9. Warren G. Harding
When Warren G. Harding was born on November 2, 1865, in Blooming Grove, Ohio, this small town boy could never have dreamed that one day he would make it all the way to the White House. Despite people assuming he’d be a good President simply because he appeared stately and presidential, and he was considered one of the most popular sitting U.S. presidents, in reality, the truth was far more scandalous.
When Harding died of a heart attack on August 2, 1923, in San Francisco while on a western tour, the press were quick to eulogize him as a “man of peace,” “an ideal American,” and “the greatest commoner since Lincoln,” however, that adoration would soon disappear as scandal after scandal was uncovered.
One of the biggest events to destroy Harding’s reputation was a bribery scandal involving members of his administration that became known as the Teapot Dome scandal. Before the Watergate scandal came along, Teapot Dome was regarded as the greatest and most sensational scandal in the history of American politics.
His reputation would be further tarnished when he became the subject of a best-selling memoir by Nan Britton, a woman who claimed to be his mistress and the mother of his illegitimate daughter. Although her claims have been called into question, in 2015 a DNA test proved without a shadow of a doubt that Harding was not only a womanizer and adulterer, but he was indeed the father of Britton’s daughter.
