20 Historical Figures Who Were Admired Before the Truth Came to Light

Disney’s public image was so deeply rooted in human warmth and unwavering American optimism that it became almost impossible to separate the man from the brand. He was also an FBI informant who denounced colleagues as suspected communists, cooperated enthusiastically with the House Un-American Activities Committee, and used his studio to break a strike in 1941.

Chanel built one of the most enduring fashion empires in history and became a global symbol of women’s independence. She also collaborated with the Nazis during the German occupation of Paris and attempted to use an obscure Nazi law to strip her Jewish partners of their shares in her perfume company.

Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight in 1927 made him, almost overnight, the most famous man in the world, and he was regarded as a symbol of American ingenuity until the end of his life. He was also a eugenicist who accepted a medal from Hermann Göring.

Kennedy’s presidency was brief enough that his image largely survived it, and his assassination prevented that myth from ever being called into question. What came to light in the decades that followed included a medical history far more serious than what had been disclosed to the public, a series of extramarital affairs that the press was aware of but had not reported, and ties to organized crime that complicated the administration’s official stance on law enforcement.

Hoover headed the FBI for nearly fifty years and presented himself as a relentless professional who kept politics out of law enforcement. Declassified documents have revealed that he kept secret files on presidents, blackmailed politicians, conducted illegal surveillance operations, and devoted significant resources to the personal destruction of Martin Luther King Jr.—all while serving until his death in 1972 without ever being held accountable.

Baker was a true pioneer who forged an extraordinary career in France, became a civil rights advocate, and was hailed as a heroine of the French Resistance. What subsequently emerged from her children’s accounts was a portrait of a family plagued by serious dysfunction and psychological abuse—a family that bore little resemblance to the image of a large, loving family she had spent years presenting to the public.

For decades, Cosby held a place in American culture that made him virtually untouchable: a beloved comedian and a leading advocate for personal responsibility within Black communities. More than sixty women eventually came forward with allegations of sexual assault spanning several decades, and in 2018, he was convicted, although that conviction was later overturned on procedural grounds.

Sheen was a Catholic archbishop who, in the 1950s, hosted a prime-time television show that attracted 30 million viewers each week, earned him an Emmy Award, and made him one of the best-known religious figures in the United States. The Vatican opened a canonization process on his behalf, but it stalled due to accusations from a former nun who claimed he had taken credit for her work, as well as testimonies from people who had known him and who contradicted the warm image he projected on screen.

Dahl’s public image was that of a slightly eccentric creative genius whose dark imagination had enchanted generations of children. He also expressed openly anti-Semitic views in interviews as late as the 1980s and 1990s, making remarks that were reported at the time but largely ignored until the Roald Dahl Story Company issued an official apology in 2020.

Her image as a selfless servant of the dying poor in Calcutta was one of the most striking humanitarian symbols of the 20th century, carefully cultivated through media relations and a well-planned public presence. Investigations revealed that living conditions in her shelters fell far short of what her donations could have provided, and that her theology led her to view suffering as a spiritual value rather than something to be alleviated.

Reagan’s image as an optimistic leader of integrity, who restored Americans’ confidence, lies at the heart of how a significant portion of the country still views his presidency today. The Iran-Contra affair did not cause as much lasting damage as the scale of the operation might have led one to fear, and his administration’s public silence during the early years of the AIDS crisis—while tens of thousands of Americans were dying—remains a chapter that his official legacy has never fully addressed.

Armstrong won seven Tour de France titles while running one of the most sophisticated doping programs in sports history, and for years, he sued and publicly discredited anyone who dared to allege it. The moral authority he had built up through his cancer survival and the Livestrong Foundation made these accusations seem scandalous rather than credible, which in part allowed the charade to continue until he confessed everything to Oprah Winfrey in 2013.

Picasso’s reputation as an indispensable genius of 20th-century art has proven remarkably enduring over decades of critical reevaluation. Accounts from the women who shared his life paint a picture of a psychologically cruel and domineering man—traits that his biographers have generally regarded as interesting aspects of his personality rather than serious flaws; yet two of the women with whom he had relationships took their own lives.

Crosby was the most commercially successful artist of the first half of the 20th century; his presence was so pervasive and reassuring that he became almost synonymous with American decency. His son Gary’s memoir, published in 1983, describes a childhood marked by physical violence and emotional coldness—a far cry from the warm image of the pipe-smoking man that Crosby had strived to project throughout his career.

Von Braun is considered the architect of the U.S. space program, the engineer who designed the Saturn V rocket and made it possible for humans to go to the Moon. Previously, he had developed the V-2 rocket for Nazi Germany using forced labor at the Mittelwerk factory, where thousands of concentration camp prisoners died, and the U.S. government was aware of this when it brought him to the United States as part of Operation Paperclip.

Steve Jobs was considered a creative genius—the kind you see only once in a generation—who was able to bend entire industries to his vision; the legend surrounding him was so powerful that his health problems were viewed as a matter of national interest. Accounts from those who worked with him, however, describe a person who was often cruel to his employees.

Waldheim served as Secretary-General of the United Nations and later as President of Austria, and for most of that time, his wartime past was carefully kept under wraps. Investigations launched following his 1986 presidential campaign revealed that he had served as an intelligence officer in the Wehrmacht during periods when war crimes were committed.

Ponzi arrived in Boston with nothing, and within a few years, he had convinced thousands of investors that his arbitrage scheme based on postal reply coupons generated returns of fifty percent in ninety days, becoming a celebrity within the city’s Italian immigrant community and a symbol of what an outsider could achieve in America. The scheme collapsed in 1920 when a journalistic investigation revealed that there were nowhere near enough reply coupons to back up his claims, and the investors who had regarded him as a genius lost everything—or nearly everything.

For decades, Randi was one of the world’s most prominent skeptics, debunking psychics and presenting himself as a staunch defender of the truth against fraud. After his retirement, it emerged that his longtime partner had been living in the United States for years under a false identity—a fact that Randi knew but had not disclosed, even though he held himself to exceptionally strict standards when it came to deception.

Throughout the 1990s, Lay was hailed as a visionary leader in the energy sector who had transformed a regional natural gas pipeline company into a global giant, and Enron was held up as a model of what enlightened, deregulated capitalism could achieve. The company’s collapse in 2001 revealed that its financial statements had been systematically falsified for years.