A rogue’s gallery of sex and stupidity by rich men
I have an unseemly fascination with people who throw it all away.
They’ve got money and power. They’re popular, universally liked. Nothing can stop them. And then, entirely on their own, they blow it.
I’ll begin by mentioning the saga of almost-former professional golfer Tiger Woods. From 2000 to 2009, he won 56 PGA tournaments. Then, in November of 2009, he crashed his Cadillac Escalade into a tree and a fire hydrant outside his house. Two weeks later, after a dozen women came forward claiming to be mistresses, he had to admit he was a serial adulterer.
His wife left and took their kids. In the last seven years, he’s won eight times, and nothing since 2013. Every time I think about Tiger Woods and his crumbling career, I picture that damaged SUV.
Woods is famous. Not so Chris Foerster. He resigned as the offensive line coach of the Miami Dolphins. He was one of the highest paid assistant coaches in the NFL, making $2.5 million to $3 million a year.
Foerster, 55, took a video of himself snorting what looks like cocaine through a rolled up $20 bill and sent it to his ex-girlfriend, Kijuana Nige. “I think about how much I miss you. How high we got together. How much fun it was,” he says in the video.
He says some more vulgar, personal things, too, but they can’t be printed.
Little did Foerster know that Nige was really, really angry about the way the NFL is handling the Black Lives Matter issue, in which various players are protesting during the national anthem. Dolphins head coach Adam Gase, for instance, has told his players to stand for the anthem or stay in the tunnel. He and others, like Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, have taken their cue from Donald Trump by choosing to misinterpret a pro-black protest as an anti-America protest.
Nige says she has compromising video of other people as well. On Facebook, she posted “are there any other RACISTS that swear that ALL LIVES MATTER that wanna shine today?” She’s a ticking time bomb.
Foerster, meanwhile, said “I want to apologize to the organization and my sole focus is on getting the help that I need with the support of my family and medical professionals.” Three million bucks a year teaching gigantors how to block, and it’s all gone in a 56-second video — which he made himself.
It doesn’t end for everyone when they screw up, but personally, I’ll never take Cam Newton seriously again. He’s the Carolina Panthers quarterback who attempted to belittle and humiliate a female reporter who asked him a legitimate and really quite interesting question about pass routes last week.
One look at Newton’s smirky, dismissive expression and you want to punch him in the face. He apologized later and, on game day, wore a Rosie the Riveter button on his hat. But who cares? The truth is revealed in the action, not the reaction. This guy’s a jerk.
Then we have the tawdry Harvey Weinstein affair. The Hollywood movie mogul responsible for such films as The English Patient and The
King’s Speech was felled by a New York Times report outlining a history of sexually abhorrent behaviour, even paying off at least eight sexual harassment victims. And now, after a 10-month investigation, the New
Yorker has several women on record accusing Weinstein of rape. Result? His own company fired him.
The Foerster, Newton and Weinstein scandals all played out within days of each other. That’s just a coincidence. I’m sure it’s also a coincidence that all three are male. But you have to wonder why you rarely hear about women falling from grace so frequently or with such resounding thuds. One is tempted to conclude that men are really stupid, that’s all. We’ll wait for evidence to the contrary. Might take awhile.