When your problematic fave is a real problem: can we move on from our relationships with celebrity abusers?

Our "para-social" relationships with celebrities are holding us back

As a collective culture we are constantly grappling with contradictions: how can Skittles taste so good but be so bad for you? How can deli meat taste so good but be so bad for you? Yes, most of them revolve around lies we’ve been fed (and happily ate) for most of our lives, but the one I want to focus on here, although it follows the trend, feels scarier:

How can the people who made our favorite media: TV shows that made us belly laugh, songs that moved us to tears, also be unapologetic, unabashed, violent abusers?

This disorienting reality feels heavier somehow than cancer-causing-skittles, perhaps because skittles, however addictive, don’t generally move us to tears. Or even that they, however harmful, never really appeared healthy to us.

On the contrary, our celebrities seem to represent all that is good and beautiful, whether or not we are the ones who’ve consciously decided as much. And to contend with the fact that sometimes our famous faves are bad and ugly on a basic level, is difficult, if not world-shifting. I’m not sure I can speak to why we form para-social relationships with these celebrities, but I think it has something to do with the kind of space their work takes up in our lives.

The TV show A Different World, executive produced by Bill Cosby as a spin-off of The Cosby show, was in the news this month as Netflix announced a revival, focusing on a new generation of students at an HBCU. I asked myself, does it need to be A Different World? Is Cosby still involved? Can you have one (the show) without the other (Cosby)? This comes a few weeks after Netflix added the original show to its streaming library; ironically, re-watching some of its episodes sparked the contemplations that led to this reflection.

In 2025, eleven years after I graduated from high school, I was reminded of its influence over my decision to attend an HBCU. The one-of-a-kind experience of attending an HBCU can hardly be explained without having lived it, but watching A Different World was like living it. Without the show, I’m not sure I would have understood what an invaluable opportunity it could be, especially against the pressures of choosing a school with “better resources.” It was an experience that shaped me and one that I really needed as a young adult. But how do I grapple with a statement like, if it weren’t for Bill Cosby, the rapist, I wouldn’t have gone to an HBCU? In some ways it’s a true statement, in others, it’s an oversimplified one.

These celebrities are so present and influential in our lives, I think it sometimes feels impossible to separate ourselves from them. Their art doesn’t just make us feel good, we also obsess over their looks, their wealth, the freedoms they have to push boundaries – or cross boundaries without impunity.

I know my aunt, Michael Jackson’s biggest fan, would struggle to imagine a world without his music. I know my mother, who started her journalism career writing about Hip Hop for The Source magazine, struggles to imagine a world without Diddy’s influence. But as Danyel Smith (Vibe magazine) from the HBO documentary The Fall of Diddy says so poignantly in episode 4, “I love the music that came out of Bad Boy Records; if the accusations and the complaints are true, it wasn’t worth it.” Many of us love hip hop, the music and the culture, but we need to understand the price.

I consider that perhaps it’s overwhelming, to be confronted with the reality that these are not isolated incidents, that maybe there are no good ones left. Does that mean we just cover our eyes and move on?

Let’s further consider: is it true that we only love celebrities at their best; that we only aspire to their positions if they are benevolent, or simply, not abundantly harmful? Perhaps we protect these people because their work or wealth or influence makes them divine in our eyes. In a fundamentally capitalist society, perhaps it’s inevitable that citizens aspire to wealth and status, regardless of the consequences or expectations that might accompany it. I think on some level we forgive these men because we believe they didn’t do anything wrong. But maybe, somewhere deep even, we say, “they might have done it; I even know they did, but it doesn’t really matter to me”.

Since we know Americans love proof, I have included some! I’ll start with Diddy, whose name might make you sick in 2025 after television studios produced six respective documentaries illustrating his abuses, but what about the 1990s until 2024? Diddy’s wrap sheet of public assaults is so long it literally goes back to 1991. It, of course, includes singer Cassie’s 2023 allegations of rape and intimate partner violence for over a decade that initiated the flood of allegations to follow. But it also includes a 2001 incident where, Black woman, Natanya Rueban, insisted that Combs shot her in the face. She largely wasn’t believed and someone else endured the consequences. In 2017 Combs was sued by his former personal chef for claims of sexual harassment. It wasn’t until the brutally violent video of Comb’s physically assaulting Cassie in 2016 surfaced that his public image began to shift.

Chris Brown, whose assaults are often so public, we could not possibly forget them: the gut-wrenching 2009 photos of Rihanna’s bruised face the night of the Grammys, forever cemented in my head; and when he threw a chair through the window of the Good Morning America set in 2011 after host, Robin Roberts, brought up the abuse. In 2017 model, Karrueche Tran, filed a restraining order against Brown alleging threats to kill her. She later revealed Brown had once nearly choked her to death in Brown’s own exposé documentary, Chris Brown: A History of Violence. Yet his 2024 tour, 11:11, nearly sold out, ultimately grossing $82.3 million dollars.

The documentary did not seem to impact Brown’s career the way it did singer, R. Kelly, who before film, Surviving R. Kelly, aired, also dodged public allegations for decades. I mostly remember the Dave Chappelle skit that would live on in millennial history: “I’m gonna piss on you.” But the reality really is no laughing matter: in 2001 singer, Sparkle, saw a video of Kelly raping and urinating on her then 14-year-old niece. She went to the police and in 2008 and he was found not-guilty. In 2019, when the documentary aired, we find out she was telling the truth all along. The accusation alone should have deeply horrified us. Why didn’t we say, just to be sure, I won’t support him? It was easier to protect him. Why weren’t we more concerned with protecting the 14-year-old Black girl?

And this phenomenon is not exclusive to Black men in the music industry. Andrew Cuomo, the former governor of New York, who resigned after an investigation revealed that he sexually harassed and assaulted multiple New York State employee women, is currently running for Mayor. Although there were 11 allegations in total and sources later revealed they witnessed these harassments for years (another recurring theme in these stories), Cuomo continuously denied the incidents and only resigned once State’s Attorney General, Letitia James, released her investigation. Unlike some of the other incidents I’ve listed, this only took place a few years ago. Nonetheless, data released earlier last month suggests the public is happy to re-inaugurate Cuomo into office as mayor, regardless of the fact that in office is where his assaults took place. Cuomo maintained his lead in the polls since he entered the race on March 1, 2025 for several months.

The list goes on. Kevin Spacey is still making and starring in films. As is James Franco, both as an actor and director. This Vulture article is exclusively about portraitist Kehinde Wiley’s work being shown and well-received at Art Basel despite multiple allegations of assaults from young men just months earlier. He was accused again in a lawsuit by a young woman just weeks ago. Can accountability, or more pressing a cultural shift, start by abusers dipping off for a few years only to resurface as if nothing happened? Yes, across race, industry, and sexuality, men in positions of power, especially with wealth, might not get away with murder but they certainly get away with rape.

Still, I wonder: how can we expect to hold our idols accountable, when our individual communities won’t acknowledge or reconcile with the assault taking place right at home? Sexual assault is still rampant on college campuses. Most women and people of marginalized genders have experienced some kind of assault and most assaults are committed by people in close proximity and relationship to victims.

A CDC study revealed that “[o]ne in 4 women in the United States reported completed or attempted rape victimization at some point in her lifetime.” One in 9 men reported being made to penetrate someone (presumably without consent) in his lifetime. We live in a culture where rape is pervasive and largely excused.

After all, I can name at least ten people off of the top of my head who have experienced intimate partner violence or sexual assault, but how many people do you know who have been accused then acquitted of assault? Probably not very many, if any at all.

What does it say about our collective values and priorities that we are hard pressed to believe victims, even when there’s evidence, but quick to forgive abusers and move on?

Originally written for The New School’s ‘12th Street’ Literary Magazine in May 2025.