Typically, on the set, nobody wields more power than the director, whose vision as a storyteller brings the disparate elements of filmmaking together into a coherent, gripping, moving, and, if the stars are aligned correctly, highly profitable work of art. The egos, tirades, eccentricities, and influence of these Hollywood heavyweights are legendary, but they’re not the only power brokers in Tinsel Town.

Others have egos just as large or larger, possess even more clout, and hold greater sway in the entertainment business. Some are producers. Others are stars who are supposed to work for the very directors they oppose. When such titans collide, someone is bound to fall. Fortunately, many of their defeats, though humbling, are usually temporary, as directors of their stature and accomplishment are too valuable and talented to sideline for long.

Top 10 Movies Better Than The Best

10 Peter Godfrey and Joseph von Sternberg

Since both of these men directed different parts of the same movie and were fired by the same person, we’re counting them as a unit.

Howard Hughes had the stars for his movie lined up: Janet Leigh and John Wayne. He had his story: a Soviet spy defects, flies to Alaska, is assigned a handler whom she marries, and the newlyweds return to Russia, from which, after several twists, they flee for their lives. He also had funding: the billionaire would finance the production of the movie himself. What he needed was a director.

He hired Warner Bros.’s Peter Godfrey, but fired him within days, replacing him with Joseph von Sternberg. The brusque director promptly alienated both stars and was soon also dismissed, although he was rehired briefly, before being fired again. Sternberg retained credit for directing the film, but it was actually the movie’s third director, Jules Furthman, who’d written the script with Hughes, who finally finished the picture, seventeen months after filming had first begun. Hughes was not pleased with the result and refused to release the picture. By the time he relented, the aeronautical technology featured in the film was obsolete, and the movie “lost millions.” Although this sum may not have been all that much to the billionaire, Hughes’s injured pride might well have been painful.

Godfrey, himself an actor, had directed such luminaries as Barbara Stanwyck, Humphrey Bogart, Errol Flynn, Ida Lupino, and Mickey Rooney. Sternberg’s credits included a host of films starring Marlene Dietrich, including The Blue Angel (1930), and he’d directed other major stars, such as Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, and Cesar Romero.

Only Furthman, who was primarily a screenwriter, lacked impressive directing credits, but neither he nor the two established directors the billionaire hired could please the financier, anymore than Hughes himself pleased critics or audiences with his disastrous 1957 dud Jet Pilot.^[1]

9 Anthony Mann

Despite a careful search for the director of Spartacus (1960), starring Kirk Douglas, the man originally hired for the job didn’t last long. Douglas’s friend and confidant Lew Wasserman, the president of the MCA talent agency, saw the need for a strong director if he and Douglas, who was also the film’s producer, were going to sell their proposal to Universal Pictures. Delmer Daves was unavailable due to “heart problems.” Peter Glenville was directing a Broadway play. Stanley Kubrick was signed to direct One-Eyed Jacks (1961). David Lean turned down the offer.

Douglas liked Joe Mankiewicz, but Wasserman vetoed his choice, saying the movie’s huge projected budget required a “technician they [could] manage,” rather than an artist. Initially, Douglas passed over Anthony Mann, who’d directed mostly Western films, commenting, “I had no interest in doing a ‘shoot ’em up’ with spears.” Finally, when he could find no one else, Douglas hired Mann, despite his own reservations, and filming got underway.

Explanations for Mann’s departure differ. Mann says that he wanted to present the story primarily in a visual manner, while Douglas insisted on using dialogue to tell the story. Douglas claimed that the decision to fire Mann was that of studio executives. Accounts also differ as to whether Mann’s departure was voluntary. Both Mann and producer Edward Lewis contend that Mann chose to leave the picture, while Douglas suggests that his departure was involuntary. According to Lewis, Mann left of his own accord, although he was helped along in making the decision to leave by being “under the weight of dealing with what amounted to four additional directors and screenwriters.

Another view is more decisive in its conclusion as to whether Mann quit or was canned. Douglas’s biographer Michael Munn concludes, “The film was first and foremost Douglas’s vision,” which is why he “named himself executive producer “to ensure it was made his way.” According to Tony Curtis, who played the slave Antoninus, Douglas wanted the focus of the film to be on both “the love story” and the slaves’ rebellion, and the “disagreements over this basic concept led to Mann’s dismissal two weeks into production.”^[2]

8 Alex Cox

After a few false starts, Alex Cox had put together a solid record for producing hit movies, including Repo Man (1984), Sid and Nancy (1986), and El patrullero (Highway Patrolman) (1991). Then, the chance to make Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) arrived. He was fired soon after landing the job, though, and the directing gig went to Terry Gilliam instead.

The reason for Cox’s firing appears to be the quarrel he had with gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, on whose book the film was based. The conflict between the director and the author became itself fodder for part of another movie of sorts, the documentary Breakfast with Hunter (2003).

It seems that Cox might also have been given the ax as much for his “fiercely independent punk spirit” and political point of view as for any creative differences he may have had with Thompson. His independence appears to have caused “him to be increasingly shunned by mainstream Hollywood” in general and from Fear and Loathing in particular. His ostracism by the Tinsel Town powers-that-be has led him, more and more, to lean toward making movies in Europe, rather than in Hollywood.^[3]

7 John Avilden

John Avilden, who directed Save the Tiger (1973) and Rocky (1976), which won him the year’s Academy Award for Best Director, came to Saturday Night Fever (1977) with a list of accomplishments that highly recommended him as a director. Nevertheless, his arguments with the movie’s producer led to Avilden’s ejection from the director’s chair.

According to the producer, Robert Stigwood, Avilden annoyed him because he kept “changing the script,” wanting to turn Saturday Night Fever “into another Rocky.” When associate producer Milt Felsen approached Avilden about Stigwood’s concern, the director stated that he merely wanted “a few changes” so the movie could “have an upbeat ending.” Although Felsen advised Avilden to “back off” because he was making Stigwood angry, Avilden persisted. Soon afterward, he was fired.

Being canned wasn’t anything new to the director. Avilden had also been fired from The Stoolie (1972) and Serpico (1973), just as he’d later be booted from Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), Space Camp (1986), and Gone Fishing (1996). In addition, Macaulay Culkin’s father Kit refused to work with Avilden on Richie Rich (1994). Independence in Hollywood was expensive, but Avilden was willing to pay the price.^[4]

6 Philip Kaufman

Although Philip Kaufman’s direction of Goldstein (1964) earned him not only the New Critics Prize at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival of the same year and the applause, during the middle of the film, by the esteemed French director Francois Truffaut and Kaufman had directed both Jon Voight and Robert Duvall in Fearless Frank (1967) and The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid (1972), respectively, it wasn’t until the director teamed up with Clint Eastwood to film The Outlaw Josey Wales in 1976 that Kaufman had his chance to direct a superstar.

In revising the movie’s script, Kaufman decided not to have Wales’s enemies give up their quest to kill the outlaw, as they had in the earlier version of the screenplay, but to have them continually hunt Wales throughout the film. Eastwood believed the new approach would maintain suspense, and he was so impressed by the plot change that he decided Kaufman should be the one to direct the movie.

It wasn’t long, though, before others on the crew began to have misgivings about Kaufman. He seemed “indecisive,” a trait that wouldn’t complement Eastwood’s impatience. The uneasiness with Eastwood’s selection increased when Kaufman filmed a Comancheros’ attack on Wales’s wife, Laura Lee, before Eastwood arrived on location. Neither producer Bob Daley nor Eastwood was pleased with the shots, Daley calling them “milquetoast.”

Additional problems, including Kaufman’s perceive inefficiency and concerns with bringing the movie in on time and on budget finally decided the issue, and, reluctantly, Eastwood fired the director. “It’s the hardest thing I ever did in my life,” Eastwood said. With Kaufman gone, the actor added to his existing duties that of directing the film. As a result of Eastwood’s action, the Directors Guild prohibited the replacement of its members by anyone else working on the crew of the movie from which the Guild member had been removed.^[5]

10 Crazy Sides Of Famous Directors

5 Kevin Jarre

Another director who had a setback in his career due to his work on a Western movie is Kevin Jarre, who was fired from Tombstone (1993), starring Kurt Russell. A number of considerations led to Jarre’s dismissal. The film was behind schedule and costs were spiraling. Actors resented being told how to move and how to deliver their lines. Jarre seemed to have trouble sequencing film shots and producing coherent scenes. Executives were not happy with the dailies—the film footage shot during particular days. The film was becoming overly long; more than thirty scenes had to be cut.

Jarre, who several crew members, including Kurt Russell, believed to be over his head, refused to listen to advice from seasoned members of the cast and crew. Co-star Val Kilmer said, “I had a conversation with Kevin . . . and said, ‘Listen, Kevin. It’s collaborative. Kurt’s been doing this since he was three years old. He knows what he’s doing. Listen to him.” He also suggested that Jarre heed the advice of other members of the cast and crew.

Finally, Kilmer and Russell warned the young director that he was likely to be terminated if he continued to insist on his way. “It’s not working,” Russell told Jarre, “and they’re going to come in here and can you.” When Jarre insisted on going his own way, producer Andrew Vajna finally fired him. “Kevin was incredibly crushed,” cast member Powers Booth recalled.^[6]

4 Richard Thorpe

The Wizard of Oz (1939), starring Judy Garland, is a classic musical, but Richard Thorpe’s two weeks as the film’s director were anything but harmonious for him or the cast. Following the first week of filming, producer Mervyn LeRoy called a meeting. Buddy Ebsen, who played the Tin Man until he discovered that he was allergic to the silvery makeup, recalls LeRoy’s telling the group that the week’s filming was “terrible,” an “utter confusion,” and “berating” the actors.

LeRoy himself suggested that the movie and the director were a mismatch. “He was a wonderful guy,” the producer said, “who made some fine pictures,” but Thorpe didn’t grasp the genre’s need for emotional “warmth.” “To make a fairy story, you have to think like a kid.” Presumably, Victor Fleming, who replaced Thorpe, had such childlike vision. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards and won three, although none were for Best Director.^[7]

3 Howard Hawks

Like many Hollywood figures, Howard Hawks was successful in several roles. A screenwriter and a producer, he also directed such famous and accomplished actors as Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Paul Muni, Gary Cooper, Joan Crawford, Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney, Cary Grant, and Katherine Hepburn, among many others. His films include such respected classics as The Dawn Patrol (1930), Scarface (1932), Today We Live (1933), Barbary Coast (1935), Ceiling Zero (1936), Bringing Up Baby (1938), and Sergeant York (1941).

It’s hard to believe that anyone would want to fire such a talented virtuoso, but he was dismissed from The Outlaw, a 1943 film starring Jane Russell and Walter Huston. The man who dismissed him? Billionaire Howard Hughes, whose name appears in the movie’s credits as its director. Hawks had just finished directing Sergeant York, when Hughes decided to discharge him because Hughes didn’t appreciate the extreme attention to detail the director exhibited or, for that matter, Hawks’s walking “off the set.” It seemed that Hughes took an uncommon interest in at least a couple of details related to his movie, though: he himself designed the scandalous, figure-enhancing bra that Jane Russell wore in the film.^[8]

2 George Cukor

One of the truly great Hollywood directors, George Cukor, was fired from the 1939 epic Gone with the Wind. The reason? Scuttlebutt had it that producer David O. Selznik cashiered him because Clark Gable, the megastar who played the film’s Southern rogue Rhett Butler, took issue with Cukor’s homosexuality, despite Cukor’s and Gable’s having worked together on a previous film, Manhattan (1933).

Although Gable’s alleged homophobia might have been a contributing factor to Cukor’s getting sacked, another reason for the producer’s firing Cukor might have been, as Selznik himself suggested, personal differences. The producer felt that the director couldn’t see the movie’s “scope” and “breadth” and was focusing too much on “the more intimate scenes and female characters.”^[9]

1 Stanley Kubrick

By 1976, Stanley Kubrick had already directed a string of colossal hits, often to critical acclaim, including Spartacus (1960), Dr. Strangelove (1964), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and A Clockwork Orange (1971). Although beyond impressive, his resume wasn’t enough to prevent him from being dismissed as the director of One-Eyed Jacks (1976).

Before then, Kubrick had wanted to direct a movie based on a 1935 novel he’d read, World War I veteran Humphrey Cobb’s Paths of Glory. However, MGM refused to finance the film. The story concerned French soldiers who were executed for mutiny before being posthumously exonerated, and the studio had only recently released the anti-war film The Red Badge of Courage (1951), based on Stephen Crane’s 1895 novel.

Kubrick would have to direct something else. Marlon Brando asked him to take charge of The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones, a film, based on Sheriff Pat Garrett and the outlaw Billy the Kid, in which Brando was starring. Things didn’t go well. Different opinions and lots of changes caused arguments that became so intense that Brando felt compelled to bang a gong to restore order. Ultimately, the star fired the director, renamed the film One-Eyed Jacks, and took over the duties and responsibilities of directing the picture.^[10]

Top 10 Best of the Best in Movies

Being a teacher is, for many, a calling. Helping educate children is a tremendous responsibility. It’s not a job just anyone can do or, at least, it’s not a job just anyone should do. But sometimes beggars can’t be choosers and school boards hire whoever shows up with a diploma. That has led to several outrageous stories of teachers who went well beyond their job descriptions and ended up getting fired as a result.

Lest we forget, there’s also a flip side to this coin. Because of the influence of politics, parents, red tape and all around bad ideas, sometimes a good teacher will get fired for just an unbelievable reason. Let’s take a look.

10. A Teacher Was Fired for Writing a Blog on Homophones

What’s your opinion on homophones? Tim Torkildson was working as a social media strategist for the Nomen Global Language Center, an ESL school, in Utah. Part of his job was making blog posts about topics relevant to ESL students. That included explaining parts of the English language, like homophones. 

As anyone aware of homophones might expect, the blog post dealt with words that sounded similar but had different meanings. However, Torkildson’s boss may have neglected to read the blog or look up the meaning of the word. Torkildson was fired for posting something people might think supported “the gay agenda.”

According to Torkildson, the owner of the company called him into his office after he posted the blog and fired him. The owner refuted this later saying it was just because his blogs went off on tangents. That said, they still removed the blog post, and the owner said the concept was too complex for their students, anyway. 

9. A Substitute Teacher Was Fired for Getting Dating Advice

It’s important for teachers to separate their work life from their personal life. This can be hard because they may spend more hours per week with their students than with their own families. You can build a genuine closeness there and that leads to some teachers openly talking about their own lives. Not always a good idea, though.

A substitute teacher in New York, who clearly didn’t have that history of familiarity with her students to fall back on as an excuse, was fired for soliciting dating advice from fourth graders. According to reports, the 45-year-old woman had the children help her act out dating scenarios, where a student would play the potential male partner on a date and she would play herself. 

For what it’s worth, it wasn’t suggested she did anything unseemly with the students that involved anything sexual. But she was having them offer advice on who she should date between two men and which qualities in men were ones she should look for as she was dealing with a man she described as a jerk.

When the school board learned of what she’d done, she was let go.

8. A Florida teacher Was Fired for Having Students Write Obituaries Before an Active Shooter Drill

It’s hard to relate to the school experience kids have these days if you’re an adult. Most adults never had to deal with things like active shooter drills which are commonplace all across America now. Kids shouldn’t have to practice for how to avoid dying at school, but they do. One Florida teacher made it worse, though.

Students at Dr. Phillips High School in Orlando were scheduled to have an active shooter drill. Psychology teacher Jeffrey Keene gave them an assignment to write their own obituaries ahead of time. His reasoning was that, in light of the drill, it would give the students a chance to reflect on what was important in their lives. Before the end of the day, he was fired.

The school said he was letting go for giving an inappropriate assignment about school violence. Keene said he didn’t regret giving the assignment because he felt it’s important to “talk real” to kids in that environment, and it’s something they were already talking about, anyway.

7. Ann Stewart Was Fired for Being a Witch 

History has not been kind to people accused of being witches. Whether they were hung or crucified or put on scales opposite a duck, they’re often presumed guilty until proven innocent. Even up through the 1970s they were being subjected to some harsh treatment even if that didn’t include murder.

Ann Stewart was fired from her position as a teacher in Tucson, Arizona in 1971 which led to an event that even has its own Wikipedia page called the Flowing Wells Witch Trial. Stewart was fired for teaching students about witchcraft and being a witch, being insubordinate, a poor influence on students,causing mental stress to other teachers and teaching outside of curriculum.

Stewart said she told no one she was a witch, just that she had the characteristics of one and the students ran with it. It was the principal of the school who made an ethics complaint about her and she was later dismissed indefinitely because of it.

On the bright side, Stewart was a tenured teacher, and the school did not follow proper procedure for dismissing her. That allowed Stewart to sue, and the courts forced the school to give her job back though it’s not clear how things progressed from there.

6. Oklahoma Teacher Was Fired After Taking Students on a Walmart Run

It’s no secret that teachers often buy a lot of supplies out of their own pocket for their classrooms. They also do a lot of extra work on their own time like prepping, planning and grading. But they’re still expected to make the most of class time with students. This was not something Oklahoma teacher Heather Cagle was good at.

In 2014, Cagle was fired after she took her students on a run to Walmart to get snacks. That already seems like a poorly thought out plan since getting snacks isn’t really part of any school day. But it gets worse!

Cagle only had a Honda Accord to get her and 11 students to the Walmart. Feel free to Google the interior of a Honda Accord if you want to guess how many people it holds. It’s not 11 plus a driver, so Cagle stuffed two of her students in the trunk and clown-carred the other nine into the Accord.

When the school board found out, they voted four to one to have her fired. 

5. A Norwegian Teacher Had Students Play with Her Blood

What’s the grossest thing you can imagine a teacher doing with their students that isn’t obviously, overtly criminal? If it involves tasting blood you’ve come to the right place.

A Norwegian teacher brought in a vial of her own blood for students, aged three to six, to taste, and taste it they did. Word is that as many as a dozen students had a sample after the teacher poured it onto a plate and started a Dracula buffet for them. 

The students were invited to touch the blood, which they did, and when one asked how to clean it off their finger the teacher just demonstrated licking it off her own finger, so the kids did the same.

The teacher was fired fairly soon after and tested for diseases like AIDS and hepatitis. By the time the story was published the results of the tests hadn’t come in but authorities tried to offer some reassurance by pointing out the chance for disease transmission was low.

4. A Teacher Was Fired For Letting Students Use a Classroom Closet for Sex

Every school has a “cool” teacher, the one who relates to students better than anyone else. Maybe they’re just young and more in touch, or maybe they’re really easy or let you watch movies in class. Or maybe they were like math and science teacher Quinton Wright who let kids have sex with each other in a classroom closet which is less cool and more horrible.

Wright, who also coached basketball, was letting students schedule times when they could go to the class and make use of the closet when no one else was there. It was sort of like an in-class Airbnb for, you know, high school sex. He even provided condoms. 

The teacher was caught when the mother of one of his 14-year-old students saw text messages between her son and the teacher. Her son was arranging timing for closet access. He was fired when the news came to light.

He also went on to face child molestation charges and ended up being released on a technicality since the detective who signed the warrant to arrest him let a different officer sign the paperwork.

3. A Teacher Was Fired for Giving Zeros to Students Who Didn’t Do Their Work 

Have you ever heard of a no zero policy? Some school boards adopted this as a way to separate behavior from academic accomplishment. The idea was that a late assignment or not handing in an assignment at all was behavior so it shouldn’t count against academic grades and that zeroes were counterproductive and destructive to a child’s academic growth. Some policies say any work handed in, no matter how bad, shows a “good faith” attempt and should automatically get a 50%. 

Canadian teacher Lynden Dorval was fired in 2014 for not complying with the school board’s no-zero policy. He wasn’t grading students unfairly; he was just giving zeros to students who hadn’t given him any work to grade. Despite how logical that may sound, because of the no-zero policy he was suspended and then fired for it.

Dorval appealed and won in court. He was given all the way he would have received during the time he was out of work and a boost to a pension for the same time, though he didn’t go back to teaching.

2. A Teacher Was Fired For Making OnlyFans Videos in Her Classroom

Sometimes what happens in a classroom can get a teacher fired even if it happens after hours and no students are involved. That’s what happened with Amanda Peer, a teacher from Thunderbolt Middle School in Arizona, when people discovered she was moonlighting on OnlyFans and filming porn in her classroom after hours.

Despite posting content under a fake name and blocking access to the entire state, someone still found the videos and reported her. While she technically wasn’t fired for what she’d done, she said she was forced to resign. In one statement she said she was given the option to resign so that nothing would be made public, but obviously that didn’t happen. That said, her husband was fired from his job as a substitute after appearing in several videos with her.

1. A Florida Teacher Was Fired For Arranging a Gang Beating

You never want to hear that a teacher has put hands on your child when you’re a parent. School violence already comes in far too many forms, the last thing the world needs is for teachers to be a part of the problem. Unfortunately, it happens and, in at least this one case, it went above and beyond what any normal person could imagine.

In 2014, Dru Dehart, a woman who had been teaching for years, went out of her way to set up a 7th grader to be bullied and physically beaten by a gang of other students. In non middle school terms, she put a hit on the kid.

The events were caught on camera and show Dehart wrangling six 8th graders and encouraging them to go after a 7th grade student who backtalked her. The boy apparently said he wished he could curse at a teacher earlier in the day. Dehart then instructed the half dozen older boys to “teach him a lesson.” After they held him down, punching and kicking him, the teacher allegedly told him he wasn’t “so tough now.”

Dehart later tried to claim that the boy threatened her, but the other students backed up their classmate’s account that all he did was lament not being able to curse her out. The school conducted an investigation after which they immediately fired her.

Losing your job is a pretty horrible feeling, no matter what the circumstances. Usually – whether it be because you’re a lousy employee, the company is downsizing, or you’re a celebrity sitting across the table from Donald Trump – there’s a pretty good reason to be fired. But every so often a person gets the sack for reasons that would make even the most no-nonsense boss scratch his head:

In this day and age, pretty much everyone has a blog. Your friends, your relatives – and if Disney Channel is to be believed, possibly even your dogs have blogs. So it should not have come as a surprise to anyone that Ellen Simonetti, a former flight attendant for Delta, also had a blog. I say former because she was fired from that position precisely for having that blog.

Simonetti was fired in 2004 after her employers discovered her blog, entitled “Diary of a Flight Attendant” and decided they’d rather not have the world see her as a representative of Delta Airlines. And why, you ask? Well, that’s a good question. By all accounts, she did not defame the airline. In fact, Delta stated that they found photos of Simonetti in her Delta uniform inappropriate – specifically one photo in which part of her bra is visible. It seems that we’ve grown as a society: though sex appeal used to be the lone qualification for becoming a flight attendant, it can now get you fired just as easily.

When you’re a basketball coach, your goal is to help your team win – preferably as comfortably as possible. But there’s apparently a strict definition of exactly how comfortable is too comfortable, as Micah Grimes found out in 2009. That was the year he guided his girl’s high school basketball team to a 100-0 victory over an opposing team, which was from an academy that specializes in helping kids with learning differences, such as dyslexia.

The Covenant School, where Grimes coached, is a private Christian school. It determined that running up the score was not “Christlike”, and therefore was an embarrassment to the school. Grimes refused to apologize, and people in attendance noted that spectators were egging the team on as they approached the 100-point mark.

Melissa Nelson, a married mother who had worked as a dental assistant for 10 years, was by all accounts a fine employee. She was also – according to her boss James Knight – just far too sexy for him to resist; so upon urging from his wife, he gave her a pink slip. What’s more, when Nelson tried to sue over wrongful termination, the courts actually upheld the firing, confirming that she was, in fact, too sexy for her job.

Knight apparently accused her of wearing clothes that were too tight and revealing, despite the fact that she wore scrubs; and when she made an off-hand comment about her lack of a sex life, he cracked a joke about it being like “having a Lamborghini in the garage and never driving it.” So apparently in Iowa sexual harassment is okay, but being attractive isn’t.

Juan Canales, father of three, worked as a waiter in a Thai restaurant in Fort Lauderdale. One day at work, he noticed a commotion outside and saw that a woman was being carjacked by a knife wielding attacker. Putting his own welfare aside, Canales rushed outside and wrestled the carjacker to the ground, then waited for the police to arrive.

After saving this woman from being attacked – and possibly even saving her life – he was promptly fired by his employer. Apparently it was for the publicity he generated by rushing out to play the role of hero. After all, if there’s anything a restaurant owner hates, it’s good, free publicity.

Dan Leone learned the hard way that sometimes, it probably is not wise to complain about your employer on Facebook. Of course, when the Philadelphia Eagles also happens to be your favorite team, it might be a little more difficult to bite your tongue when they don’t resign one of your favorite players. After legendary Eagles safety Brian Dawkins was allowed to sign with Denver, Leone took to Facebook to voice his frustration with management – and after this was discovered, the stadium worker was fired as a result.

There are many cases where people get fired or at least have their jobs threatened due to the idiotic stuff they post on Facebook, but at least in this case the firing caught the attention of Dawkins himself, who gave Leone some tickets and even took some of the blame, saying, “had I not signed with Denver, this guy would still have his job.”

At a law firm in Florida, there had been a tradition among the office workers of wearing orange on paydays as a sign of solidarity when they went out to happy hour after work. Orange is pretty much synonymous with Florida – from the University of Florida Gators, right down to the oranges for which the state is famous. But in 2012, the law firm fired 14 people who had been wearing orange on these days for months – simply because the new company executives somehow took it as an insult.

The new management felt that the orange-wearing of so many employees must have been some form of protest, despite the fact that it had been going on since before they took control of the firm, and also despite the fact that there was no policy against wearing orange. I can only conclude that the new management must have consisted of Florida State fans.

Hey, would you look at that: we’re back to Iowa. John Preston, a native of Cedar Falls, was fired from his job for doing what many, many of us have done far too many times over the years: beating his favorite television quote into the ground. Sure, repeating a quote gets obnoxious after a while – but it’s hard to believe that it’s an offense worthy of job termination.

But it seems to have been worthy in this case: Preston, while at a retreat, joined in with some other co-workers in saying “You’re so good looking” rather than “bless you” whenever someone sneezed – as Jerry and Elaine did in one episode of Seinfeld. Like many of us, Preston kept saying the same thing over and over again once everyone was back to work. Unfortunately it was almost all directed at a pretty female co-worker. It was determined this was sexual harassment, and Preston promptly got the axe.

In the age of the internet, there are few things more annoying than the person who types everything as though there’s glue beneath the caps lock key. In the case of Vicki Walker, it turned out that she really liked typing out her e-mails in caps, and often in red colored fonts.

The funny part is that during the wrongful termination proceedings – which, by the way, she won – her former employer only produced one such e-mail. I can only imagine what would have happened if she had ended the e-mail with a smiley face as well.

Gangnam Style ruins lives. We’ve all suspected as much since the viral video hit stateside, and now we have actual proof. Well, maybe it didn’t actually ruin any lives – but it sure did throw a wrench into a few, when 14 lifeguards in California were fired after a video surfaced online of them performing a funny parody of Gangnam Style called Lifeguard Style.

The problem, apparently, was that they were wearing city-issued lifeguard swimsuits and put this video together at the pool where they worked. They countered that everything was filmed during their off hours, and just for fun. Apparently reasonable minds have prevailed, as the city voted to reinstate them a month after their initial firings.

It’s only fitting that we take one trip back to the great state of Iowa to round out this list – the state which boasts perhaps the most ridiculous firings I’ve ever heard of. Richard Eggers, a 68 year old native of Des Moines, was fired from his job at a Wells Fargo bank because he had committed a crime. Seems like the grounds are reasonable enough, right?

Well, not when you take into account the fact that this crime was committed way back in 1963. Was it murder? Actually, it turned out that Eggers had used a cardboard cutout of a dime to operate a washing machine in a Laundromat when he was a teenager. Eggers was caught up in new federal banking regulations, which forbade the employment of anyone who has been convicted of a crime involving “dishonesty, breach of trust or money laundering.” It could just be me, but it seems that in this case they wildly misunderstood what “money laundering” actually means.

Teaching is often a calling, and the people who enter into the profession do so for noble reasons. After all, it isn’t for the excellent compensation and benefits, but that’s a conversation for a different list. Teachers work their butts off to ensure our children don’t grow up without a basic understanding of math, history, science, literature, and a ton of other subjects.

See Also: 10 Teachers Who Completely Lost Their Minds

Despite their hard work, there have been instances of teachers being fired for strange and often ridiculous reasons. Of course, there are times when a teacher should be and is fired, but more often than not, those issues are over sexual crimes, and they don’t belong anywhere near children. These ten teachers did nothing so horrendous as molesting a child; instead, they were canned for rather ridiculous reasons.

10Carla – Twerking At A Dance Competition

Carla was an elementary school teacher in a small Mexican town when she took a short vacation to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. If you know anything about Cabo, you know it’s a fun place to unwind, and that’s exactly what she did. While wearing a bikini, she entered and won a dance competition, earning herself a quick $260. The dancing involved twerking and moving in a provocative manner. The Internet being what it is, and Carla being an attractive woman, the video went viral, and within a few hours, it was making the rounds online.

Carla didn’t think anything of her participation in the competition, so she finished her vacation, packed her things, and returned home to Cuidad Obregon in northern Mexico. When she showed up to work, thinking everything was alright, she was pulled aside by her superiors and fired. Carla spoke about her termination in an interview with Reforma, a Mexican newspaper, “I was singled out as immoral, called immature and a whore. I’m not doing anything wrong. It’s a dance competition, and participating in it does not define me as a person. I’m not naked or having sex, much less consuming drugs or disrespecting someone.”

9 Monica Toro Lisciandro – Being A Lesbian

You would think that it’s none of anyone’s business what a person’s sexual orientation is, but when it comes to a place like Covenant Christian School in Palm Bay, Florida, it’s everyone’s business. Monica Toro Lisciandro was a seasoned theater teacher, and the director of the school’s plays, but on October 2nd, 2019, she was called into the school administrators’ office unexpectedly. Not knowing what was happening, she strolled in and was outed as a lesbian, which was something she kept private up to that point.

“They told me that someone called the school with allegations against me and said I was in a relationship with another woman, that I attend pride events and that I host ‘homosexual’ activities at the studio.” She was outed after spending 35 years in the closet, so she decided to admit who she was, and she was promptly fired for violating the school’s morality policy, but only after she was lectured about sin. Lisciandro is fighting the termination, but there’s not much hope she will be successful. As of early 2020, there are no federal or Florida state laws protecting LGBTQ people from termination.

8Professor Nicholas Goddard – Starring In Adult Films

Most people expect the teachers watching over their children to be of good moral judgment, and while it’s not necessarily immoral to film yourself having sex, few parents would be pleased to learn that their child’s teacher was a porn star. That’s what happened in 2016 when the University of Manchester learned that one of its professors had been involved in filming pornography a decade earlier. Goddard, an Oxford-educated Chemical Engineering teacher, had gone through a stressful divorce, and turned to porn as an outlet… as one does.

The university suspended him immediately, and if you search for Goddard online, you will find that the then-60-year-old professor appeared in dozens of films, often with women 40 years his junior under the pseudonym, “Old Nick.” As that was the age of most of his students, it’s no wonder the university took action when his pornography career came to light. With the suspension active, Goddard stepped down and resigned from his teaching position. He wasn’t technically fired, but he knew he eventually would be and opted to take control of the situation and return to pornography.

7Allison Wint – Saying The Word “Vagina”

Allison Wint was working as a substitute art teacher at a Michigan middle school when the topic of Georgia O’Keeffe’s work came up as a topic of conversation. Now, if you know anything about O’Keeffe’s portfolio, it’s that all of those flowers were representative of vaginas. It’s not some lurid conspiracy theory about her paintings; it’s a widely accepted interpretation of her work. While there’s nothing wrong with that, it seems the administrators at the Harper Creek Middle School will abide the teaching of her paintings, but not the utterance of the word “vagina.”

What she actually said, as she recalled to the Detroit Free Press, was, “Imagine walking into a gallery when [O’Keeffe] was first showing her pieces, and thinking, ‘Am I actually seeing vaginas here, am I a pervert? I’m either a pervert or this woman was a pervert.’” She said the word approximately ten times in the course of her instruction, though, “it was never in a vulgar capacity.” The following day, the school principal informed her that she violated the school’s policy of discussing reproductive health without prior approval and terminated her.

6 Viktoria Popova – Wearing A One-Piece Bathing Suit

Viktoria Popova was a teacher at School Number 7 in Omsk, Russia, until some photos of her were found online. The pictures didn’t show her doing anything naughty or nasty; she was simply wearing a bathing suit. According to the Siberian Times, Popova had posted pictures of herself modeling swimwear on her Instagram page, and for that, she was fired for “bringing her school and profession into disrepute.” The firing sparked outrage on social media, and within short order, more than 3,000 other women and teachers posted pictures online of themselves in bikinis and other swimwear with the hashtag, “teachers are people too.”

Interestingly, this was one situation where the social media outrage may have worked. When the swimsuit photos began posting all over the Internet, the Omsk Region government made an announcement that Popova could return to her job. The government issued a statement: “The question of Viktoria’s future employment has been decided: she may decide to work as a teacher either at this school or another one.” Though this was undoubtedly good news, other options popped up as a result of the controversial firing, as she was quickly courted by the modeling agency, Plus Size Omsk.

5 John Maxwell – Cleaning Up A Dangerous Spill

John Maxwell was a sixth-grade science teacher at Pound Middle School in Omaha who was loved by his students. They lovingly referred to him as Mr. M. One day, he brought a vial of mercury to school to show the students how the element remained in a liquid state and other interesting aspects of mercury. One such aspect became a problem when a student accidentally dropped the vial. It cracked, and a small amount of mercury spilled, which was approximately the size of a nickel or quarter. Knowing how dangerous mercury is if it makes contact with skin, Maxwell cleaned it up and continued with his lesson.

Unfortunately, he did the deed himself, and while he managed to take care of the problem right there and then, doing so violated the school’s policy. He was supposed to report the spill, and when the principal learned of the accident that Sunday after a concerned parent called him at home, he launched an investigation the next day. Eventually, the investigation warranted Mr. M’s termination from the school, and one student reported on Redditt that he was working another job in a different school, elsewhere in the state.

4 Michelle Hammack – Putting Out A Fire

When you’re working at a daycare center, it’s important to ensure the safety of all the children present. That’s especially true when a fire breaks out, which is exactly what happened at a Florida daycare center where Michelle Hammack worked. Not wanting to see a bunch of children die from smoke inhalation and… you know, being burned to death, Hammack rushed into action. She grabbed a fire extinguisher, and put out the flames, saving all the children in the room, and had the fire spread, possibly the entire daycare center. Was she lauded as a hero? No, she was fired a few hours later.

The reason she was terminated is incredibly baffling because her boss fired her for leaving the children in her room unattended. She did that so she could put out the fire, suggesting the daycare manager would have preferred she watch the fire spread from another room instead of putting it out. What’s worse is, there’s no ambiguity about why she was fired. Her boss explained her termination in an interview, saying, “I fired her only because she left her room. It’s not acceptable, and if anybody else does the same thing, I will fire again. I will fire them. No question.”

3 Diane Tirado – Giving Students 0% For No Work

Diane Tirado was a teacher in Port St. Lucie, Florida, where she had taught for 17 years. In 2018, she began teaching social studies to eighth-graders at West Gate K-8 School, but she wouldn’t last the entire year. In a bizarre rule the school imposed, Mrs. Tirado was fired for giving children a 0% when they failed to turn in an assignment. She has explained that the school has a rule that says, in red ink and all caps in the school handbook, “NO ZERO’S – LOWEST POSSIBLE GRADE IS 50%.” She disagreed with the rule and was given a termination letter on September 14th, 2018.

When she got the axe, she wrote a note on the board, which she snapped and shared on Facebook. Her note read, “Bye, kids. Mrs. Tirado loves you and wishes you the best in life! I have been fired for refusing to give you a 50% for not handing anything in. <3 Mrs. Tirado.” Of course, with a story like this one, there are conflicting accounts. It was later revealed that Mrs. Tirado was terminated for putting a student in a choke-hold and slapping another. She denies those allegations and sought council to sew the school district.

2 Teri James – Getting Pregnant

Private religious schools often have morality and lifestyle clauses in their contracts. When a teacher or other employee is found to have broken one of those clauses, they are often terminated, but even when this happens, it’s usually unfair and outright ridiculous. For one teacher, it became a reality after she became pregnant by her fiance. Teri James was employed at San Diego Christian College, and she did sign a lifestyle contract, which, in part, said that she must refrain from premarital sex, as that was the school’s standing as it related to living a supposedly holy lifestyle.

It was all going well and good for Ms. James, right up to the point she became pregnant. That wasn’t something she could hide, and as a result, the school terminated her for having premarital sex. That’s not the end of the story, though; when she left the school, the job was offered to the man who impregnated her. That man being her fiance who also engaged in premarital sex! This was a perfect example of the disparity of treatment for women and men when it comes to these so-called lifestyle morality clauses in contracts. Women are often fired over wearing bathing suits while men aren’t, and seeing as men can’t become pregnant, James was singled out.

1 Jennifer Mitts – Taking Care Of Her Students

Jennifer Mitts was a teacher at Red Bank High School in Tennessee who cared for her students. On two separate occasions, Mitts did the unthinkable: she helped her students when there was no other option. Her initial foray into helping out a kid who was desperately in need of her assistance came when a 17-year-old-girl, who was pregnant, was running a high fever and had pneumonia. Mitts drover her to the Emergency Room so she could receive treatment, and the student has since credited Mitts with saving her and her baby’s lives.

The second time, she had a student who was very sick, so she drove her to the Emergency Room, and because the student had no medical insurance, she paid the expenses out of her own pocket! Most people would label her a hero, and move on, but the school district went another route. Unfortunately, America is a highly litigious society, which made her actions dangerous for the school district. Despite the fact that she went above and beyond, she was forced to resign over the two incidents. She’s not without her supporters, and after teaching for 14 years, those supporters came out to petition for the school to hire her back, but the principal has thus far refused.