These Historic Figures Should Have Been Famous for their Weird Habits

Khalid Elhassan - June 22, 2022

5. A Lecherous Religious Charlatan Who Got His Congregation into the Habit of Prolonged Love groups

Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin (1869 – 1916) was a charlatan, mystic, holy wanderer, faith healer, blasphemer, and a notorious lecher who became one of Russia’s most powerful figures. An inexplicable ability to ease the pain of the child Alexei Nikolayevich, the hemophiliac heir to the Russian throne, earned him the gratitude of his parents, Russia’s Tsar Nicholas and Tsarina Alexandra. That made Rasputin an influential figure in the Russian Empire’s final years. It was an unexpected rise. As a teenager, Rasputin was notorious for his relentless pursuit of women, from women of the night to respectable matrons. He had a magnetism that enabled him to rack up carnal conquests with ease.

Rasputin invented and led a religious cult that combined Orthodox Christianity with physical pleasure, plus bizarre rituals deemed heretical and blasphemous. A core belief of Rasputin’s cult was that nearness to God is achieved by a state described as “holy passionlessness”, which is best achieved via exhaustion. Such exhaustion was to be attained by a lot of intimacy – a religious doctrine he described as “driving out sin with sin“. So he led his cult into reaching carnal exhaustion via love groups. He and his followers got into the habit of indulging in prolonged bouts of debauchery by the entire congregation, in order to get base passions out of their system.

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4. A Holy Man’s Habit of Partying in Unholy Ways

Rasputin eventually made it to the Russian capital, Saint Petersburg, where he won the favor of Russia’s Tsar and Tsarina. There, he exerted his animal magnetism upon the capital’s women, and before long, he had a cult following, from lowly streetwalkers to wealthy aristocratic women. Soon, young women and old, maidens and matrons, were throwing themselves at Rasputin. They flocked to his apartment, and he was indiscriminate in his preferences, bedding working women and princesses alike. Many in high society, aware that Rasputin had the ear of Russia’s rulers, sought his favor. Some even sent their wives or daughters to seduce him into putting in a good word for them at court, or their female relatives did so on their own initiative.

Many other women visited Rasputin simply for intimacy. Lots and lots of intimacy. Rasputin was, by all accounts, a carnal addict, with enviable stamina and staying power. His habit of getting it on with all women who crossed his path astonished contemporaries. Saint Petersburg’s authorities posted plainclothes policemen at his building, and their reports described dozens of women, from working women to high-ranking aristocrats, visiting his apartment. The police reports went on to describe loud noises of drunken revelry, parties with working women, beatings, violent intimacy, and orgies that lasted until sunrise and beyond.

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3. Overlooking This Holy Man’s Unholy Deeds Helped Set the Stage for Revolution

Reports of Rasputin’s unruly and unholy conduct – including the forced go at a nun – reached Tsar Nicholas’ ears. However, Russia’s ruler either dismissed them out of hand or laughed them off with comments such as “the holy are always slandered“. The Tsar’s confessor investigated the reports of Rasputin’s misconduct, concluded there was truth in them, and advised Nicholas to distance himself from the controversial monk. The Tsar, at the behest of his wife who was fiercely protective of the holy charlatan, sided with the Rasputin.

It was the Tsar’s confessor who ended up banished from Saint Petersburg. By 1911, Rasputin’s notorious misconduct had become a national scandal and turned the imperial family into a laughingstock. Eventually, word began to make the rounds that the unholy holy man had seduced the Tsar’s wife, Tsarina Alexandra. Whether or not that was true – and Rasputin boasted of having done so – it damaged the imperial family’s prestige. It set the stage for its overthrow in the 1917 Russian Revolution.

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2. Johnny Carson Was in the Habit of Abusing All and Sundry

John William Carson (1925 – 2005), better known as Johnny Carson, hosted The Tonight Show on NBC for three decades from 1962 to 1992. In that stretch, he set the standard format and template that has been followed by TV chat shows ever since, including the guest couch and studio band. Carson was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame, won a Peabody Award, and six Emmys. He was also awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom – America’s highest civilian award – and received a Kennedy Center Honor.

Carson worked hard to cement his perception as the funny and neighborly Midwesterner, and perfected his friendly on-air persona. As a result, Americans welcomed Carson with open arms into their living rooms as the country’s favorite late-night host. However, when he was not in front of an audience, The King of Late Night Television, as Carson came to be known, was a bitter, bullying, and mean SOB. He was in the habit of abusing just about everybody and was so awful that many famous figures boycotted his show. However, they did so quietly, out of fear that he might damage their careers. Wayne Newton, as seen below, was an exception.

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1. The Time When Johnny Carson Got Slapped Around

While on the air, Johnny Carson was sunshine and sweetness, and the embodiment of the friendly guy you’d like to have as a neighbor. Away from the cameras, however, Carson was a total jerk who bullied and abused others and even physically assaulted people in fits of rage. Examples of Carson being a jackass 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.

Many celebrities abused by Carson stayed quiet to protect their careers from the notoriously vindictive icon. An exception was singer and actor Wayne Newton, who resented Carson’s cracking gay jokes about him on national TV. Newton thought that he and Carson were buddies, and begged him to cut it out. Carson persisted, however. So an incensed Newton barged into Carson’s office, and slapped him around silly. It wasn’t live at the Oscars, but it got Carson’s attention. It was one of the few times that the star TV host got his comeuppance. The gay jokes stopped.

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

Biography – Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Brook, Timothy – The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties (2010)

Bushkin, Henry – Johnny Carson (2013)

Culture Trip – 11 Bizarre Things You Didn’t Know About Imelda Marcos

Empire Times Magazine, May 4^th, 2015 – Tolouse-Lautrec: The working woman Authority

Encyclopedia Britannica – James Boswell, Scottish Biographer

Cracked – Old-Timey Icons With WTF Habits

Factinate – 42 Unhinged Facts About Ibrahim, the Mad Sultan of the Ottoman Empire

Guardian, The, June 13^th, 2012 – James Boswell and a History of Gonorrhea

Hertfordshire Life – The Dramatic Life and Passing of Prime Minister Lord Palmerston