29 TV Actors Who Ruined Their Career Overnight

1.

Matt Prokop had only appeared briefly in a few projects, such as Hannah Montana and The Office, before nabbing a role in High School Musical 3 .He seemed set to become a Disney Channel star afterward, starring in Geek Charming alongside Sarah Hyland and in an episode of Good Luck, Charlie. He also appeared on Sarah’s TV show, Modern Family; the two began a five-year-long relationship.

However, just weeks after their relationship ended in 2014, Hyland alleged abuse from Prokop, filing a temporary restraining order. Prokop quickly disappeared from the public eye and hasn’t been in a project since 2013. He returned to his hometown in Texas, and the only news from him since is an arrest a month ago for another alleged domestic violence incident.

2.

Michael Jace began acting in the ’90s and enjoyed a steady career in both film and TV, but his most notable role was in the TV show The Shield. After the show ended, he continued working — until he was arrested for murdering his wife, April Jace, in 2014. Michael, who turned himself in after the murder, is currently serving his sentence in a Californian prison…and thus is obviously no longer acting.

3.

After Noel Clarke got his big break in Doctor Who in 2005, he began a successful movie career. More recently, he transitioned back into TV, co-creating and co-starring in the series Bulletproof and executive producing and starring in the series Viewpoint. However, he was pulled from both (the former was canceled, and the latter did not air its finale on TV) after 20 women came forward with accusations of sexual harassment and bullying.

Clarke strongly denied all allegations but did say he planned to seek “professional help to educate myself and change for the better.” Later, he sued The Guardian (which published the allegations) for libel, with his lawyer claiming that the publication “chose to label [Clarke] as a sexual predator and accuse him of having acted improperly towards a large number of women in a sexual and criminal way over many years. This trial by media, conducted by the most read newspaper for people in the film and entertainment industry, led, unsurprisingly, to [Clarke] being ‘canceled’ in various ways.”

Clarke has yet to appear in a project since. He claimed ‘every existing or upcoming contract’ had been canceled, adding that he hadn’t “had one single work contract” since the publication of the accusations.

4.

Thomas Gibson had a long tenure on Criminal Minds, appearing in eleven seasons, but he was fired in 2016 after an altercation with a producer on set. He reportedly kicked the producer and verbally abused the cast and crew. In 2010, there had reportedly been another violent incident with an assistant director, after which he was required to attend anger management classes.

He has only been in two projects in the eight years since. One was a voice-only role, and neither was well-received or popular. This year, he performed in an off-Broadway play that largely flew under the radar. His only upcoming project is a short film he wrote with his son.

5.

Jay Johnston has been working in comedy since the ’90s, and up until 2021, he regularly appeared on TV projects, most notably Bob’s Burgers. However, he was fired from the show after he was arrested for participating in the January 6 Capitol Riot. He is set to plead guilty in his trial this week and has not appeared in a project since 2022’s Wing Dad, which only screened at the Santa Monica Film Festival.

6.

While Columbus Short got his start in choreography and film, he was most recently known as one of the stars of Scandal. However, he was fired from the series post-Season 3 after his wife, Tuere Short, alleged domestic abuse and claimed he had threatened her life during a fight. She filed a restraining order against him, and he was charged with misdemeanor spousal battery. He was also arrested that year for violence at an LA restaurant. Columbus pled no contest and was sentenced to perform community labor. His career did continue, but he’s since mostly appeared in smaller films released via VOD.

7.

Unlike many entries on this list, Chevy Chase still has had a career in the years following the controversy he attracted, but his legacy is significantly tarnished. Chase had a long career in comedy, but in recent history, he was best known as a star of Community. Then, in 2012, he left the hit comedy show. Reports claimed he’d used a racial slur on set, but Chase later claimed he’d left because he “honestly felt the show wasn’t funny enough.” According to costar Donald Glover, Chase often would make racist jokes to him on set or rib him with comments like “People think you’re funnier because you’re Black.”

The Community cast is set to return for a film sequel, but according to star Joel McHale, Chase is not “allowed” to appear in it. Chase has continued to work, but his biggest projects have been the Hot Tub Time Machine sequel and a cameo appearance in Vacation, both shortly after his time on Community. Most of his projects from the last ten years are voiceover roles or in TV/streaming films, and his career has significantly cooled.

8.

Drake Bell became a 2000s heartthrob after appearing in The Amanda Show and starring in Drake & Josh. While he was no A-List celebrity in the 2010s (and had multiple DUIs), several things occurred post-2020 that caused his career to fall into serious disrepute. First, he was accused of assault by former partner Melissa Lingafelt (allegations which he denied). Then, in 2021, Bell was arrested and charged with “attempted endangerment of a child and disseminating matter harmful to juveniles.”

The victim in the case claimed that Bell had groomed her from the age of 12 and then sexually assaulted her when she was 15. Bell was sentenced to two years of probation and 200 hours of community service. Since then, he has only performed in his own music videos, a few small animated projects (including briefly in Robot Chicken), and in Quiet on Set, where he spoke about the abuse he faced in his youth.

9.

Stephen Collins was best known for appearing as the beloved patriarch in 7th Heaven in the ’90s and 2000s. However, in 2014, he was exposed as having sexually abused multiple young girls between the ’70s and ’90s — which he admitted to People magazine. “Forty years ago, I did something terribly wrong that I deeply regret. I have been working to atone for it ever since,” he said, denying that he had done anything similar since. He was quickly fired from The Fosters and Ted 2 and has appeared in no projects since.

10.

Allison Mack from Smallville seemed poised to make a career for herself in the 2000s. However, she soon became heavily involved in the “personal development company” NXIVM, which was exposed as an MLM and cult in 2017. She was eventually arrested with charges of sex trafficking and forced labor after leading a sex cult within NXIVM that allegedly involved starving and branding women, essentially enslaving them.

She was released last year, shy of serving her complete three-year sentence, though it’s extremely unlikely she’ll make a return to acting. Mack hasn’t worked since 2015 except for a 2017 animated series she provided a voice for — but after her arrest, she was replaced, and her lines were re-recorded.

11.

In early 2021, Gina Carano posted a photo to social media comparing being a Republican to being a Jew during the Holocaust, which caused fans to dig up some other past problematic social media posts by The Mandalorian actor, including ones that denounced wearing face masks and claimed voter fraud in 2020.

She was quickly asked not to return to the Lucasfilm and Disney show, and plans were scrapped for her character to have her own show. “Her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable,” a representative for Lucasfilm said in a statement. She was also dropped by her agency.

Shortly after, Carano announced that she would develop, produce, and star in the film White Knuckle with conservative media company the Daily Wire. However, Carano later canceled the film because she refused to adhere to Hollywood’s masking policies. She decided to quit her union (presumably the Screen Actors Guild) and make a different movie in Montana. The film was released in 2022 to little fanfare, and it’s clear that Carano doesn’t have the budding career she once had. Carano also had a role in My Son Hunter, the far-right fictionalized portrayal of Hunter Biden’s foreign business deals.

12.

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 Smollett 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. His only acting project since has been a film he co-wrote, The Last Holliday, which premiered last month at the American Black Film Festival.

13.

Hartley Sawyer was fired from The Flash 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.

14.

Blake Jenner’s career began as a bit of a Cinderella story, winning The Glee Project and starring in the latter seasons of Glee. His career continued to grow from there, appearing in the critically acclaimed The Edge of Seventeen as well as Supergirl and a few other indie films, along with the Netflix series What/If. But then his ex-wife (and Glee and Supergirl costar) Melissa Benoist accused him of abuse (which Jenner admitted to, though he also accused Benoist of abuse).

His career largely ended in the wake of the allegations — he was replaced in Merrily We Roll Along with Paul Mescal, and in the last few years, he has only appeared in a TV movie, as a video game voice, and in the panned Bruce Willis/John Travolta film Paradise City, which was only released in select theaters and mostly available on streaming platforms. Jenner was also arrested for a DUI last year, to which he pled no contest.

15.

Roseanne Barr was fired from the Roseanne reboot after making an offensive and racist comment about Barack Obama’s adviser Valerie Jarrett, which ABC’s entertainment president, Channing Dungey, called “abhorrent, repugnant, and inconsistent with our values.”

The show was canceled and then came back as The Conners, with Roseanne’s character killed off. Barr’s career never recovered, though polarizing network Fox did give her a comedy special last year, which was not quite a critical darling.

16.

Another actor to go on a racist tirade that ruined his career was Michael Richards. After becoming a household name playing Kramer on Seinfeld, he reentered a successful career in stand-up comedy. But in 2006, at one of his shows, he went on a racist rant against audience members who were heckling him.

The video made the rounds online, and Richards stepped away from performing. He did apologize, but even his apology was mocked for being insincere. He later briefly appeared on Curb Your Enthusiasm with the rest of the Seinfeld cast, as well as in some other small roles. He then had a larger role in the 2013 sitcom Kirstie, but it was canceled after one season and did not succeed in relaunching his career. Since then, he has appeared in only one small film.

17.

Lori Loughlin, whose most notable role was Aunt Becky in Full House, was convicted of conspiracy to commit fraud in 2020 and served two months in jail for her part in the 2019 admissions scandal. In the scandal, wealthy parents paid bribes to get their children accepted into prestigious universities.

When she was first accused, she was fired from the Full House reboot Fuller House, as well as from When Calls the Heart. However, post-jail time, she did appear as her When Calls the Heart character in the show’s spinoff, When Hope Calls. She also appeared in two Christmas films last year and in an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm this year as herself. However, she has not returned to any roles of the same caliber as that of Fuller House.

18.

Felicity Huffman was similarly convicted for her role in the college scam, serving just 11 days in prison in 2019. She has struggled more than Loughlin to find roles since, as tabloid OK! reported. She did appear on one podcast episode, in one TV film, and in one episode of The Good Doctor last year.

19.

Bill Cosby was known and beloved as “America’s Dad” after a decades-long career in comedy and a starring role on The Cosby Show. However, in 2014, it came out that he had an equally long history of sexual assault.

Cosby was accused of dozens of counts of sexual assault, leading to his conviction and imprisonment in 2018. He was released in 2021 after his conviction was overturned — still, it remains unlikely that his career will ever recover.

He was subsequently fired from the show he was then appearing on, The Ranch, and his character, Rooster, was killed off. He was also dropped from his agency. Masterson denied the claims, pleading not guilty after his arrest. He was found guilty of two counts of forcible rape and is currently in prison.

21.

Chris Noth, best known for Sex and the City, appeared in its reboot, And Just Like That…, in 2021. However, as the show began airing, two women came forward claiming that Noth had sexually assaulted them.

Noth denied the claims, but the damage to his career was done. A $12 million deal to sell his tequila brand was canceled, he was fired from The Equalizer, and his Peloton commercial (inspired by his character’s fate in And Just Like That…) was pulled. The only thing he has appeared in since is a one-night reading of a play that he produced, directed, and starred in.

22.

Percy Hynes White seemed poised to become a new Hollywood It Boy after his role in the über-popular Wednesday alongside Jenna Ortega. However, last year, 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.

“He would pursue, have sex with, abuse and get my friend high who was 13/14 at the time. Last time I knew they had sex she was 16 and he was 20. He assaulted me at one of those parties awhile I was too drunk, and he had cornered and pressured and assaulted multiple of my friends,” the user wrote in a now-deleted tweet.

While White has strongly denied the allegations, he has reportedly been written out of Wednesday despite it looking like he’d have a major role in Season 2 as Wednesday’s love interest. Since then, he has appeared in two independent films (which have premiered at film festivals) and one short, but he doesn’t seem to have the career momentum he had before.

23.

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 following 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.”

Fox denied all claims but the DUI, saying, “It’s been a long, trying year of sitting on my hands on a lot of negative sh-t said about me, when they’re the furthest things from who I am. That I beat a woman in Cleveland when in fact I was assaulted by a man and did nothing but retaliate against him?” Fox continued — he had previously claimed a fellow passenger punched him and he fought back, and that the bus driver tried to extort him. “The 46 years I’ve been breathing on this planet, I have never hit a woman before. Never have, never will.”

After the controversy, Fox took a long break from acting. He hasn’t appeared in a film since 2015’s Bone Tomahawk, though he returned to TV in 2022’s Last Light, which he executive produced. An interview promoting the show with E! did not address the reasons for Fox’s “retirement” except for “I had completed a bucket list of projects that I wanted to do in 2014 and I felt like I had accomplished what I set out to accomplish and was gonna focus my energies on other things.” The Hollywood Reporter called the Peacock miniseries “inept” and “bizarrely anticlimactic.” Fox has only appeared in one project since, the Australian series C*A*U*G*H*T.

24.

As stated on his website, Cas Anvar’s career “skyrocketed” when he began starring in 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, a Lifetime movie, and a poorly-received indie that premiered at the comedy festival South by Southwest.

25.

Grey’s Anatomy’s early seasons were filled with breakout stars, and there was no reason Isaiah Washington shouldn’t have been one of them…until he was fired after using an anti-gay slur on set. He’d later claim it wasn’t directed at anyone, though some sources claim he used it in connection with his costar, T.R. Knight, who is gay. The word was apparently uttered after a physical and verbal altercation between Washington and male lead Patrick Dempsey.

Washington’s projects post-Grey’s included mostly one-episode stints, foreign films, low-budget films, straight-to-DVD, and VOD projects, and one short-lived series. His only large project in the following decade was The 100, in which he appeared in 60 of 100 episodes, but he still never quite regained the career he’d had before.

26.

His Grey’s costar Katherine Heigl also largely caused her own career to stall after a series of publicized remarks that seemed to disparage her projects and their writers. First, while starring in Grey’s, she subtly shaded the writing decisions for her character and notably withdrew herself from Emmy consideration in 2008, saying, “I did not feel I was given the material this season to warrant a nomination.”

And after starring in Knocked Up — her first major movie role — she called her character “a little sexist,” adding, “It paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight, and it paints the men as lovable, goofy, fun-loving guys. … I had a hard time with it, on some days. … Ninety-eight percent of the time it was an amazing experience, but it was hard for me to love the movie.”

As a result, Heigl was blacklisted from Hollywood for many years, her once-promising career floundering as she had a reputation for being “difficult.” In recent years, she’s spoken about this unfair reputation. “I may have said a couple of things you didn’t like, but then that escalated to ‘she’s ungrateful,’ then that escalated to ‘she’s difficult,’ and that escalated to ‘she’s unprofessional,'” she said. “What is your definition of difficult? Somebody with an opinion that you don’t like? Now, I’m 42, and that shit pisses me off.”

27.

Shannen Doherty became a major TV star in the ’90s, but persistent drama on her projects led to a bad reputation and a fizzling career. First, she was fired from the hit series Beverly Hills, 90210 after being “difficult” during filming and having issues with her costars, notably Tori Spelling. Spelling, who also said Doherty got into a physical fight with costar Jennie Garth, admitted in 2015 that she’d called her father, producer Aaron Spelling, to get Doherty fired after rising tensions on the set.

Then, on Charmed, Doherty chose to leave due to friction between her and her castmates. She said, “There was too much drama on the set and not enough passion for the work” (which many assumed was referring to costar Alyssa Milano, with whom there’d been rumors of drama). Afterward, her projects were mostly TV movies, along with trying her hand at hosting and a reality show.

28.

T.J. Miller was already a successful comedian when he was cast in his breakout role in Silicon Valley*, and roles in the Deadpool and How to Train Your Dragon films catapulted him into even more widespread success. This success likely would’ve parlayed into starring roles if he hadn’t been accused of sexual assault during the #MeToo movement — allegations he denied and even joked about onstage while performing stand-up comedy.

Miller also made waves for calling in a fake bomb threat on an Amtrak train in 2018. Miller allegedly called 911 to report a female passenger had a bomb, but no evidence was found, and his memory of the woman changed. According to the US Attorney’s office in Connecticut, the officer he spoke to and other passengers indicated he appeared drunk, with one saying he’d been “involved in hostile exchanges” with a female passenger. Miller was indicted for “intentionally conveying to law enforcement false information about an explosive device on a train,” but the charge was later dropped.

After all the controversy, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World recast Miller and overdubbed all of his lines, and Miller has only appeared in two films since (and no TV shows), neither of which were well-received or starring roles. He has, however, continued his stand-up career.

29.

And finally, Kevin Spacey is another example of someone who ruined their career through sexual assault. He starred in the Emmy Award-winning role of Frank Underwood in House of Cards, but Spacey’s career quickly derailed after Anthony Rapp made sexual assault allegations against him. Soon, other people came forward and alleged inappropriate behavior, harassment, and assault, and Spacey was promptly fired from the Netflix series.

Netflix also scrapped his planned film Gore, and in an unprecedented move, Christopher Plummer was hired to reshoot Spacey’s part in All the Money in the World — even though the film had already been completed. Reshoots took nine days, and Plummer was nominated for an Oscar for the role.

Spacey was later ordered to pay $31 million to the production company for House of Cards because he was also accused of misconduct behind the scenes. The actor was eventually found not guilty of sexual assault in London, but that doesn’t clear him from the court of public opinion, and it seems unlikely his acting career will be what it once was.