The 5 Saddest Attempts By Celebrities To Hang On To Fame

To prove that she was totally shocked and humiliated by the whole incident, she wrote an erotic companion novel. Kind of like the Star Wars expanded universe, but with slightly more dongs and slightly worse writing. We can't reprint, well, any sentence from the book without committing a crime against literature, but it's basically a blow by blow account of her encounter with Deen, related as clinically and passionlessly as an overworked gynecologist would. But in the book they have different names, so it's totally fiction, you guys. Just a nice little story with no relation to that thing she never intended anyone to see, swearsies.

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So when it came time for a comeback, Sisqo had one move: remake "Thong Song" for a new audience. And by "remake," we mean do the exact same thing, but now as a 40-year-old man in a roller rink over what sounds like a child playing a toy xylophone.

It's less of a dance sensation and more of a To Catch A Predator sting. He's wanted to remake the song for years, he says, to get all those people whom he insists have been begging him to do so off his back. Curiously, he couldn't find the right talent, possibly because the entire music world banded together to never let this happen. Then a group of Norwegian DJs agreed to break that embargo. Thanks, Norway. You just couldn't be cool, could you?

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Nobody. Because he wasn't.

Ruth's "shows" basically consisted of talking about baseball and signing autographs for kids, meaning those kids were technically performers, meaning he was technically in serious violation of child labor laws. He was arrested at a show in San Diego after failing to show work permits that allowed those kids to go onstage, though he was immediately released on bail and acquitted a few weeks later. Athlete scandals in the '20s sound downright quaint.

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Desperate to save his career, Morton devised a plan: He claimed to be attacked by Nazis, who apparently hated his show because it was so real, man. To this end, he came running out of a San Francisco airport with a half-shaved head and a swastika painted on his face, screaming about a savage Nazi restroom attack. (Which, yes, is available if your punk band needs a name.) Curiously, airport police never found any perpetrators, but they did find that Morton's swastika was backwards. You know, as if somebody had painted it on themselves. Say, in a bathroom mirror.

Tragically, the publicity stunt wasn't enough to save his show, and Downey was never able to reclaim the spotlight. Nazis, on the other hand, seem to be doing quite well these days.

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Phelps had agreed to take part in Discovery Channel's annual Shark Week festivities by starring in a production called Phelps vs. Shark: Great Gold vs. Great White. Hyped as a contest between man and beast off the coast of South Africa, Phelps would test his mettle in a 100-meter race against an apex predator. But it wasn't a side by side, breaststroke-for-your-life situation, like many had hoped, nor did the producers talk him into going ahead and jumping over the shark with a motorcycle. Instead, he faced off against a CGI replica of an outsized Carcharodon carcharias.

The internet, as it is wont to do, exploded in brief but furious indignation that they were denied a front-row seat to the horrible death of a master Olympian. But when all was said and done, Phelps did set yet another record. The show garnered more viewers than any other Shark Week production in history. Then he mostly did appearances on daytime talk shows to promote Colgate's "Every Drop Counts" environmental campaign. Which may have something to do with spilled bong water? We'll have to check.

Jordan Breeding also writes for Paste Magazine, the Twitter, himself, and wishes he had some fame to desperately cling to.

Sharks are at their best in blimp form and steered by humans, in case you had an incredible itch for one of your own.

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For more check out The 7 Most WTF Post-Fame Celebrity Careers and 18 WTF Post-Fame Lives of Former Celebrities.

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