The Real Madrid striker became an outcast in the France national team and was excluded from its European Championship squad last year, after being charged for an alleged attempt to blackmail his Les Blues team mate Mathieu Valbuena with a sex tape. Both men missed the Euro 2016 tournament after an investigation was launched into the alleged blackmail in the sex-tape scandal, which featured Valbuena.
Benzema was first charged with conspiracy to blackmail back in November 2015. He has since come out to say that the claims are "wildly untrue" and that the lies are making him "mad". The case is likely to go to court in France later this year.
In case you missed the big fight last year, Kim Kardashian posted a video of a phone call between Kanye West and Taylor Swift on Snapchat in which the music performers were overheard discussing certain lyrics from the highly-publicised Famous track. In the video, West is seen telling Swift about the controversial line in the song - "I made that b***h famous." After Kardashian released the recording, Swift claimed that the call was "secretly" recorded. She also threatened West with criminal prosecution for recording her without her knowledge.
In the wake of 2G spectrum allocation scam allegedly involving Rs 1.76 trillion, taped conversations between corporate lobbyist Nira Radia with politicians, journalists and industrialists were made public. Transcripts of the tapes stirred a controversy, given the big names associated with the scandal. The recordings were done by the Income Tax department, which tapped Radia's phones for over 300 days between 2007 and 2009. The tapes revealed the involvement of a number of top political and corporate names. Among the names that came up were that of former telecom minister A Raja and DMK MP Kanimozhi, who were later arrested in connection with the 2G scam.
A Florida court, in 2012, asked the news website Gawker to give former wrestler Hulk Hogan $115 million in settlement for releasing a sex tape featuring Hogan and his friend's wife. In 2009, Gawker, published the video which the wrestler claimed was secretly recorded. The sex tape was sensational, accompanied by an essay about celebrity sex and a vivid play-by-play of the encounter between Hogan and his companion. The tapes became a huge scandal, with Hogan suing the website in a long-drawn case.
While running for President in 2016, the then Republican candidate was hit by an outraged backlash after a tape emerged of him bragging about using his fame to grope women. "When you're a star they let you do it...I just grab them by the p***y," Trump was heard saying in the recording from a 2005 TV chat show. Amid a storm of condemnation, Trump released a video statement, apologising for his words. He said, "Anyone who knows me knows these words don't reflect who I am. I said it. I am wrong. I apologise."
And while it looked like those tapes would derail his campaign, it didn't. Months later, Trump took oath as the US president.
ET Bureau
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