These Famous People had Truly Bad Sides to their Personalities

1. Johnny Carson Got Slapped Around by One of His Targets for Being a Jerk

While he was on the air, Johnny Carson was sweetness and sunshine, and the epitome of the friendly character we all wish we had as a neighbor. When not in front of the cameras and his adoring audience, however, Carson was an awful jerk who habitually bullied and abused others, and even physically assaulted people in fits of rage. Examples of Carson being a jerk include an attempt to strangle NBC colleague Tom Snyder, his refusal to visit his son who was institutionalized in a mental asylum, and his verbal and physical abuse of his wives.

Celebrities subjected to The King of Late Night TV’s abuse usually stayed quiet to protect their careers from the notoriously vindictive icon. One notable exception was singer and actor Wayne Newton, who did not find it funny when Carson cracked homosexual jokes about him on national TV. Thinking that they were buddies, Newton begged Carson to cut it out, but Carson persisted. So an incensed Newton barged into Carson’s office one day, and slapped him around silly. It was one of the few times that Carson got his comeuppance. The homosexual jokes stopped.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

American Libraries Magazine, June 1^st, 2018 – Bringing Harassment Out of the History Books: Addressing the Troubling Aspects of Melvil Dewey’s Legacy

Bushkin, Henry – Johnny Carson (2013)

Cracked – 5 Famous Things That Were Named After Awful People

Encyclopedia Britannica – German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact

Ericson, Edward E. – Feeding the German Eagle: Soviet Economic Aid to Nazi Germany, 1933 – 1941 (1999)

Groves, Leslie R. – Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project (1983)

History – History Stories: How Early Suffragists Sold Out Black Women

History Collection – Popes Behaving Badly: 8 Dreadful Papal Scandals From the Middle Ages

Independent, The, August 9^th, 1995 – City Remembers Day it Escaped the Bomb

Jones, Dan – The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England (2014)

Las Vegas Sun, January 24^th, 2005 – Carson Had Long Vegas History

Montefiore, Simon Sebag – Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar (2003)

Monterey County Historical Society – Land King: The Story of David Jack

National Interest, August 8^th, 2018 – Operation Downfall: How America Would Have Invaded Japan

New York Times, July 28^th, 2018 – How the Suffrage Movement Betrayed Black Women

Publishers Weekly, June 24^th, 2019 – ALA 2019: ALA Votes to Strip Melvil Dewey’s Name From Its Top Honor

Rhodes, Richard – The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1986)

Royal Institute of International Affairs, Vol. 87 No. 3 (May 2011) pp. 709-715 – Review: Russian Historians Defend the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

Royal Museums, Greenwich – William Bligh

Wiegand, Wayne A. – Irresponsible Reformer: A Biography of Melvil Dewey (1996)

Wikipedia – John, King of England

Wikipedia – Operation Downfall