Continuing in our weeklong listicle funtime, we give you our top five most notable celeb endorsement fallouts from the ’00s. Whether it be due to massive infidelity, a hit from the bong, a few bumps or plain old blowhard crying, it’s time to take a quick look back at how some of the mighty have fallen.
1. Tiger Woods
Considering the amount of coverage from all sorts of media (including 19 straight days of NY Post cover stories–beating 9/11!?), it’s hard to imagine that it’s been just over a month since Tiger took a tumble. While Accenture made its point about dropping the world’s #1 golfer from its roster, brands like TAG Heuer and Gatorade have wavered on their billion-dollar endorser. Nike, meanwhile, seems to be the only one that’s firmly standing by Woods during this whole fiasco. Somewhere, Phil Mickelson is smiling.
2. Glenn Beck
Fox News showed its imbalanced side thanks to liberty-loving Glenn Beck, whose tear-laden discourse about losing the country served as a catalyst for a mass sponsorship drop-off this fall. Everyone from Geico to P&G to SC Johnson pulled ads from the show after the host among other things called President Obama a racist. At least he can still hawk Goldline International without coming under scrutiny..oh wait.
3. Michael Phelps
The swimmer with 14 gold medals to his name is probably wishing they never implemented cameras on mobile phones as Michael Phelps’ toke took a toll on his alliance with brands like Subway and Kellogg’s. We’ll leave the Weedies jokes to you.
4. Dell Dude
Enfatico troubles aside (here, here and here for example), Dell made news when it dropped its slacker-y “Dell Dude” from its ad campaigns in 2003 after dude–aka Ben Curtis–was caught trying to buy a bag of weed in NYC. Thankfully, he had a second career to fall back on.
5. Kate Moss
Supermodel, George Parker muse and one-time Johnny Depp flame Kate Moss took a spill off the runway after pretending like she was in Studio 54 in 2005. The beauty was pictured taking some yayo in a recording studio with her then-boyfriend and pillar of the community Pete Doherty. Subsequently, H&M, Chanel, and Burberry all told Moss you’re out. But after a stint in rehab, the model’s experienced a glorious turnaround as Burberry was once again knocking on her door as well as Calvin Klein, Dior, David Yurman and Louis Vuitton.
Honorable mention of course has to go to Jersey Shore, which has lost Dell and Domino’s as major advertisers (and probably more as the days progress).
H/T to The Good Drugs Guide for some info.
More: “Could Tiger’s Ride Through the Woods Hurt Sponsorships?”