Sexual assault allegations are trending — and that’s both good and bad.
It’s bad because it proves how pervasive the problem really is. So many victims have suffered in silence way too long. But our current focus on whistle-blowing is also good, because the perpetrators can finally be brought to justice rather than continue wielding their celebrity status to get away with sex crimes.
Famous film producers. A-list actors. Senatorial candidates. It seems like these days no one is immune from facing accusations of sexual misconduct. But it turns out that sadly, sexual abuse is nothing new, and even the highest office in the land has seen plenty of inappropriate behavior.
From penis naming to date rape, read on to see which former presidents have some shocking sex scandal skeletons in their closets.
- Grover Cleveland, date rapist
Grover Cleveland
Grover Cleveland fathered a child out of wedlock. | National Archive/Newsmakers/Getty Images
This could be one of the reasons why Vice President Mike Pence refuses to dine solo with any woman other than his wife.
Journalist Charles Lachman spent years researching the now infamous scandal. On a December evening in 1873, Grover Cleveland ran into Maria Halpin as she was walking down the street in Buffalo, New York on her way to a friend’s birthday party. He invited her to dinner in what she described as a “persistent” manner and they wound up having a pleasant meal together. He walked her home and then, according to Halpin’s affidavit, he proceeded to engage in what these days would be classified as date rape.
She threatened to call the authorities, but says that Cleveland “told me he was determined to ruin me if it cost him $10,000, if he was hanged by the neck for it. I then and there told him that I never wanted to see him again [and] commanded him to leave my room, which he did.”
Six weeks later Halpin discovered that she was pregnant. The baby was born in September of 1874. Cleveland managed to get the child removed from his mother’s care and placed in an orphanage while he arragned for Halpin to be committed to the Providence Lunatic Asylum (where she was later released when they discovered she wasn’t really crazy). Cleveland became mayor of Buffalo a few years later and eventually rose to the office of President of the United States.