Our top of entertainers' sex scandals

Paula Abdul: alleged to have engaged in a sexual encounter with American Idol contestant Corey Clark while serving as a judge for the talent competition in 2005. Abdul denied any affair. In August of 2005 Fox announced that a thorough outside investigation had cleared Abdul of all charges levied by Clark.

Fatty Arbuckle: tried three times for the violent rape and death of Virginia Rappe in 1921. Though acquitted of the charge, Arbuckle's career never revived. This case and several other sex scandals led to a self-imposed production code by the studios and strict contractual demands by the studios on actors' private lives.

Woody Allen: In 1992 he left his long-term partner Mia Farrow after she discovered his secret affair with her adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn. Farrow accused him of being a pedophile (Previn is 35 years his junior) and of abusing their seven-year-old daughter Dylan.

Hugh Grant: hired a prostitute and was subsequently arrested by Los Angeles police. This scandal is best known in the US as a turning point in the then flaming Late Night wars when Hugh helped Jay Leno's cause by appearing on the Tonight Show first.

Ty Herndon: Country music singer arrested in a Fort Worth, Texas park for allegedly soliciting an undercover male police officer for sex.

Michael Jackson: alleged to have engaged in sexual activities with a teenage boy in 1993 (a civil complaint that was settled out of court), and again with another one in 2003 (a felony complaint); in the latter case Jackson was arrested and released on bail. Jackson claims that there were never sexual activities, and defends nonsexual sleepovers as harmless. Jackson was acquitted of all charges in 2005.