided it was either Sammy Davis Jr or Sidney Pointer

Art linkletter's daughter jumping after using LSD. This was repeated throughout my elementary Catholic school tenure as a reason not to use drugs by the nuns.

Jackie Kennedy's marriage to Aristotle was a huge scandal! The nuns hopped all over it saying that the marriage wasn't valid and she was living in a sinful manner. If I'm not mistaken there was an incident where she was denied communion by a priest right after the wedding. The nuns also focused on her immoral attire such as mini skirts and see-through blouses.

Miss Nancy from Romper Room who was forced to go to Sweden to have an abortion in 1962? I remember my mom talking about that too fully supporting her. Apparently the fetus was horribly malformed.

Mine was Clinton and Monica Lewinsky

Elvis shaking his nether regions on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Mamie's sissy Filipino houseboys so detested by Ike

[quote]Jackie Kennedy's marriage to Aristotle was a huge scandal! The nuns hopped all over it saying that the marriage wasn't valid and she was living in a sinful manner. If I'm not mistaken there was an incident where she was denied communion by a priest right after the wedding.

What was the big scandal? Her husband was dead, so she was no longer married according to the Catholic Church. What was their problem with her marrying someone else?

Ari was a divorced man.

r164 Miss SHERRI, not Miss Nancy, and this was covered at R144

r170 r164 r144 Her name was Sherri Finkbine, and her story was the first scandal I remember (now that you mention it).

I don't know if you could call it a scandal, but I have a very vague memory of the news surrounding Jack Paar walking off the Tonight Show ... when I was all of three.

In 9th grade, Tina Strack was blowing juniors so they would give her rides, and she wouldn't have to ride the bus.

[quote]Her name was Sherri Finkbine

We know.

Wilbur Mills

OJ simpson for me too. As a kid I was confused as to why the trial was so long.

OJ for me too. R176 I know, It seems like it was endless.

Growing up in LA, the endless media coverage of RFK's assassination and the Manson murders was unforgettable. I was just 5 years old when RFK was killed, and the Manson murders shocked the city a year after.

JFK's assassination. We were sent home from school.

Jackie Kennedy was a Catholic saint. So her marrying a toad like Ari who was a billionaire was selling herself to the highest bidder like she was a self running roman slave market. She went from being beatified to the Whore of the Holy Roman Empire. It was a big fuck you to everyone who held her in admiration for her dignity discretion and poise. When those things genuinely mattered. Then people realized they didn't.

[quote]Jackie Kennedy was a Catholic saint.

"Woman Shows Ankle To Chimney-Sweep Shock"

To her credit, Jackie didn’t want to live out the rest of her life as the exalted widow Kennedy.

Elvis dying. I was eight years old.