50. PAT O'BRIEN BECOMES THE STORY
As host of The Insider, Pat O'Brien was used to reporting on celebrity scandals. But in March 2005, he found himself at the center of a tabloid-ready mess after a series of drunken, sexually explicit voicemails he had left an unidentified woman made their way onto the Internet. When friends and Insider colleagues staged an intervention, O'Brien didn't remember making the calls (in which he described the many ways he wanted to get ''crazy'') — but on March 20 he acknowledged in a statement that he had a problem with alcohol and was checking himself into rehab.
CAREER IMPACT Minor. (To what does a host of The Insider aspire to be, after all?) O'Brien returned to the show in May 2005 — after a tell-all interview with Dr. Phil.
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