6 Actors Whose Careers Were Destroyed

You see it all the time - an actor seems set up to be the next big thing. Maybe they're already an established star, but they're on the precipice of becoming a major leading actor. Maybe they're transitioning from teen films or rom-coms to Oscar bait, or transitioning from TV to film. Or maybe they're in their very first major role, with Hollywood just starting to take notice of them. Everything they want seems at their fingertips - and then they fall.
Here are 6 stars that fell fast, and fell hard - going from having the world as their oyster, to no prospects at all, at least for a while.
Percy Hynes White seemed poised to become a new Hollywood It Boy after his role in the über-popular Wednesday alongside Jenna Ortega. However, in January, Hynes White was accused of sexual assault in Toronto by a woman who claimed he'd throw parties with his friends where he gave drugs and alcohol to minors to get them to have sex with him.
Emile Hirsch seemed like he was going to be the next big thing after starring in Into the Wild. Afterwards, his career was a bit more shaky - he had several starring roles, but not all were successes. Still, there seemed no reason he would not continue to become an even bigger star until he assaulted a female Paramount executive at Sundance in 2015. The executive told police Hirsch "choked me up, threw me across the table, and I felt the front of my throat hit the back of my throat," calling the attack "insanely painful and absolutely terrifying.
As the star of Lost, Matthew Fox became a major Hollywood player in the late 2000s. After the show ended in 2010, Fox said he was "done with television," and started appearing in more film roles - including being cast in World War Z with Brad Pitt in 2011. It seemed like he might successfully make the switch from TV star to movie star...but in that same year, his career hit a setback when he was accused of assaulting a bus driver (the lawsuit was later dropped). The next year, he was arrested for driving under the influence, and Lost costar Dominic Monaghan also claimed in a tweet, "He beats women. Not isolated incidents. Often.
Jussie Smollett was one of the breakout stars of Empire, and when he made headlines in early 2019 for experiencing a hate crime in Chicago, his support seemed at an all-time high. Except then police investigators determined Smollett had actually staged the attack, releasing the two men accused of attacking Smollett. He was then fired from Empire, which was in its fifth season.
Charges were filed against Smolett for making a false police report and wasting police resources. A 2021 trial found him guilty of five out of the six counts he'd been charged with, and he was sentenced to 150 days in county jail. He was released on bond after just six days and later made a return to Hollywood in B-Boy Blues, this time behind the camera. He has no acting projects lined up.
Making the jump from soap operas to other TV isn't easy, but Hartley Sawyer seemed in the clear after becoming a fan favorite on The Flash. However, he was fired from the show in 2020 after his old racist, misogynistic, and homophobic 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.
Sawyer 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.” However, the damage was done, and he has no upcoming projects.
As stated on his website, Cas Anvar's career "skyrocketed" when he began starring on the series The Expanse. This success led to a recurring role on How to Get Away With Murder, setting up Anvar for continued Hollywood success...until he was accused of harassment and sexual misconduct in 2020, and fired from The Expanse (Anvar has denied the claims). His website shows no updates since then, and his only roles have been in a single episode of FBI: International and in a Lifetime movie.

[@jaygarcia8508]

More like ruined their own careers 😬😬

[@saltydog7038]

What is the point of this? They were all so random and there is no context given for why these people were chosen or the situations they were involved in