- Howard Stern
Howard Allan Stern (born January 12, 1954) is an American radio and TV personality, media mogul, humorist, actor, and author. Stern hosts "The Howard Stern Show" four days a week (Monday-Thursday) on Howard 100, a Sirius Satellite Radio station. The self-proclaimed "King of All Media" (a humorous reference to Michael Jackson's appellation "The King of Pop") has been dubbed a shock jock for his highly controversial use of scatological, sexual and racial humor.
- Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda (born December 21, 1937) is a two-time Academy Award-winning American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model, and fitness guru. Since the 1960s Fonda has appeared in several movies. She has won two Academy Awards and received several other awards and nominations. She initially announced her retirement from acting in 1991, and said for many years that she would never act again, but she returned to film in 2005 with "Monster in Law", …
- Hugh Hefner
Hugh Marston Hefner (born April 9, 1926 in Chicago, Illinois), also referred to colloquially as Hef, is the founder and editor-in-chief of "Playboy" magazine. He has become an icon of American sexuality and a spokesman for the sexual revolution and libertarianism
- Oliver North
Oliver L. North is a combat decorated marine, a #1 best-selling author, the founder of a small business, an inventor with three U.S. patents, a syndicated columnist, and the host of War Stories on the Fox News Channel. Yet, he claims his most important accomplishment is to be "the husband of one, the father of four and the grandfather of eleven." North was born in San Antonio, Texas, graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and served 22 years as a U.S. Marine.
- Terrell Owens
Terrell Eldorado Owens, popularly known by his initials T.O., (born December 7, 1973), is an American football wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys. Over his ten-year NFL career, Owens has left a mixed legacy. He has consistently been among the league's most productive wide receivers, as well as one of the league's most outspoken and controversial players.
- Theo van Gogh
Theo van Gogh was the younger brother of the painter Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) and a successful art dealer. Beginning in 1880, Theo's unfailing financial support allowed his brother to devote himself entirely to painting. Theo van Gogh's great-grandson, also named Theo van Gogh, was a film director, famous for his controversial criticism of Islam. He was murdered in 2004, at the age of 47.
- Nick Denton
Nick Denton is the founder and proprietor of Gawker Media. Nick Denton was educated at University College School and University College, Oxford. He began his career as a journalist with the Financial Times. Denton is openly gay. Denton co-wrote a book about the collapse of Barings Bank called "All That Glitters".
- Michael Richards
Michael Anthony Richards (born July 24, 1949) is an American comedian and film and television actor best known for his role as the eccentric Cosmo Kramer on the television show "Seinfeld", a role which earned him three Emmy Awards. Richards began his career as a stand up comedian, first stepping into a national spotlight when he was featured on Billy Crystal's first cable TV special. He went on to become a series regular on ABC's "Fridays".
- Ward Connerly
Wardell Connerly (born June 15, 1939) is a former University of California Regent, political activist, and businessman. He is also the founder and the chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute, a national non-profit organization in opposition to racial and gender preferences.. He is considered to be the man behind California's controversial Proposition 209 outlawing race and gender-based preferences in state hiring and state university admissions, …
- Xiaxue
Xiaxue (Simplified Chinese: 下雪, real name Wendy Cheng) is one of the most prominent bloggers in Singapore. She started her blog in 2003. Her blog attracts about 20,000 readers every day with her take on current events and her life. She blogs about various topics, ranging from methods of measuring penises to dumb starfish and MRT irritants. She has been criticised, however, for the use of expletives in her entries, …
- Nikki Finke
In 2007, Finke won the Los Angeles Press Club's Southern California Journalism Award for "Entertainment Journalist of the Year" with the judges commenting: "Reading Nikki Finke 's salaciously candid coverage of Hollywood and its inhabitants almost feels like a guilty pleasure. She mixes the news with fearless finger-wagging that's just fun to read no matter the subject. She tackles the industry monoliths without the kiddy gloves and she seems to have command of the beat."
- Lynne Stewart
Lynne F. Stewart (born October 8, 1939) is an American radical activist. As an attorney, she represented controversial, and often unpopular, defendants, including black nationalists, members of the Weather Underground, Mafia figures, and convicted terrorists. In 2005, Stewart was accused of helping pass messages from her client, Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, an Egyptian cleric convicted of planning terror attacks, to his followers in al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, …
- Charles Haughey
Charles James "Charlie" Haughey was the sixth Taoiseach of Ireland. One of the most controversial of Irish politicians in the 20th century, Haughey served four terms as Taoiseach: December 1979 to June 1981, March 1982 to December 1982 and March 1987 to February 1992, when he was forced to resign by revelations from a former minister. He was the fourth leader of Fianna Fáil, from 1979 until 1992. He died of prostate cancer at the age of eighty.
- Wallace Shawn
Wallace Shawn (born November 12, 1943), sometimes credited as Wally Shawn, is an American actor and playwright. Regularly seen on film and television, where he is usually cast as a comic character actor, he has pursued a parallel career as a playwright whose work is often dark, politically charged and controversial.
- Philip Agee
Philip Burnett Franklin Agee (born July 19, 1935) is a former CIA employee and author who wrote the controversial book, "Inside the Company: CIA Diary" (1975) He resigned from the CIA in 1968. From the early 1970s, he became the most visible opponent of CIA practices.
- Oliviero Toscani
Oliviero Toscani (b. 1942) is an Italian photographer, best-known worldwide for designing controversial advertising campaigns for Italian brand Benetton, from 1982 to 2000. Most of these advertising campaigns were actually institutionals for the brand, always composed of rather controversial photography, usually with only the company logo "United Colors of Benetton" as caption. One of his most famous campaigns include that of a man dying of AIDS, lying in a hospital bed, …
- Elizabeth Loftus
Elizabeth F. Loftus (born in Los Angeles, CA) is a psychologist who works on human memory and how it can be changed by facts, ideas, suggestions and other forms of post-event information. Her work is controversial, and has much direct application in law and other fields.
- Khalid bin Mahfouz
Khalid bin Mahfouz is a wealthy Saudi Arabian businessman accused of supporting al-Qaeda. The veracity of such accusations is controversial and supported mainly by allegations, as Mahfouz himself claims to "condemn terrorism in all of its forms and manifestations."
- John Safran
John Safran (born 1972) is an Australian documentarian and media personality, well known for pranks and indelicate handling of controversial issues. He is known for his outlandish stunts such as rummaging through Australian television personality Ray Martin's rubbish in "John Safran: Media Tycoon" (an early pilot for a TV series), placing a temporary fatwa on the life of Rove McManus, …
- Richard Herrnstein
Richard J. Herrnstein was a prominent researcher in animal learning in the Skinnerian tradition. His major research finding as an experimental psychologist is called "matching"--the tendency of animals to allocate their choices in direct proportion to the rewards they provide. To illustrate the phenomenon, imagine that there are two sources of reward, one of which is twice as rich as the other.
- Muhammad Zia-Ul-Haq
General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq (b. August 12 1924-August 17 1988) was the head of state of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan from July 1977 to August 1988. Appointed Chief of Army Staff in 1976, General Zia-ul-Haq came to power after he overthrew ruling Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, in a bloodless (save the execution of Bhutto) military coup d'état on July 5, 1977 and became the state's third ruler to impose martial law.
- Larry Davis
Larry Davis (born 1966) is a controversial figure whose shooting of six NYPD officers in self-defense on November 19, 1986 during a raid on his sister's Bronx apartment created a heated debate in New York about police behavior and accusations of racism. Davis was wanted on charges of killing four drug dealers when the botched raid took place. He states the NYPD came after him based on his decision to get out of the drug business, which the police department initiated.
- Thomas Stuttaford
Dr Irving Thomas Stuttaford OBE, (born 4 May 1931) is a British doctor, author, medical columnist of "The Times" and former Conservative Member of Parliament. He retired in 2002 as Senior Medical Advisor for Barclays Bank. From 1970 to 1974 Stuttaford was the MP for Norwich South. In two subsequent elections he was a candidate in the Isle of Ely but lost to Clement Freud. His views on the effects of alcohol on health, specifically red wine, are controversial, …
- Marlon Riggs
Marlon Riggs (3 February 1957 - 5 April 1994), an African-American poet, educator, filmmaker, and an outspoken gay rights activist. Riggs was inducted into the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association Hall of Fame in 2006. He produced many documentaries for public television, some of which were considered controversial by media watchdog groups, who protested the fact that Riggs' films were produced with money from the National Endowment for the Arts.
- Yeshayahu Leibowitz
Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903-1994) was an Israeli scientist, philosopher and public figure noted for his outspoken and often controversial opinions regarding morals, ethics, politics, and religion.
- Blackie Lawless
Blackie Lawless (born Steven Edward Duren on September 4, 1956, in Staten Island, New York) is best known as the lead singer and Bass guitarist for heavy metal band W.A.S.P.. He has become notorious in the heavy metal community for his live performances, controversial album covers and lyrics.
- Joseph Finder
Joseph Finder (born 1958 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American writer of several thrillers set in a business environment. His books include "Paranoia", "Company Man", and "Killer Instinct". His novel "High Crimes" became a hit movie starring Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman. Finder's work is informed by his background as a world traveler, Soviet scholar and relentless researcher.
- Aki Maeda
Aki Maeda is a Japanese actress and singer. She has an older sister named Ai Maeda. She is perhaps best known in the west for her role as Noriko Nakagawa in the controversial 2000 film "Battle Royale".
- Marvin Zindler
Marvin Harold Zindler (born August 10, 1921 in Houston, Texas) is a news reporter for KTRK ABC-13 in Houston, Texas, USA. His hard-hitting investigative journalism, through which he has mostly represented the city's elderly and working class, has made him one of the city's most influential and well-known media personalities.
- Justin Bonomo
Justin Bonomo (born September 30, 1985) (known online as ZeeJustin) is a controversial professional poker player from Los Angeles. He is best known for being caught and publicly outed after cheating in major online poker tournaments by entering himself multiple times via software glitch. Controversy around him grew further when he made several attempts at public apology. Bonomo placed 30th in the 2005 Pokerstars Caribbean Poker Adventure in January, 2005.
- David R. Hawkins
David R. Hawkins, M.D. (born June 3, 1927) is an American psychiatrist, mystic, author and spiritual teacher in Sedona, Arizona. Hawkins writes that applied kinesiology can distinguish truth or falsity in any statement. Hawkins received a B.S. in pre-med from Marquette University (1950), an M.D. from the Medical College of Wisconsin (1953), and a Ph.D. from Columbia Pacific University (1995).
- Jessica Darlin
Jessica Darlin (born January 22, 1976 in Wilmington, Delaware) is a former American pornographic actress. Darlin started as an exotic dancer. After meeting a few people from the adult entertainment industry, she moved out west and started doing adult movies in the summer of 1997. Her Wicked Pictures debut was in the Nic Cramer-directed feature "Jealousy" in which she takes part in a male/male/female threesome. She helped found the porn company Extreme Associates.
- Yuko Tojo
Yuko Tojo is a granddaughter of General Hideki Tojo, the wartime prime minister who was hanged as a war criminal after World War II. Tojo is a right-wing activist and political hopeful. In May 2007, Tojo revealed her intention to run in the House of Councillors election, pledging to work to realize the enshrinement of all of Japan's military war dead at the controversial Yasukuni Shrine. Her grandfather is one of the 14 Class-A war criminals honoured at the Shinto shrine.
- Lesléa Newman
Lesléa Newman is an author and editor of over 40 books. She is Jewish, a feminist and identifies as a femme lesbian. She has written and edited over fifty books and anthologies. She has written about such topics as being a Jew, body image and eating disorders, lesbianism, gay parenting, and her gender role as a femme. Her best-known work is the controversial Heather Has Two Mommies.
- Ruggedman
Michael Ugochukwu Stephens, known by his stage name Ruggedman, born on September 20 (year unidentified) in Ehem, Abia State, is a Nigerian rapper. A graduate of political science from Lagos State University, Ojo, he started loving music in 1989. He had his own songs done in 1991 and released a CD, which had two tracks. The two songs got massive air play, but in 2002, Ruggedman felt Nigerian rappers (such as Rasqie, Eedris Abdulkareem, …
- Lil Rodríguez
Lil del Valle Rodríguez is a Venezuelan journalist. Her most recent position is president of the board of directors of Caracas-based television station TVes "(Televisora Venezolana Social)," which began its controversial broadcasting on 27 May 2007. Lil Rodríguez was born in Caracas during the presidency of Marcos Pérez Jiménez, against whose government her mother was an activist. A part of her childhood was spent in her mother's home town of Cumaná, …
- Nonini
Nonini (1981-), whose real name is Hubert Nakitare, is a Kenyan hip hop artist originally signed to Calif Records, but later joined Homeboyz Productions after falling out with producer Clemo citing lack of attention to his work. He is most famous for his controversial and sexually explicit lyrics.
- Fikret Abdić
Fikret Abdić is a Bosnian politician and businessman, mainly known for his role in the Bosnian War and his opposition to the government of Alija Izetbegović in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He founded the short-lived Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia, which existed between 1993 and 1995, where he allied with Army of Republika Srpska against Izetbegović's government. In 2002 he was convicted for war crimes his forces had committed in the area of the Bihać pocket.
- Eric Losfeld
Eric Losfeld was a French publisher who had a reputation for publishing controversial material with his publishing imprint Éditions Le Terrain Vague. He was the publisher of "Emmanuelle" (1967), two film magazines "(Midi Minuit Fantastique" and "Positif") and the works of Ado Kyrou. He published the "Barbarella" science fiction comic book created by Jean-Claude Forest.
- Stéphane Gendron
Stéphane Gendron is the current mayor of Huntingdon, Quebec, Canada and a political analyst for several media outlets. He hosted the current affairs TV show "L'avocat et le diable" on the TQS network from which he was fired in December 2006 and hosted a radio show on Montreal-based station 98,5 FM from March 2005 until March 2007. Gendron gained media attention by enacting a municipal curfew forcing minors to stay off the street after 10 p.m. in Huntingdon, …