Trending badgeTrendingPosted 1 hour agoSubscribe to BuzzFeed Daily NewsletterCaret Down"Murdered Her Career": People Are Sharing The "Celebrity Downfalls" They Think Were Totally Undeserved, And Some Of These Are Devastating"They hunted her like an animal, and she absolutely deserved none of it."by Ellen DurneyBuzzFeed StaffFacebookPinterestLink Cancel culture in Hollywood can be particularly brutal, and in many cases, the downfall is entirely deserved. However there have been some instances where celebrities have become entangled in situations that, in retrospect, may have unfairly derailed their lives. Over on Reddit, the people of the internet were asked: "What celebrity downfall did you actually feel bad for?" and I've compiled the most popular responses below. Some of these stars have since had comebacks, although that's not the case for everyone. As we get into this, I also want to hear your examples, so please use the comments section to share which celebrity downfalls you think were especially sad or undeserved. Note: Some of the text has been edited for clarity and length. 1. Britney Spears - "She was having a mental breakdown, and the whole world was beating her further down at the time. It was sad to watch." Chris Wolf / Getty Images, Anthony Harvey / Getty Images -inabitofatizzy "Her whole situation in the 2000s was rough to watch, especially knowing how young she was and how the media hounded her." Kevin Mazur / Getty Images -Designer-Fan-5857 "They hunted her like an animal, and she absolutely deserved none of it." John Parra / Getty Images -Ilovethe90sforreal 2. Sinead O'Connor - "She knew she was right and got lambasted for [ripping up a photograph of Pope John Paul II on SNL in an act of protest against child abuse in the Catholic Church in 1992]." NBC, Evan Agostini / Getty Images -nownowthethetalktalk "I remember watching the SNL episode live when I was a kid. Everyone in my life at the time just couldn't stop talking about how terrible she was for ripping up the Pope's picture - and honestly, my parents are very progressive and always have been. It really is wild to look back on that time and realize that everyone was wrong, and Sinead was brave as heck." Mirrorpix / Getty Images -Flintstones_VRV_Fan "To think she was practically blacklisted over that and then years later the child predator case became a hot topic." Scott Gries / Getty Images -LovemeSomeMedia 3. Brendan Fraser - "100% Brendan Fraser. He was sexually assaulted, tried to bring it to light, and Hollywood cast him out for it. Couldn't get acting roles for many years. The person who assaulted him was a Hollywood executive." Vera Anderson / Getty Images, Jeff Kravitz / Getty Images -No_Bedroom_5906 "Used and abused by Hollywood through the '90s, sexually assaulted, tossed him aside." Steve Granitz / Getty Images -Czarcasm1776 "He also got a back injury that caused him to gain weight, and everyone treated him like trash over that, too!" Bauer-griffin / Getty Images -AMissKathyNewman 4. Monica Lewinsky - "A very young woman was taken advantage of by a much older and extremely powerful man." New York Daily News Archive / Getty Images, Jc Olivera / Getty Images -KayakerMel "Not to be too crude here, but the most powerful man in the world exploited her for months of non-reciprocal blowjobs in her early 20s when he was over twice her age and then promptly discarded her, and she was made to be the villain in all this." Mark Wilson / Getty Images -ImperialBoomerang "Was she old enough to know what she was doing? Yes, to a degree, but once you're in a relationship with the president of the United States, it's pretty hard to think clearly and act accordingly. And then to have essentially the entire world turn on you." Getty Images / Getty Images -Slade_Riprock 5. Pee-wee Herman/Paul Reubens - "Punished for being a weirdo...
Glad his career recovered somewhat before his untimely death." Kypros / Getty Images, D Dipasupil / Getty Images -Vampira309 "While his career and public perception improved somewhat, he never fully recovered on an emotional level. It was absolutely heartbreaking to hear that recording of him just a day before his passing, that he was still suffering from the public ridicule and had never been able to fully move past it." Alli Harvey / Getty Images -Ffftphhfft 6. Rose McGowan - "She went from Everywhere It Girl to blacklisted for being just a little too loud about Harvey Weinstein." Noam Galai / Getty Images, Barry Brecheisen / Getty Images -CassandraVonGonWrong 7. George Michael - "The hysteria of the arrest of George Michael from the bathroom incident in which he was arrested for a lewd act in '98 was awful." John Chapple / Getty Images, Sean Gallup / Getty Images -GawkerRefugee "George Michael's career and personal life saw a significant decline, leading to a bunch of legal and drug-related arrests. As someone also queer, it pained me to see him forced to come out publicly. He later described how deeply painful thi