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It’s a tale as old as time. An actor lands a breakout role, becomes an overnight sensation, and suddenly finds themselves at the center of Hollywood. But while getting famous is hard, staying famous is even harder. Not everyone knows how to handle the pressure that comes with stardom. Sometimes it’s a string of terrible movie choices that slowly chips away at a career. Other times, it’s an actor who forgets that people are paying attention to everything they say and starts creating controversy for absolutely no reason.
In this list, we’re looking at eight actors who seemed to have it all. They had hit movies, critical acclaim, millions of fans, and careers that looked untouchable. But through a series of bad decisions and public controversies, they managed to single-handedly derail their own careers. Let’s take a look at them.
8
Rachel Zegler
Rachel Zegler burst onto the scene when Steven Spielberg cast her in the 2021 remake of West Side Story. That’s a once-in-a-career launching pad. But the warning signs came early. When she was left off the guest list for the 94th Academy Awards, she publicly guilted them on social media until they invited her. Next, she appeared in Shazam! Fury of the Gods, and she openly admitted at the film’s premiere that she’d only taken the role for the payday.
But the real controversy arrived with Snow White. While promoting the film, Zegler criticized aspects of the 1937 animated classic and described the prince as a stalker. She also emphasized that the new version would focus less on romance and more on Snow White becoming a leader. Those comments sparked a massive backlash online. Fans, critics, and even the son of the original film’s director publicly criticized what they saw as disrespect toward one of Disney’s most beloved stories. Zegler had become the personification of everything people disliked about modern Hollywood. She also found herself at odds with co-star Gal Gadot after publicly weighing in on the Israel-Palestine conflict, creating even more unwanted headlines. When Snow White finally arrived, it became one of the biggest box office bombs in Disney’s history, and fairly or unfairly, much of the blame landed on Zegler’s shoulders.
7
Brie Larson
Brie Larson was an Academy Award-winning actress who was just as comfortable carrying a small indie drama as she was headlining a massive action blockbuster. After winning an Oscar for Room, she seemed destined for an even bigger career, and Marvel handed her the keys to the kingdom by casting her as Captain Marvel. At the time, the MCU was the biggest franchise on the planet, and Larson was being positioned as one of its new leading faces. But as her profile grew, so did the attention on her public comments. Many fans felt she frequently made remarks that came across as dismissive toward men, which alienated a large portion of the audience that Marvel movies depended on.
Things only got worse during the press tour for Avengers: Endgame, where Larson appeared passive-aggressive toward her male co-stars and bragged about doing her own stunts. As the clips spread online, the negative perception surrounding her continued to grow, and major acting opportunities seemed to become less frequent. Her big chance to turn things around came with The Marvels, which was essentially a make-or-break moment for her career. However, the movie turned out to be a critical and commercial failure and became the lowest-grossing film in Marvel Studios history. Larson still works steadily and recently voiced Rosalina in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, but she is no longer getting the kind of high-profile roles that once seemed guaranteed.
6
Shia LaBeouf
Shia LaBeouf was in Constantine, Disturbia, headlining the Transformers franchise, and even being groomed as a possible successor to Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones. Behind the scenes, though, he was struggling with alcoholism, and it all started spilling into public view. Arrests, fights, rehab stints, and public apologies became the norm. In 2013, he was caught plagiarizing a filmmaker’s work for his short film Howard Cantour.com, and then his apology itself was exposed as plagiarized from a Yahoo Answers post.
Then came the performance art phase. He appeared at the Berlin Film Festival with a paper bag over his head that said, “I am not famous anymore,” invited people to watch him cry with the bag over his head, and even live-streamed himself watching his own films for 72 hours. In his head, it probably seemed like a provocative exploration of fame, but for everyone else, it was just weird. FKA Twigs later sued him for abuse, Netflix dropped him from awards consideration, and Olivia Wilde cut him from Don’t Worry Darling. His biggest role in years ended up being Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, which was the Hollywood equivalent of a first-class ticket on the Titanic.
5
Ezra Miller
When Ezra Miller was cast as The Flash, they looked destined to become one of the leading faces of the DCEU. Unfortunately, Miller’s mental health began deteriorating rapidly following their parents’ divorce in 2019. They became increasingly isolated and paranoid, started carrying a gun and wearing a bulletproof vest, and became convinced that the FBI and the KKK were out to get them. In April 2020, a video surfaced showing Miller grabbing a woman by the neck and forcing her to the ground. In 2022, they were arrested in Hawaii for filming people without consent and screaming at strangers over the crime of “singing a Lady Gaga song.” Weeks later, another video emerged showing Miller throwing a chair at a woman, leaving her with a head injury that required stitches. At this point, every few weeks seemed to bring a new headline that somehow sounded even more unbelievable than the last.
And then things got even worse. Miller housed several people (including children) at their Vermont farm, which former residents described as a cult-like environment with unattended firearms, ammunition, heavy marijuana use, and Miller referring to themselves as “the Messiah.” The parents of an 18-year-old also sought a protective order, alleging that Miller had manipulated and groomed their child since she was 12. One former resident of the farm explained in an interview that Miller believed the young girl was an apocalyptic Native American spider goddess, Miller themselves the second coming of Jesus, and together they were destined to lead an Indigenous revolution. All of these controversies effectively killed Miller’s career stone dead. They are now considered persona non grata in the industry; far too radioactive for any studios to touch.
4
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
At his peak, Dwayne Johnson was loved by everyone and was seemingly everywhere at once. He had gone from wrestling icon to Hollywood megastar and built an incredibly successful brand around being the funny, hardworking, humble everyman. Over time, though, people began noticing Johnson’s tendency to exaggerate stories and market himself a little too aggressively. He was caught lying about his daily calorie intake, and eating In-N-Out Burger for the first time, three different times! He even had a clause in his movie contracts ensuring he could never lose an on-screen fight.
But the real damage came with Black Adam in 2022. Johnson made no secret of the fact that he wanted to reshape the DCEU around himself. He refused to connect his character to Shazam (Zachary Levi), who is Black Adam’s actual arch-nemesis in the comics. Instead, he obsessively pushed hard for a multi-film plan building toward a future showdown against Superman (Henry Cavill). He even went over his bosses’ heads to engineer Cavill’s return as Superman in the film’s post-credits scene. But just days after Cavill announced his return, Gunn was named co-head of DC Studios, and the old DCEU was dead. Gunn later went on to say that this was extremely unfair to Cavill, and following the fallout, Cavill even fired his manager, who just so happened to be Johnson’s ex-wife. Black Adam flopped and was buried with the rest of the old DCEU, and Johnson’s carefully built image of the likable everyman took a hit it hasn’t fully recovered from.
3
Will Smith
Will Smith spent decades building one of the most bulletproof public images in Hollywood. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air launched him, and then Bad Boys, Independence Day, Men in Black, and The Pursuit of Happyness proved he could carry almost any genre. Even when a film flopped, audiences gave him a pass. However, his image began to wobble with After Earth, a post-apocalyptic sci-fi film in which Will starred alongside his son, Jaden Smith. The script was weak, Jaden had none of his father’s talent or charisma, and the movie bombed. From there, a series of underwhelming projects like Suicide Squad, Gemini Man, and Bright added to the sense that his A-list star power was fading.
But the real collapse came when rapper August Alsina publicly revealed he had an affair with Will’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, and claimed Will had given them his blessing. Jada later addressed it with Will on her Red Table Talk show, and you could see him shrink in real time as Jada discussed her entanglements, deflected all the blame on him, and he just took it. It was a public humiliation ritual under the guise of “healing,” and the image of the cool Hollywood megastar was completely obliterated. Then came the 2022 Oscars. A joke from Chris Rock about Jada’s shaved head led Will to walk on stage and slap him on live TV. That clip lives forever in the Hollywood hall of infamy. He didn’t look like a man defending his family. He looked like a man unraveling in front of the entire world.
2
Wesley Snipes
Wesley Snipes was a legitimate action icon, and without his Blade trilogy, the superhero genre as we know it might never have existed. But Snipes had a reputation for being extremely difficult on set. On Blade: Trinity, he allegedly refused to speak to director David Goyer and communicated only through Post-it notes. In one scene, he refused to open his eyes in protest, and they had to be added digitally in post.
The career-ending blow, though, came from outside the industry. Snipes had fallen under the influence of fringe tax protestors who convinced him the U.S. government had no legal authority to collect income tax. Acting on these bogus theories, he didn’t file tax returns on millions of dollars between 1999 and 2004. In 2008, he was convicted of three misdemeanor counts of willful failure to file federal income tax returns and served his sentence from 2010 to 2013. When he came back, Hollywood simply wasn’t interested in taking on that kind of legal and personal baggage.
1
Blake Lively
Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively were the ultimate power couple in Hollywood. High-flying but laid-back Hollywood celebs who never took their fame too seriously. Things changed, though, when she signed on to Justin Baldoni’s It Ends With Us. She first came under fire for promoting the movie as a fun, upbeat, girls’ night out, encouraging viewers to wear floral dresses to screenings like it was Barbie. It came across as very tone-deaf to the survivor themes of Colleen Hoover’s book. Behind the scenes, reports started circulating regarding major clashes with Baldoni, with Lively allegedly using her husband’s industry pull to hijack the production and push Baldoni aside.
Lively even pushed for her own cut of the film to be released over Baldoni’s version, even though his cut scored higher with test audiences. As the public back-and-forth escalated, Lively filed a lawsuit against Baldoni, alleging a hostile work environment and sexual harassment. In April 2026, the judge dismissed the majority of the claims, including every sexual harassment allegation, and she agreed to an out-of-court settlement for zero dollars. She had fallen out of public favor. Soon, past feuds with co-stars like Leighton Meester and Anna Kendrick came back into discussion. Old interview clips also resurfaced, and people began pointing out passive-aggressive moments they had missed before. And just like that, two decades of goodwill were gone in under a year.
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https://collider.com/actors-damaged-their-own-careers/
Safwan Azeem
Almontather Rassoul
