When we have a music industry worth $16 billion, a movie industry worth $35 billion, and a video game industry worth $70 billion, it's pretty obvious that we crave entertainment. But as the supermarket tabloids and articles swirling around the internet prove, we also crave a different kind of entertainment from our celebrities. We want to know they're human. But even more than that, we want to know all the dark and juicy secrets in their lives.
To continue on in our 'People That Make Questionable Choices' series, here are 4 entertainers who made some questionable choices.
1. John Wilkes Booth
So most everyone reading this probably already knows that John Wilkes Booth shot and killed Abraham Lincoln (gasp!). But did you know that Booth was from an acting family and was once considered one of the best and most handsome actors in America? Weird right?
Booth's acting career was the entire reason he was able to get past security in the first place. He told the guards that he just wanted to say 'hi' to President Lincoln. If you wanted to think about it more modern terms, it'd be like finding out that George Clooney shot the President after meeting him at a movie premiere.
2. Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt was a French actress working at the same time as Booth, though she never shot a politician. She was more eccentric than anything and was so from a young age. As a child raised in a convent, she wanted to be a nun, but that fell through when she gave a sacrilegious possession and burial to her pet lizard.
All in all, her questionable choices lead her to relative success and an interesting life. A very successful and talented actress, her temper would get her into such trouble that she was known to break umbrellas over heads and slap other actresses in the company. She had an affair and a son by a Danish prince, worked as a courtesan, volunteered as a nurse in the Franco-Prussian war, and when her leg had to be removed, she insisted to be carried around on a palanquin everywhere she went!
3. Richard Archer Prince
A small-time actor from Scotland, Prince only became really well known after making a few bad decisions in his personal life. Known as the "Mad Archer," his instability and alcoholism gave him trouble when trying to find work, even with the help of renowned actor William Terriss.
Eventually, Prince came to the conclusion that Terriss wasn't helping him get work, but was keeping him from it, and stabbed the actor to death after a performance. He was never convicted of the murder by way of mental instability (his mother even testified to this) and spent the rest of his life entertaining the other inmates in the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum.
4. Spade Cooley
So Cooley has the distinction of making all of the right decisions until he made one really, really bad one. Known as the King of Western Swing, his fiddle playing and singing threw him into stardom both in music and television. He really had it all.
Cooley's really bad decision came when his wife, Ella Mae, asked him for a divorce after both parties discovered that their spouse had been unfaithful. The music star proceeded to beat his wife to death in front of their teenage daughter. Cooley then tells authorities that the multitude of striking wounds and cigarette burns were from falling in the shower...yeah.