What are the biggest celebrity scandals in history?

In these times of information overload and short attention spans, scandals come and go daily as the media feed on tabloid news. They’re like supernovae, glowing with an intense glow only to fade into insignificance after a moment divided. From politics to entertainment, business to sports, we are constantly exposed to scandalous stories that make headlines for a day or two and disappear without a trace. Sometimes they manage to freeze and focus this daily overflow of information with some kind of deeper reflection on the times we live in playing a familiar chord, but they are usually frustrated by the latest developments. In this intense roller coaster of events, there are, however, examples of public outrage that survived its immediate duration and serve as benchmarks or milestones in recent celebrity scandal history. Here are the strongest contenders in this category.

Woody Allen most likely wants to be remembered as a skilled and prolific filmmaker or a traveling jazz musician, but his legacy likely includes the shocking decision to marry his adopted stepdaughter. It was in 1992 that Allen’s favorite actress and life partner, Mia Farrow, made a surprising discovery of indecent photos that showed her adopted daughter Soon-Yi naked lying in Woody’s cabinet. Despite the huge age difference between the middle-aged director and 22-year-old Soon-Yi, they continued their adventure amid the raging media storm that accused Allen of anything from shameful adultery to pure incest. The embattled director managed to move on by maintaining that “the heart wants what it wants” and he could do very little about it and his marriage to Soon-Yi proved far more successful than his previous relationships, even with Mia. The film he completed at the time of the scandal, entitled Husbands and Wives, was also successful.

She was the most photographed woman in history and is believed to have met her end in large part as a result of trying to escape chase by frenzied paparazzi. Princess Diana’s tragic death under the underpass in Paris produced a flood of positive emotions toward her fate and criticism for her deadly obsession with high-profile personalities like her. The accident in France, though never fully explained, put her life in sharp focus from her disappointing marriage to Prince Charles, her infidelity, her infamous separation and divorce, her issues with bulimia and men. She is also part of what many see as the golden age of celebrity gossip that later turned their attention to shorter people.

Many things are special about Bill Clinton’s Zippergate, including its catastrophic consequences for the world’s most powerful politician, the then president of the United States. The media attention and fallout from Clinton’s brief affair with her White House intern, Monica Levinsky, changed the face of American public life and politics. If internet technology, complete with tools like a webcam or blogging, had existed at the time, the buzz would have been even more feverish.