As 2024 nears its end, it’s a time to reflect on some of the celebrity stories that have kept us up at night – or, rather, kept us scrolling for hours on social media. This year has delivered its fair share of bizarre, disturbing and scandalous moments, most of which we could never have anticipated. From A-list feuds and break ups to viral conspiracy theories and criminal charges, here is a list of the biggest celebrity scandals of 2024, ranked.

8.        Baby Reindeer makes an alleged stalker into a star

Coming in at number eight is an almost inverse celebrity scandal. Fiona Harvey, the woman who has come to be known as ‘the real Martha’ from the hit Netflix series Baby Reindeer, was not famous when it came out, but she certainly is now.

The semi-autobiographical story follows failing Scottish comedian Donny, written and played by Richard Gadd, during the three years he was stalked by a woman he served at the pub called Martha. After catching her interest, Martha proceeds to send him thousands of emails and voice messages, calls him ‘baby reindeer’, harasses him at work, infiltrates his personal life and follows him to his home address.

The show became an overnight success, climbing to the top of Netflix’s rankings in its first week. The problem was that ‘the real Martha’s’ alleged identity appears to have been thinly veiled, and it did not take long for social media sleuths to target a woman named Fiona Harvey and begin tormenting her online. Harvey has since filed a $170 million lawsuit against Netflix for telling ‘brutal lies’ about her to more than 50 million viewers around the world. It goes to trial next year.

7.        Molly-Mae and Tommy Fury’s break up

One thing we never saw coming was reality TV royalty, Molly-Mae Hague and Tommy Fury, calling off their engagement. After meeting on Love Island in 2019, they quickly became the show’s most prolific couple. In January 2023, they welcomed their daughter Bambi, and that July Tommy proposed on a rose-scattered cliff in Ibiza.

In July 2024, they posted on social media to celebrate their five-year anniversary and Molly-Mae called Tommy ‘the love of my life’. Three weeks later, she announced on her Instagram story that they were breaking up, something she ‘never expected to happen’, ‘especially not in this way’.

It was worthy of a Sky News notification and immediately took the internet by storm, with many fans half-jokingly comparing their fallout to that of Prince Charles and Princess Diana. All eyes turned to Tommy, who has repeatedly denied all allegations of cheating. As for Molly-Mae, she launched a new clothing line in September, gave a sit-down interview with Vogue in November and has her own Amazon Prime show, Molly-Mae: Behind It All, launching in January. As for what happened? The truth eludes us all.

6.        Lively vs Baldoni: The It Ends With Us press run

The press run for It Ends With Us, the film adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s best-selling novel, was a hot mess, let’s be honest. Far from encouraging people to go to the cinema, the rumoured on-set feud between lead actors Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni just kept people on the internet instead.

Several fans felt Lively’s promotion of the film, which deals with themes of domestic violence, was inappropriate in the way she flippantly encouraged fans to ‘grab your girls, grab your florals’ and head to the cinema. The actress also launched her haircare line, Blake Brown, in tandem with the film and promoted her alcohol brand, Betty Booze, at the premiere.

Baldoni’s approach was markedly different, he never shied away from the film’s darker themes and pointed fans towards domestic violence helplines on several occasions during interviews – interviews he and Lively never did together. The whole saga also led to an old interview clip resurfacing from the Café Society press run in 2016 where Lively appears to mock the journalist Kjersti Flaa for asking her about her ‘little bump’ while she was pregnant.

However, in December Lively filed a lawsuit against Baldoni accusing him of sexual harassment and of launching a ‘multi-tiered’ campaign to ‘destroy’ her reputation. Baldoni has called the allegations ‘categorically false’ and said they hired a crisis manager because Lively had threatened to derail the film unless her demands were met.

5.        The end of J. Lo and Ben 2.0

When Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez got back together in 2021, having first dated between 2002 and 2004, it felt like a Hollywood love story for the ages. There were even new pictures of him grabbing her ass on a yacht – just like the old days.

The couple got married the following year and celebrated with two lavish ceremonies – one of which saw Lopez perform her husband, who was sat on a wooden chair in the middle of the dance floor, in front of their loved ones.

Sadly, their perfect reunion soon lost its sheen. In 2023, the couple were often spotted looking glum or ‘mid-argument’ at red carpet events and Affleck became known for his ‘resting divorce face’. Speculation reached new heights in May when Lopez co-hosted the Met Gala with no plus one. From that point on, they were constantly scrutinised online and bombarded with questions about their marriage wherever they went. The tabloid media even went through their real estate listings to work out that their house was on the market, while the paparazzi zoomed in on Affleck’s phone to see whether Lopez was his background. It wasn’t until August that Lopez officially filed for divorce – citing 26 April as the date of their official separation.

4.        Drake versus Kendrick Lamar

One of the biggest celebrity feuds of the year was between rap megastars, Drake and Kendrick Lamar. To indicate quite how cross-generational the story became, there is even a BBC news article titled ‘The Drake and Kendrick Lamar beef explained’.

It can be traced back to a single on Drake’s eighth album, For All The Dogs, where J Cole suggests he, Drake and Lamar are ‘the big three’ of the current hip hop era. In March, producer Metro Boomin’ and rapper Future released a collaborative album called We Don’t Trust You and it featured a hidden track called ‘Like That’ with an uncredited verse by Lamar. Lamar says there is no ‘big three – it’s just me’ and later goes on to call them a ‘light pack’. He then promises to put Drake and J Cole’s ‘dogs’ in the ‘pet sematary’, a reference to Stephen King’s 1983 horror novel.

J Cole hastily recorded a diss track, before changing his mind, apologising, praising Lamar’s catalogue and calling his clap back ‘the lamest, goofiest’ thing he’d ever recorded.

It then became a two-man war and after several back-and-forth diss tracks and a lot of chatter online it all seemed to go quiet after Lamar released ‘Not Like Us’, where he accused Drake of having relationships with underage women. Drake has denied all allegations and claims they were planted deliberately to see if Lamar would rap about them.

3.        Kanye West and Bianca’s ‘twisted sexual fantasies’

Nude duct tape outfits and bare feet aside, the lore surrounding Kanye West and his new wife Bianca Censori’s relationship took a dark turn this year. The rapper faces multiple lawsuits from his former staff members with his ex-personal assistant, Lauren Pisciotta, accusing him of, among other things, sexual harassment and stalking and for using his wife as a ‘sex party coordinator’.

She alleges that West would use his office as a ‘sex playground’ and that Censori would willingly participate in his ‘twisted sexual fantasies’. One of which, Pisciotta alleges, saw West send Censori messages shortly after their wedding saying he wanted to have sex with her mother while she watched. Pisciotta claims to have screenshots of the alleged messages.

Pisciotta also accuses West of ‘predatory, aggressive, compulsive, vulgar, perverse and frighteningly calculative’ behaviour and says he used his connections at high profile brands to get women into the US on work visas so that he could sleep with them. West has called Pisciotta’s claims ‘baseless’ and accused her of extortion.

2.        Kate Gate

This scandal is ranked so highly based on scale rather than substance. For the first few months of 2024, the Princess of Wales was noticeably absent. As a senior working royal and public figure, it’s unsurprising that this would pique some level of interest.

What is surprising, nay shocking, however, is how astronomical the whole story became. By March, Kate Middleton’s absence had sparked a tirade of conspiracy theories online, ranging from her imminent divorce from Prince William to body doubles being used in staged photographs. It became a global story in countries as far afield as the Dominican Republic and Pakistan, and even Kim Kardashian made a meme about it.

Of course, it later transpired that Kate had been diagnosed with cancer and was undergoing preventative chemotherapy. The memes swiftly disappeared.

1.        Diddy behind bars

The undisputed celebrity scandal of the year has to be music mogul Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs being indicted on charges of sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has been denied bail three times and awaits trial in the notoriously dangerous and unhygienic Metropolitan Detention Centre in New York – a place where violent crime is rife, living standards are poor and there are maggots in the food.

Combs also faces more than 100 allegations of sexual assault and abuse from over a 30-year period, including the rape of minors. He denies all allegations and plans to plead not guilty in court.

With the trial due to start on 5 May next year, not only is it likely to be one of the biggest news stories of 2025, but it has already been dubbed one of the most high-profile sex trafficking trials in recent history.