It’s not easy to always be proud of yourself, to assume your job (especially when you’re a debt collector, for example) or to speak loud and clear about what you’re saying. That’s why some quickly hide behind the hacking of their account so as not to have to carry the weight of their speech on their frail shoulders all their lives. People who didn’t even need our advice not to have their computer hacked in the end, since they were never really victims of it. Come out of your hiding place, you guys have been grilled.
1. Iker Casillas during his fake coming out
On Sunday October 9, 2022, the Spanish football player posted a strange tweet saying “I hope you will respect me: I am gay”, tweet to which his colleague Carles Puyol replied “It’s time to tell our story”. A tweet that quickly disappeared and was replaced by another apologetic tweet where the player explains that he was hacked. An excuse a little too big to be true, knowing that the player had received a lot of homophobic messages following the publication of his tweet. In any case, members of the LGBTQ+ community did not appreciate the “joke” at all and condemned his “disappointing” behavior.
2. American journalist Steve Scully before the 2020 American inter-round debate
In 2020, Steve Scully, host for the American channel C-SPAN, put himself in turmoil when he had to animate the debate between the two presidential rounds between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. . He indeed split an ambiguous tweet, intended for Anthony Scaramucci, former director of communications for the White House, in which the host asked him if he should respond to Trump (the former president accusing Steve Scully to have partisan positions).
This thus suggested that the two men had made a dark agreement. While C-SPAN initially claimed that Steve Scully had been hacked, an investigation by the Commission on Presidential Debates and the host’s confessions proved that Steve Scully was actually the author of the tweet and that so he had lied. It’s not pretty!
3. Rita Ora and her “100,000 retweets”
In 2014, singer Rita Ora wanted to show off on Twitter by saying that if she reached 100,000 retweets, she would release new music. Unfortunately for her, her post got less than 1,500 retweets, so the poor thing felt compelled to say she was hacked to avoid humiliation, stating that none of her sounds would “be released until she is not ready”. Don’t worry Rita, we believe you.
4. US Congressman Anthony Weiner and his sexts
In 2011, US Congressman Anthony Weiner was implicated in a sexting case that forced him to resign from his post a few months later. A close-up photo of him in his underwear was indeed found published on his Twitter when the politician wanted to send it to one of the six women he was sexting (and to whom he also obviously shared nudes ).
The US deputy first blamed the hacking of his Twitter account before confessing, in tears during a press conference, to having posted the photo alone by mistake. Who is surprised? Guess that didn’t stop him from continuing since he also sent naked photos to a 22-year-old young woman in 2013 and a 15-year-old teenager in 2016, which earned him a conviction. to 21 months in prison in 2017. Cheh.
5. Amanda Bynes insulting other celebrities
The Nickelodeon child star found herself in deep trouble in 2013. Indeed, the actress used her Twitter account to notably attack rapper Kid Cudi, her ex, calling him an “ugly ugly duckling whose look and talent have always been questionable for her”. Not super nice as a recovery technique. A month later, Amanda Bynes finally apologized on Twitter, saying her account had been hacked. How can we say that we have some well-deserved suspicions…
6. Host Joy Reid and her homopobic remarks
In 2018, Joy Reid, an American host on the MSNBC news channel, caused an outcry after a series of homophobic blog posts were unearthed in which she mocked gay people and ‘blamed’ celebrities. to be homosexual. If, at the start, the host claimed that her blog had been hacked, an investigation finally showed that there was no proof of hacking on her site. Joy Reid suddenly confessed to half-words having lied, explaining “not to believe that she could write such hateful things”.
7. Alicia Keys and her Blackberry partnership
A story that humbly reminds us that even when you are an international star, you have to be careful with the contracts you sign. And Alicia Keys certainly would have liked to have known that before the 2013 Blackberry drama. When she had just been named creative director at Blackberry, the singer tweeted lyrics from Drake’s hit “Started from the bottom.” The problem is that her tweet appeared as “Sent from an Iphone”, which really pisses her off when you’re the face of another brand of such.
Obviously, Alicia Keys was quick to delete the tweet and justify herself by saying, “What the hell is this?? Looks like I was hacked… Even though I love Drake, that wasn’t my tweet :(!!” See you again Alicia, see you again! Of course the contract hasn’t been renewed . Odd…
8. The Chipotle Restaurant Chain
In 2013 (decidedly), the American fast-food chain specializing in Mexican food shared many more than strange and completely random tweets, which suggested that the brand’s Twitter account had been the victim of a hack. It turned out, as revealed a few months later by a representative of Chipotle, that this hack was in fact a set-up, carried out to make the brand talk and increase sales.
A beautiful prank that worked since Chipotle gained nearly 4,000 followers and 12,000 retweets in a single day. It was smart, but this mock hack still hurt the company when racist and Nazi tweets were posted during an actual hack in 2015.
9. Russian skater Irina Rodnina and her racist photo of the Obama couple
Russian Olympic skater Irina Rodnina found herself in the middle of a racism scandal in 2013 (still), when she shared a photomontage on her Twitter account showing Michelle and Barack Obama staring at a banana. There followed a horde of messages denouncing, rightly, the pure racism of this image, which however did not prevent the sportswoman from refusing to apologize, advancing her right to freedom of expression. It was only five months later that she said she had been the victim of a hack. You read that right, five months later. This reversal of jacket gave rise to the creation of the viral meme “I’ve been hacked” (“I was hacked”) by Internet users well aware of his ugly lie.
10. Linda Sorenson, president of the Republican Party in Colorado and her racist meme about Barak Obama
In 2016, the president of the American Republican Party of a Colorado county also illustrated herself with a racist image targeting Barack Obama. Linda Sorenson has indeed shared on her Facebook account a “meme” showing President Ronald Reagan giving a bottle to a chimpanzee representing Barack Obama, accompanied by the text “I’m going to be damned… Reagan baby-sat Obama! “. Racist as can be, as you can see.
Following the sharing of this terrible image, Linda Sorenson justified herself by saying that this post was a “joke” and that she did not care that people were offended by her post. All this, while the vice president of the county claimed at the same time that it was a hoax and that Linda Sorenson’s account had been hacked. On the other hand, you have to know how to agree on the version to be credible, you know…