23 Celebs Who Tanked Their Career With A Single Social Media Post

Hannah MarderWed, September 2, 2026 at 12:31 AM UTC

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Celebs — they say the darnedest things! From problematic posts to offensive tweets, a surprising number of celebs have gotten themselves into hot water on social media, causing fans to wonder, "How the heck did no one stop them from posting this?"

BETSome posts — whether it was a YouTube video, an Instagram story, or a tweet — have even led celebs to be blacklisted from their respective industries. Other posts might not have ended a celeb's career, but certainly caused some material loss (in the form of roles or brand deals), or marked a turning point in public opinion. Here are 23 celebs who saw serious career harm from a single post:1. Roseanne Barr is one of the most famous instances. In 2018, Barr was fired from the Roseanne reboot after making a racist comment about Barack Obama's adviser Valerie Jarrett, referring to her as if "muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby." Roseanne was canceled, then brought back as The Conners, with Roseanne's character killed off. This stopped Barr's comeback in its tracks, and her career never recovered. She did create a standup special with Fox Nation and appeared in an animated series created by the Daily Wire, a conservative media company, but it appears her opportunities are limited to right-leaning projects. None has attracted the mass appeal of Roseanne.

ABC2. Gina Carano's career change from pro wrestler to actor initially seemed to be a huge success following a starring role in the much-lauded Star Wars series The Mandalorian. But then in early 2021, Gina Carano posted a photo to social media comparing being a Republican to being a Jew during the Holocaust, which caused fans to dig up some other past problematic social media posts by the actor, in which she denounced wearing face masks and claimed voter fraud in 2020.

Lucasfilm / Disney+ / Viayoutube.comShe was quickly asked not to return to the Lucasfilm and Disney show, and plans were scrapped for her character to have her own show. "Her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable," a representative for Lucasfilm said in a statement. She was also dropped by her agency.

Danielle Del Valle / Getty Images for Daily WireShortly after, Carano announced that she would develop, produce, and star in the film White Knuckle with the Daily Wire. However, Carano later canceled the film because she refused to adhere to Hollywood's masking policies. She decided to quit her union (presumably the Screen Actors Guild) and make a different movie in Montana. The film, a Western titled Terror on the Prairie, was released online by the Daily Wire in 2022 to little fanfare, and it's clear that Carano doesn't have the budding career she once had.

The Daily Wire / courtesy Everett Collection3. There are also examples on the liberal side; Kathy Griffin is one of the most famous. In 2017, a few months after Donald Trump took office for the first time, Griffin posted a photo on Twitter (now X) and Instagram of herself holding a mask of his bloodied, severed head. Griffin faced intense backlash, and the president himself noted his children — particularly then-11-year-old Barron — were upset. Griffin apologized (after previously defending the post), stating she'd gone too far, but the damage was done. She was dropped from CNN's New Year's Eve special, and Squatty Potty terminated a campaign with her.

Amanda Edwards / Getty Images

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Griffin was even put on a no-fly list and investigated by the Secret Service. Griffin herself stated that her "entire industry turned on" her, and she was blacklisted for years; however, she was able to sell out a successful world tour that ended in the US about a year after the controversy. Still, her concert film based on the scandal had to be self-funded and was released on demand, as the major networks and streamers turned it down; her second special since the controversy was also self-produced. She lost money on both and has lost millions in legal fees and missed opportunities due to the photo. She still tours, but says she'll never be on TV again.

Gary Gershoff / Getty Images4. Sometimes, it's resurfaced tweets that come back to bite a celeb. Hartley Sawyer made a successful jump from soap operas to dramas, becoming a fan favorite on The Flash. However, the increased exposure was bad news for the actor; he was fired from the show in 2020 after his old racist, misogynistic, and anti-gay tweets surfaced on social media. More than one tweet referred to assaulting women, with one reading, "Date rape myself so I don't have to masturbate."

Colin Bentley / The CW / Courtesy Everett CollectionSawyer apologized on Instagram: "My words, irrelevant of being meant with an intent of humor, were hurtful, and unacceptable. I am ashamed I was capable of these really horrible attempts to get attention at that time. I regret them deeply. This was not acceptable behavior. These were words I threw out at the time with no thought or recognition of the harm my words could do, and now have done today." He largely stepped back from the industry and has no upcoming projects; his burgeoning career is dead.

Joe Scarnici / FilmMagic via Getty Images5. Resurfaced tweets can hurt bigger stars, too. After Kevin Hart was tapped to host the Oscars in 2018, old anti-gay tweets resurfaced, including the 2011 tweet: "Yo if my son comes home & try's 2 play with my daughters doll house I'm going 2 break it over his head & say n my voice 'stop that's gay.'" Hart initially asked people to "stop being negative," but later decided to step down from hosting the Oscars and apologize due to the intense backlash. He tweeted, "I'm sorry that I hurt people.. I am evolving and want to continue to do so. My goal is to bring people together not tear us apart. Much love & appreciation to the Academy. I hope we can meet again."

Nathan Congleton / NBCU Photo Bank / NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty ImagesThis certainly didn't end Hart's career; he was appearing on interviews (including, notably, with Ellen DeGeneres, who controversially supported him and stated he should still host the Oscars) and promoting his films throughout much of the controversy. Still, the backlash caused people to see Hart in a new light, and it cost him one of the top jobs in Hollywood.

Jamie McCarthy / Getty Images6. Beauty YouTuber Laura Lee also came under fire in 2018 for resurfaced tweets, including ones using slurs and another reading, "Tip for all black people if you pull ur pants up you can run from the police faster.. #yourwelcome." This led to Lee losing half a million subscribers over the next month, and brands like Ulta backing out of deals, with other brands pulling her makeup from stores. Lee essentially lost tens of thousands of dollars — at least — from the scandal.

Charley Gallay / Getty Images for MAC CosmeticsLee also made things worse for herself by posting an apology video. While many celebs apologize for their scandals, they sometimes do more harm than good. Lee's video, featuring her crying and blaming her comments on having grown up in the deep south, was deemed insincere and contributed to her follower loss; the video received far more dislikes than likes. Fans felt she failed to take real responsibility; she referred to the tweets as "retweets," for example, despite them being tweets she wrote herself. Her subscriber count has slightly recovered since then, but it's still well below 5 million, which she'd surpassed prior to the scandal.

Laura Lee / YouTube / Viayoutube.com7. If we're talking about poorly received apology videos, we have to mention Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis. In 2023, the couple's That '70s Show costar, Danny Masterson, was found guilty of sexual assault and sentenced to 30 years to life in prison. Fans were shocked and disappointed to learn that Kutcher and Kunis, longtime friends of Masterson, had written letters to the judge in his case asking for leniency for the disgraced actor.

Chris Weeks / Getty ImagesAfter the backlash, Kutcher and Kunis apologized in an Instagram video. They said that they wrote the letters after Masterson's family asked them to, saying the letters "were intended for the judge to read and not to undermine the testimony of the victims or retraumatize them in any way." They stated they would never want to do such a thing and were sorry it had taken place, before saying they supported victims of sexual assault and abuse. However, the apology video only served to further anger fans, as it failed to excuse their actions and displayed a lack of care for the victims. Kutcher and Kunis still have careers, but public opinion has undergone a real shift. Today, it's hard to think of the two without remembering the scandal.

Ashton Kutcher / Instagram / Viayoutube.com8. Though the GOAT of bad apologies is probably Colleen Ballinger's tongue-in-cheek ukulele apology. Ballinger skyrocketed to fame in the late 2000s through her alter ego, Miranda Sings, who would confidently and badly sing popular songs with lipstick smeared above her top lip. She was able to foray this into a Netflix special and show, and she was successful for over a decade — until allegations came out that she'd put underage fans in exploitative positions and engaged with them in inappropriate ways. Brands began to pull ads from Ballinger's projects as public backlash increased, but the nail in the coffin for Ballinger was her "apology" video...which was in song.

Colleen Vlogs / Viayoutube.com

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She began, "Even though my team has strongly advised me to not say what I want to say, I recently realized that they never said that I couldn't sing what I want to say, so..." then began playing the ukulele while singing about the allegations. Ballinger denied being a groomer, singing that she'd overshared and made jokes in poor taste, but that she hadn't been creepy. She also said that her content has always been labeled PG-13 and that she's relied on parents to decide if it's appropriate for their kids to attend her shows or watch her content. The video — in particular, the fact that it was in song — was widely mocked, and basically killed her career.

Colleen Vlogs / Viayoutube.com9. Social media star Sienna Mae Gomez also came under fire for a cringeworthy apology. Rumors that she had groped fellow YouTuber and collaborator Jack Wright began to swirl in 2021 after cryptic tweets and deleted allegations from his friends. A video purportedly containing one of the instances of assault was then posted on TikTok before being removed, showing a woman (the poster claimed it was Gomez) kissing what seemed to be a drunk/passed out Wright with her hand on his crotch. Gomez denied the allegations against her, claiming the video was edited and that A) Wright was not unconscious, B) he kissed her back, C) it was normal for them to kiss at the time, and D) that her hand was not on his crotch, but his thigh.

Jon Kopaloff / Getty ImagesGomez lost hundreds of thousands of followers amid the controversy and took a short break from social media, returning in July 2021. Her since-deleted return video stated she'd taken a month off due to "the negativity surrounding" her platform. In a series of extreme closeups of Gomez in her underwear, she stated that she uses social media to inspire others and preach self-love. She then performed an interpretive dance to Sam Smith's "Young." While the video doesn't contain an apology or even directly address the allegations, it became known as the infamous dance apology video, and Gomez was the subject of mockery.

penguinz0 / Sienna Mae / Viayoutube.comGomez was eventually officially accused of having sexually assaulted Wright when Wright himself posted a video addressing the allegations. Gomez continued to deny the claims and said she had never, ever inappropriately touched him, adding he'd taken things out of context in his video. She did apologize for ever having made Wright uncomfortable, but said she did so unknowingly.

Jack Wright / chileanskz / Viayoutube.comMae is still around; she currently has 12.7 million followers on TikTok and runs a bathing suit brand, so her career is far from dead. But people continue to bring up her dance video online, particularly when remembering Ballinger's similarly poorly received apology.

siennamaegomez / Viatiktok.com10. While it's hard to pin down any one moment that tanked Kanye's career — and it's looking like Ye will always have some level of fandom and support — his antisemitic tweets have arguably caused the most material loss. In 2022, Ye was suspended from Instagram after posting a photo of a text conversation with Diddy, in which he accused the rapper of only contacting him (about a "white lives matter" shirt in his fashion collection) because Jewish people made him. He then tweeted that he was going "death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE" and was suspended from Twitter, too.

Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images for The Recording AcademyIn the wake of the controversy, Ye was dropped by his talent agencies, CAA and 33 & West. Adidas, Foot Locker, JP Morgan bank, and Balenciaga canceled partnerships with Ye or otherwise dropped him and his brands. Ye apologized in 2023, then again earlier this year after reigniting controversy with his 2025 song "Heil Hitler" and swastika T-shirts. With all the back-and-forth, it seems unlikely his rep will ever recover, though he still has a career as of now. He released his 12th studio album, Bully, in March, and it was moderately successful and well-received, though reviews found it hard to evaluate the album outside of Ye's controversies.

Ramon VAN FLYMEN / ANP / AFP via Getty Images) / Netherlands OUTHowever, it was also his first solo album in 20 years not to go to #1. He also held a handful of successful concerts this year, though others were canceled due to backlash. I guess time will tell if Ye can ever turn it around, or if his rep will continue to decline.

Mark Case / Getty Images11. While CeeLo Green's career tanked not due to social media comments, but allegations of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman, he didn't help matters by tweeting about the case in 2012. He wrote: "If someone is passed out they're not even WITH you consciously! so WITH Implies consent" and "People who have really been raped REMEMBER!!!" Rape charges were ultimately not filed due to a lack of evidence, and his charges were reduced to supplying ecstasy to the woman.

Paras Griffin / Getty Images

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Green later apologized, calling his tweets "highly irresponsible." Still...there's really no coming back from such terrible comments, particularly coupled with those allegations. Green is still around today, but his career is a ghost of what it once was for the former chart-topper.

Vito Amati / The David Foster Foundation via Getty Images12. YouTuber Brooke Houts, who had over 300,000 subscribers at the time, caused backlash after "pranking" her dog in a video posted on her page. The prank involved putting cling wrap on the ground and seeing how her dog reacted to running over it. But before she could get to the prank, the video shows her hitting, pushing, and spitting on her Doberman. It seems Houts accidentally uploaded the unedited edition of the video instead of the edited version.

Brooke Houts / Inside Edition / Viayoutube.comThe video, which was quickly removed, caused outrage on social media and led to Houts being investigated for animal cruelty by the LAPD (though they did not file charges). She's largely disappeared from social media in the years since.

Brooke Houts / ABC7 / Viayoutube.com13. Myka and James Stauffer also ended their career with a single video. The two were popular family vloggers who frequently posted about parenting their four children on YouTube. Then, in 2017, the parents adopted then-2-year-old Huxley from China. They documented the difficulties of this process, as well as Huxley being diagnosed with autism post-adoption. Then, in 2020, Huxley began to disappear from their videos. They then posted a long video saying he had been "rehomed."

Stauffer Life / YouTube / ET / Viayoutube.comThe backlash was strong and swift, with several brands cutting ties with the Stauffers. They deleted their YouTube channel, and Myka has not posted on Instagram since her apology. James currently runs a car detailing account.

stauffergarage / Instagram / Viainstagram.com14. While YouTuber JayStation's content had always been controversial (usually involving him entering locations after hours and trying to get out without triggering alarms), he reached a new low when he was accused of faking the death of his girlfriend, Alexia Marano. While this ruse actually continued over multiple videos about her "death," perhaps the most infamous was one where JayStation (real name: Jason Ethier) attempted to contact her using an Ouija board.

Alexia ASMR / Viayoutube.comEthier soon admitted the whole thing was a lie, claiming Marano was in on it but that she'd since left him. Marano then spoke out and said she hadn't wanted to go through with it, but that she was afraid of Ethier, whom she called controlling. Ethier claimed Marano was trying to ruin his life with false accusations about an assault weapon. Ethier's career took a massive hit, and his YouTube accounts were later suspended, which marked the end of his YouTube career.

JayStation / YouTube / Viayoutube.com15. Beauty guru and YouTuber James Charles's career was similarly riddled with controversy from the beginning, but one video in particular led to his downfall. This was actually not Charles's video, but one posted by fellow YouTuber Tati Westbrook. The 2019 video, titled simply "Bye, Sister," quickly became infamous in the beauty community. It featured Westbook detailing the breakdown of her friendship with Charles, and notably accused Charles of being sexually manipulative, which Charles denied in a response video. The conversation around Charles led to model Gage Gomez accusing him of pressuring him into sexual situations later that month.

Tati Westbrook / Viax.comCharles responded on Twitter and said anything that had gone down between him and Gomez was consensual and that they'd been talking for many months prior. Things were quiet for a bit, and Charles continued his career, so the video didn't directly lead to his cancellation. Still, the video's controversy sparked a conversation about Charles that, in hindsight, seems like the first domino to fall in his eventual downfall. In 2021, Charles was also accused of grooming an underage boy and sending explicit photos on Snapchat. Charles did not deny the messages between the two but did deny knowing the boy's age was 16. Three more boys came forward claiming inappropriate behavior from Charles, and Charles was fired as the host of Instant Influencer.

Steve Granitz / FilmMagic via Getty ImagesCharles apologized to two victims and said he was unaware of the power dynamics at play while messaging them, but denied other allegations. Morphe then cut ties with Charles (though Charles's team stated they requested this), and YouTube temporarily demonetized his videos. He lost up to millions, and his younger brother stopped speaking to him. He attempted a comeback, launching the makeup brand Painted. He still regularly posts YouTube videos, but they receive vastly fewer views than in the past. In 2021, he surpassed the infamous Jeffree Star as the most disliked beauty YouTuber.

James Charles / YouTube / Viayoutube.com16. Old YouTube videos can also come back to haunt creators. Shane Dawson was one of the first major YouTube stars back in the 2000s. After a decade of success, in the 2010s, some of his older videos began to resurface, with fans accusing him of racism and pointing to jokes he had made about pedophilia and animal abuse. He apologized in June 2020, but the damage was done, especially after he was accused of sexualizing Willow Smith as a minor. Target pulled his books from circulation, and YouTube temporarily demonetized Dawson's videos.

shane / Viayoutube.comDawson then took a long break from YouTube but returned in late 2021, though his videos were less successful than they had been previously. Dawson continues to be a controversial figure, and his popularity is nowhere near where it used to be.

John Lamparski / Getty Images

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17. Swedish streamer and YouTuber PewDiePie became wildly popular in the 2010s for his video-game-related content and vlogging. He had made several controversial jokes, comments, and videos over the years, but the real backlash came when he posted a video in which he hired two men through Fiverr to hold a sign saying, "Death to all Jews." This led outlets to do a deeper dive into PewDiePie's videos, where they found further antisemitic imagery and jokes. The backlash was intense: His YouTube Red show, Scare PewDiePie, was canceled, and Disney cut ties with him. Google Preferred also cut him from their advertising program.

J. Countess / Getty ImagesHe later moved to Japan, where he continues to post videos. However, he is not quite as successful as he once was, and he was surpassed as the most subscribed-to channel on YouTube.

Karwai Tang / Getty Images18. It seems impossible to think Logan Paul was ever not one of the most hated YouTube stars, but back in the 2010s, he still had a lot of fans. His first significant backlash came in 2017 when he posted a video titled, "We found a dead body in the Japanese Suicide Forest," which literally featured a corpse. The video garnered widespread backlash, and YouTube took Paul off its Google Preferred ad tier. Paul took a three-week break from YouTube and then apologized, donating $1 million to suicide prevention. However, he soon posted videos involving tasering dead rats and giving "CPR" to a koi fish, and YouTube pulled all ads from his videos.

Tara Ziemba / Getty ImagesThis scandal essentially ended Paul's career as one of YouTube's biggest daily vloggers. In the six months before the scandal, his daily vlogs generated roughly 2.55 billion views, but over the ensuing five months post-scandal, that fell to about 630 million. Advertisers had fled, and YouTube cut him out of several premium programs and projects. Paul, of course, has been very successful since then as a wrestler and in the food and beverage business, but his YouTube career was never the same. He's also one of the most widely hated celebrities.

John Nacion / Getty Images for Fanatics19. Shock jock Anthony Cumia had a cushy, longtime gig co-hosting the Opie and Anthony radio show until 2014, when he claimed on Twitter that a Black woman had punched him in Times Square, writing, "She's lucky I was a white legal gun owner or she'd be dead." He continued to rant on Twitter throughout the night, using the c-slur and other offensive language and writing, "The switch to violence is immediate. No discussion, just violence. When will THAT be addressed? Oh, right, never. Slavery did it? Oh, ok." His comments were widely condemned, and the SiriusXM show dropped him, with a spokesperson for the company calling the tweets "abhorrent."

Cindy Ord / Getty Images for SiriusXMCumia made things worse by refusing to apologize, defending his words, and lambasting the satellite radio giant's decision to fire him. "Sirius decided to cave and fire me. Welcome to bizarre world. Fired for s - - - that wasn't even on the air & wasn't illegal," he wrote on Twitter. In the wake of his ousting, Cumia created his own subscription-based podcast platform and produced his own show there. Cumia's career continued via this and other right-leaning platforms and stations, but it's safe to say his appeal is far less widespread than before.

Mike Coppola / FilmMagic via Getty Images20. Actor-comedian Gilbert Gottfried, who millennials may know as the voice of Iago in Aladdin,drew intense backlash for his insensitive jokes about the 2011 tsunami in Japan. After the disaster, which killed over 3,000, Gottfried tweeted no less than 12 jokes, including, "I just split up with my girlfriend, but like the Japanese say, 'They’ll be another one floating by any minute now.'" The backlash was swift, and Gottfried was fired from one of his most lucrative gigs: voicing the Aflac duck. (Aflac does a lot of business in Japan.) His career continued until his 2022 death, but the Aflac gig was a big loss.

Frazer Harrison / Getty Images21. Celebs posted a lot of head-scratching things during lockdown, but one of the worst has to be Vanessa Hudgens's video saying she "respects" coronavirus and that "Like yeah, people are going to die, which is terrible...but inevitable?" The video was widely mocked, and Hudgens was branded out of touch and insensitive. While this didn't end Hudgens's career, it still caused pretty intense backlash and is now inextricable from any discussions of Hudgens.

vanessahudgens / ViaInstagram: @https://www.instagram.com/vanessahudgens/?hl=en22. But one of the most embarrassing COVID-related examples is this infamous tweet from Nicki Minaj, who wrote, "My cousin in Trinidad won't get the vaccine cuz his friend got it & became impotent. His testicles became swollen. His friend was weeks away from getting married, now the girl called off the wedding. So just pray on it & make sure you're comfortable with ur decision, not bullied." She later recommended getting vaccinated and mask-wearing, but was still slammed for her wild claim.

Alexander Tamargo / Getty ImagesLooking back, this marked a turning point for the rapper, who has moved increasingly to the right since the nonsensical claim. She recently supported President Trump, a move that has lost the once-unstoppable performer legions of fans. Her marriage to convicted rapist Kenneth Petty doesn't help.

Win McNamee / Getty Images23. And finally, we have to talk about Lana Del Rey's "Question for the culture." In 2020, Del Rey posted a lengthy statement on Instagram, calling out artists like Cardi B, Doja Cat, and Kehlani for sexually explicit music and asking why she got so much backlash for "glamorizing abuse" when she was just a "glamorous person singing about the realities of what we are all now seeing are very prevalent emotionally abusive relationships all around the world." While imo, she made some good points in the full statement, her name-dropping of almost entirely BIPOC artists and then saying, "There has to be a place in feminism for women who look and act like me," led to some pretty intense backlash. While Del Rey is still popular, she's not quite at the heights of her heyday, and her post became infamous.

Theo Wargo / Getty ImagesDid these celebs deserve to have their career go down the drain after these terrible posts? Let us know what you think in the comments below!

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