It can sometimes be hard to separate the artist from their art. Are there any artists who were bad people but whose work you still enjoy?
Feel free to answer if you’re in the opposite scenario: an artist who you love personally but don’t enjoy their artwork.
Feel free to respond more than just music artists!
A lot?
Tom Cruise is the easy answer for obvious, cultist, related reasons. And as much as I love Donnie Yen in basically everything he has ever done, he is a hardcore CCP shill at best and there is a LOT of really creepy and questionable shit in his casting and “writing” that makes me wonder when he fucks up so bad that even China cares.
But, generally, the rule that a friend “coined” is: How bad are they compared to Mel Gibson? And while that is mostly a “funny” way to look at stuff, it is also useful to keep in mind regarding the different scale of assholes. And it also depends on what they are bad about.
Also, I still like pro wrestling. That shit is a minefield.
But to provide an answer that didn’t seem to come up yet:
Nobuhiro Watsuki. Creator of Rurouni Kenshin and such a pedophile that even the Japanese government gave a shit (and… just spend five minutes on the fifth floor of any manga shop and you’ll understand how massively fucked of a scale that is. Or walk down the streets of Akihabara at night).
But also? The Rurouni Kenshin anime is still one of the GOATs… for the Kyoto arc. Even if there is a lot of shit in the arcs surrounding it and the overall story of Kenshin that REALLY makes a lot of sense when you understand how evil the creator is… And the live action adaptations are a must watch for any fan of action movies because it is probably still the greatest blend of wire work, fight choreography, and “style” to ever exist (I hear the Yu Yu Hakusho live action taps into the same vein).
One of those things where I will be a lot happier when that piece of shit is dead and unable to benefit from sales.