When Famous Men Are Caught Saying Gross Things on Tape

If you had also stopped to read the words on the covers of these tabloids, though, you'd have been reminded that there's a trade-off. Remember all the guys who have smashed paparazzi lenses and ended up in court? Bill Murray says that, if you think you want to be rich and famous, "Try being rich first. See if that doesn't cover most of it… When you become famous, you end up with a 24-hour job." Ben Bernanke, the former chairman of the Fed, Time's 2009 Person of the Year, and one of the few living men to been played by Paul Giamatti, agrees: "If you get to choose between being rich or famous, I would vote for rich."

The problem with fame is that everything a celebrity does is of interest, and every action could be their undoing. If a civilian is mean to his ex-wife or says something racist, a few people will think he's an asshole; if a celebrity does the same thing, millions of people will care.

It's not surprising that famous men are often heinous, but it's a little strange that they keep putting themselves in situations where they prove it on record. This weekend, audio emerged of Donald Trump bragging to Billy Bush about sexually assaulting women. "When you're a star, they let you do it… Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything." The shock isn't so much that Trump could be a sexual predator—that's been well-documented—but that a seasoned reality star would be so brazen on a hot mic. The first lesson of wearing a mic is that the mic is always on.

Of course, Trump is hardly the first guy to be destroyed by audio. In 2014, LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling was caught on tape telling his girlfriend that she can sleep with black people at his house, but not to bring them to Clippers games or post "lousy" pictures with them on Instagram. After protests and widespread outrage, Sterling sold the team. He is now banned from the NBA for life.

Racism is a common theme in leaked audio tapes. In 2010, Mel Gibson, who has been caught saying horrible things on tape a number of times, was heard yelling at his girlfriend that she resembles a "fucking pig in heat" and would be "raped by a pack of niggers." Last year, Hulk Hogan, whose leaked audio tape was overshadowed by his sex tape (and the ensuing Gawker trial), was caught talking about his daughter dating black men, saying, "I'm a racist to a point, y'know, fucking niggers," in a conversation that took place in 2007. Hogan was fired from the WWE in the scandal that followed.

Then there's Richard Nixon, the grandaddy of secret audio. The former president set up a voice-activated taping system in the White House's Cabinet Room and the Oval Office and, from 1971 to 1973, recorded more than 3000 hours of audio—the man had more homemade tape recordings than a Grateful Dead convention. These would prove instrumental in his downfall. Alongside conversations about football, foreign policy, and "the Jews," the tapes revealed Nixon's role in the Watergate break-in. When parts of the tapes were subpoenaed and released during the Watergate investigation, Nixon lost his remaining political support and resigned.

With Nixon and Trump, the newsworthiness of the tapes is clear, but in the other instances, the lines are less obvious. (The legality of the various leaks is another question; some states require that both parties be aware a recording is made, but others require only one.) We know the public loves watching the immolation of a "bad" person's career, but don't even celebrities deserve privacy sometimes? In Donald Sterling's case, for example, people like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Joyce Carol Oates, and ethics professor Al Tompkins wondered if he was being unfairly punished for a private utterance. Similarly, when the public heard a voicemail featuring Alec Baldwin calling his 11-year-old daughter a "rude, thoughtless little pig," many felt that his feelings as a frustrated parent were understandable, even if his words were awful. (While Baldwin has a reputation for offensive outbursts, the audio was part of a sealed court record and leaked during a bitter custody battle between Baldwin and his ex-wife Kim Basinger.)

Are we approaching a privacy-free dystopia? Probably. Decades of technology have made it almost effortless to record, archive, and reproduce everything someone says; scandals involving leaked audio (and video, and text) will only become more common. At this point, the best way to prevent yourself from appearing at the center of such a controversy is to avoid saying and doing despicable things in the first place.