20 People Famous for Being Geniuses Who Turned Out to Be Dopes

There are lots of different types of scams — Ponzi schemes, Nigerian prince emails, the ol’ “hey, look over there!” — but the greatest con of all is convincing people that you’re smarter than you are. If people think you’re a genius, they’ll throw money and power at you, believing you can make the world a better place or at least make them more money.

It sounds great — right up until you get found out. Or maybe, at one point, someone truly was a genius, but they got so high off their own supply and corrupted by yes men that their brains turned to (usually racist) mush. 

Whatever the case, there was no shortage of examples when user saigalaxy asked r/AskReddit, “What’s the biggest example of (going) from ‘genius’ to ‘idiot’ has there ever been?”