When you think of absolute monarchies, the mind often drifts to stern decrees and rigid customs. Yet, amid the austere regulations that bind the everyday Saudi citizen, the kingdom’s own royal family lives a world of excess where scandalous tales sprout like desert thorns. Below, we unveil the 10 sordid stories that reveal how power, privilege, and peril intertwine within the House of Saud.

10 Sordid Stories Unveiled

10. Princess Basmah’s Fake Sheikh

Her Royal Highness Princess Basmah bint Saud bin Abdulaziz al Saud, a granddaughter of the kingdom’s first monarch and daughter of the second, has long been a thorn in the side of the ruling elite thanks to her outspoken reformist stance and human‑rights advocacy. She has publicly urged the kingdom to adopt a constitution guaranteeing gender equality, civil liberties, divorce‑law reform, an overhaul of the education system, and the abolition of the mahram requirement that forces Saudi women to travel accompanied by a male guardian.

Despite championing these causes, she attracted the ire of those seeking to destabilise the dynasty. In 2013, a hacker—posing as a 30‑year‑old sheikh from the United Arab Emirates—invaded a friend’s Facebook account and coaxed the princess into a private chat. The ruse led to recorded Skype conversations where the impostor, using lavish flattery, tried to draw her into sexually explicit dialogue. Allegedly, the hacker also breached her computer, pilfering videos and photographs. After months of manipulation, the blackmailer demanded £320,000 be wired to an Egyptian bank account.

Choosing exposure over capitulation, Princess Basmah went public. The blackmailer responded by uploading a 40‑second YouTube clip that showed the princess smoking and blowing a kiss with her head uncovered—an act that, while harmless by Western standards, ignited a massive scandal in conservative Saudi society. She suspects the plot is linked to the operators behind the Mujtahidd Twitter account, a collective of dissidents who routinely publish intimate details of royal family members to undermine the regime.

9. Prince Nayef’s Cocaine Plane

In 2004, Prince Nayef bin Fawwaz Al Shalaan faced indictment in both the United States and France for his involvement in a massive cocaine‑smuggling operation linking South America to Europe. The saga traces back to a romance in the 1970s at the University of Miami, where the prince fell for Colombian student Doris Mangeri. Over the years, they kept in touch, and the prince even assumed a quasi‑paternal role for her children. By 1998, through Mangeri, he allegedly entered contact with a Colombian cartel headed by Juan Gabriel Usuga and Carlos Ramon—both brothers‑in‑law who, after losing an eye each in separate accidents, amassed a fortune in narcotics and operated a ranch near Medellín dubbed the “Cyclops Cattle Ranch.”

The prince purportedly suggested using his private Boeing 727 to transport cocaine, planning to launder the proceeds via Kanz Bank, the sole Islamic private bank in Geneva that he owned. He had a prior drug‑related indictment in Mississippi in 1984. According to prosecutors, the cartel agreed, and 2,000 kilograms (about 4,400 lb) of cocaine were moved to a Caracas stash house via a potato‑laden truck, then transferred into 100 empty Samsonite suitcases before being loaded onto the prince’s jet. The cargo was later shifted to a Paris stash house, with portions shipped onward to Italy and Spain. However, law‑enforcement raids in Paris and Spain intercepted the shipments, and the Colombian conspirators were arrested in the United States.

Even as the Saudi kingdom enforces strict anti‑drug policies, Prince Nayef defended his meetings as merely seeking investors for a plastics venture and was ultimately acquitted by the courts. With no extradition treaties between Saudi Arabia and the U.S. or France, authorities were hamstrung. Notably, interior minister Prince Nayef bin Abdel Aziz threatened to cancel French business deals if the investigation persisted. The prince remains at large, and during court testimony, a cartel member claimed the prince answered the question of why he smuggled drugs with, “The world is already doomed. I’m authorized by God to sell drugs.”

8. The Execution Of Princess Misha’al

This tragic tale mirrors a real‑life Romeo and Juliet. Princess Misha’al bint Fahd al Saud entered an arranged marriage—widely reported as unhappy—with an older cousin. Seeking education, she relocated to Beirut, where she met Khaled, the son of a Saudi diplomat, and began an illicit affair. The lovers maintained their relationship upon her return to Saudi Arabia, eventually attempting to flee together in 1977. Their plan was foiled, and rather than renounce Khaled, Princess Misha’al confessed to adultery, enraging her grandfather, King Muhammad bin Abdul‑Aziz, the brother of the reigning monarch.

The pair were seized in a Jeddah parking lot; the 19‑year‑old princess was executed by a single gunshot to the head while her lover watched. He was subsequently beheaded, a botched execution requiring four strokes. The Saudi authorities tried to suppress the incident, but the story sparked international outrage when the BBC and PBS aired a documentary titled Death Of A Princess in 1980.

Saudi officials attempted to block the film, but the effort failed. In retaliation, they expelled the British ambassador, withdrew 400 royal family members from the United Kingdom, and caused an estimated £200 million loss in UK orders and product boycotts. The documentary was rebroadcast in 2005 and remains available online.

7. Royal Lockup

Televised testimony from Princess Anoud al Fayez—one of the late King Abdullah’s many ex‑wives—reveals that the king allegedly kept four of his daughters—Princesses Jawaher, Sahar, Hala, and Maha—under a form of virtual house arrest within the Jeddah royal compound. For the past 14 years, half‑siblings purportedly oversaw their confinement, allegedly as punishment for “racy” lifestyles and criticism of the royal family. While some of Abdullah’s daughters have pursued successful careers and championed human‑rights causes, these four appear singled out for mysterious reasons.

The women, now in their thirties and forties, reportedly endure dire conditions. In a recent RT interview, Princesses Hala and Maha claimed they were running low on food and water. An Arabic‑language TV interview highlighted that their detention stems from their outspoken stance on women’s rights and opposition to male guardianship. Saudi authorities have never formally charged them, branding the matter a “private affair.”

Princess Sahar, in correspondence with a Middle‑East current‑affairs outlet, detailed their plight: the sisters and their mother have long advocated for poverty alleviation, women’s rights, and related causes, which angered half‑brothers Mitab and AbdelAziz. Over the past 15 years, conditions have worsened. Hala, while interning at a Riyadh hospital, discovered political prisoners being drugged and shamed in psychiatric wards, reported the abuse, and faced retaliation, including threats, drugging, kidnapping, and eventual confinement in Olaysha’s Women’s Jail. The sisters allege repeated drugging, kidnapping, and a systematic effort to break their spirit.

6. Halloween At Faisal’s

Although Saudi law bans Halloween and most foreign holidays for being “un‑Islamic,” the royal family enjoys a different set of rules. According to U.S. diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks, a clandestine Halloween celebration took place in 2009 at the residence of Prince Faisal al Thunayan, a cadet prince—not in line for the throne but still basking in royal privileges.

The soirée attracted over 150 young Saudi men and women. Religious police were kept at bay by “khawi”—young Nigerian bodyguards who grow up alongside their princes and pledge lifelong loyalty. Despite the kingdom’s prohibition on alcohol, Filipino bartenders served a cocktail punch made from “sadiqi,” a locally produced moonshine, with bottles of premium liquor filled with the same spirit displayed prominently.

The event, co‑sponsored by U.S. energy‑drink brand Kizz‑me, featured dancing, costumes, and a DJ. American consulate officials who attended reported that many female guests were, in fact, prostitutes hired for the night, and that cocaine and hashish use were commonplace. While a decade ago the wealthy Saudi elite’s nightlife was limited to informal “dating” in private homes, today many royal residences boast basements turned into bars, discos, and entertainment centres catering to a growing appetite for Western‑style nightlife.

5. The Death Of Bandar Abdulaziz

In 2010, Prince Saud bin Abdulaziz bin Nasir al Saud was arrested after beating his manservant and lover, Bandar Abdulaziz, to death in a lavish London hotel suite. The assault reportedly followed weeks of physical and sexual abuse, culminating on Valentine’s Day when, fueled by champagne and “sex on the beach” cocktails, the prince struck Abdulaziz 37 times and even bit both of his cheeks. The victim succumbed to his injuries.

After the attack, the prince ordered glasses of milk and water, dragged the body onto the bed, and attempted a clumsy cleanup to conceal the crime. During the trial, he spent considerable effort denying his own homosexuality—a crime punishable by death in Saudi Arabia—though experts noted that most executions for homosexual acts in the kingdom are linked to rape charges, and royal status likely shielded him from capital punishment.

Some observers argue the cover‑up aimed to hide the sexual dimension of the crime. The prince and Abdulaziz had a long‑standing, abusive relationship, sharing shopping trips, meals, and hotel stays, yet the prince repeatedly assaulted his lover. CCTV footage from a parking lot captured Abdulaziz submitting to a beating before meekly following his master away. The prince tried to claim the death resulted from a prior robbery where Abdulaziz allegedly lost €3,000, but forensic evidence disproved this, showing the wounds were recent. He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, but in 2013 he was repatriated to Saudi Arabia as part of a prisoner‑exchange deal that allowed five British nationals detained in Saudi Arabia to serve their sentences at home.

4. Prince Turki And Princess Hind

In 1973, Prince Turki bin Abdul Aziz married the striking 20‑year‑old Hind al‑Fassi, daughter of a Sufi mystic barred from entering Saudi Arabia, despite his family’s objections. He divorced his first wife to wed her, and together they embarked on a nine‑year globe‑trotting adventure with Hind’s mother, sister, and brothers—Mohammed, Allal, Mustafa, and Tarek—accompanied by a sizable entourage.

The couple eventually settled in a North Miami condominium, the Cricket Club, overlooking Biscayne Bay, after being urged by Alvin Malnik, a multimillion‑dollar Jewish lawyer with alleged mob ties they met in London. Malnik quickly won over Hind’s brothers with his charm and seized control of the prince’s finances. Family drama unfolded: Mohammed, jealous of Malnik’s influence, travelled to Turkey, adopted a young boy, and abandoned his Italian girlfriend to marry a Saudi woman. Seventeen‑year‑old Tarek kidnapped a Saudi woman at a London discotheque, proposed to her, and offered cash to her husband for a divorce. Malnik’s son, Mark, fell for Hind’s sister.

Miami proved a fertile playground for the al‑Fassi clan, who indulged in extravagant parties and reckless behaviour. In 1982, local newspapers alleged that servants on the prince’s compound worked around the clock for meagre wages, barred from leaving or contacting outsiders. Police raids resulted in a chaotic showdown: officers, accompanied by an interpreter, entered the compound, sparking a shouting match with Princess Hind and her bodyguards. During the melee, Hind’s mother, from a bathroom, asked an officer for a towel, which he handed over; she then bit his arm.

Legal battles ensued, but diplomatic immunity—arranged by the State Department and the Saudi ambassador—saved the prince from prosecution. Ordered to return to Saudi Arabia, the family soon relocated to Egypt, commandeering the top three floors of the Ramses Hilton. Throughout the 1990s, Egyptian press detailed lurid accounts of servant beatings and thuggish bodyguards. Two Egyptian waiters reportedly fell to their deaths while attempting to escape down the hotel’s façade using tied bedsheets. Hind earned notoriety for refusing to settle a substantial debt with a local jeweler and for entertaining male guests, including famous Arab singers, while Prince Turki often passed out from prescription medication prescribed by his domineering wife.

3. Phoney Dinner For Prince Charles

According to a 2006 Wikileaks cable, U.S. Consul General Tatiana Gfoeller detailed a disastrous dinner hosted by Prince Khalid bin Faisal al‑Saud for the visiting Prince Charles. Both princes share a love of landscape painting and even co‑hosted an art exhibition in London and Riyadh. Prince Khalid, nervous about the event, faced a run‑down palace in desperate need of renovation.

The soirée was orchestrated by a “prominent Western businessman” who, under pressure, was told by Prince Khalid that renovating the palace’s ground floor was his responsibility. When the businessman asked to decline, he received a firm “no.” With only three weeks to work, he cut power to the palace to hide the shoddy repairs, filled wall holes with Styrofoam, and projected decorative designs onto the surfaces. The dinner was illuminated solely by candles, further masking the hasty fixes.

The ruse succeeded; Prince Charles praised the palace’s luxury and beauty. The businessman was rewarded with paintings from both princes and a tip exceeding $13,000. He later described Prince Khalid as “extremely cheap.” This episode gained significance when Prince Khalid later became governor of Mecca, sparking speculation he might someday ascend the throne.

2. Rape At The Plaza Hotel

In 2010, Prince Abdul Aziz bin Fahd enjoyed an extravagant stay at New York’s Plaza Hotel, occupying a massive 370‑square‑meter (4,000 ft²) fourth‑floor suite while his entourage filled 50 additional rooms across the Plaza and neighboring hotels. The prince’s entourage had been lodged there for four months when Mustapha Ouanes, a mechanical engineer employed by Saudi Ogere, allegedly raped a 26‑year‑old barmaid who had fallen asleep in his suite.

On January 26, Ouanes met the barmaid and a friend at a West Village bar, sharing drinks before heading to his two‑room suite with the intention of a casual breakfast. The women, intoxicated with alcohol and hashish, passed out, only to awaken to Ouanes assaulting the barmaid. In court, the defense argued the women attempted to extort money for sex, fabricating a rape story after Ouanes refused.

Plaza employee Nizar Adeeb testified that when police arrived, a distraught woman shouted, “Do you work for the prince, too?” As Ouanes was taken away, Adeeb handed him a $100 bill and covered his handcuffs with a coat, stating the priority was protecting the Plaza’s reputation rather than the victim’s welfare. Ouanes was convicted and sentenced to ten years in prison, and the judge dismissed an appeal based on the defendant’s alleged coronary artery disease.

1. The Assassination Of King Faisal

In 1975, Saudi King Faisal, renowned for his modernization drive, close ties with the United States, and support for pan‑Islamism, fell victim to a brutal assassination by his nephew, Prince Faisal Ibu Musaed. On March 25, the king was holding a majlis—a public audience where citizens could present petitions. Outside, the prince chatted with Kuwaiti officials awaiting their turn.

When the king emerged, Prince Faisal rushed forward, embracing his uncle in a customary gesture that included a kiss on the head. In a sudden turn, the prince fired three shots, striking the king in the chin and ear. A bodyguard then struck the prince with a sheathed sword as Oil Minister Zaki Yamani shouted, “Don’t kill the prince!” The king was rushed to a hospital where doctors administered a blood transfusion and massaged his heart, but he could not be revived.

Legend holds that the king’s dying wish was for his nephew to be spared. Nevertheless, Prince Faisal’s brother, Khalid, assumed the throne after a three‑day national mourning period. Prince Faisal was declared insane, though a panel of Saudi medical experts later deemed him sane at the time of the killing. He was convicted of regicide by the high religious court and executed by beheading in a public square at the Al Hukm Palace in Riyadh before thousands of onlookers.

Conspiracy theories abound, but investigations concluded that Prince Faisal acted alone. Possible motives include revenge for the death of Prince Khalid bin Musa’id, who was killed by a policeman while leading an attack on a television station—an outlet King Faisal had recently introduced, sparking violent backlash.

Opium dens, the oblivion of laudanum, the relief of morphine, and the illicit activities of a drug culture so captivated that they didn’t even know how much danger they were in—the Victorian era is forever linked with the idea of opium. It was important enough for nations to go to war over it, and it started the idea of drug laws, something that we still fall back on today in hopes of keeping the same thing from happening again.

10 The London Myth

When it comes to opium dens in the Victorian era, surely there was nowhere that had more of these seedy places than London. We read about them in the works of Dickens and in Sherlock Holmes, and it’s one of the quintessential images of the darker side of Victorian life. Only, it’s not exactly true.

While there were opium dens in London, there were nowhere near as many as we tend to think. They were confined to the dock areas, where they were run by Chinese immigrants and their often English wives. Even at the height of opium use in London, the Chinese community only numbered a few hundred people, but it was their presence, and their association with opium, that made the idea of the opium den grow to larger-than-life proportions.

When opium dens first opened in London, they were mainly meant to serve sailors. Aside from opium, the sailors were looking for one other thing—women. As such, the dens developed into even more scandalous locales, where local women either became prostitutes or married into the Chinese community. And that, in turn, made the community a threat to the established way of British life despite its small size. By the 1920s, there were rumors of a global Chinese empire fueled by opium. Race riots and hatred were encouraged by less than reputable newspapers.

We’ve heard the opium dens of London described in scores of different books, but every description that we have of what went on in these dens of sin comes only two real-life opium dens. They were located in New Court Shadwell, and visiting them became the thing to do. Gradually, smoking opium was handed off from sailors and the lower class to the upper class, which was looking to add some spice to their life. The allure of crossing cultural and class boundaries elevated the idea into the exotic, often-talked-about opium den, immortalized in literature and pop culture as something much larger than it actually was.

9 Pennsylvania Avenue’s Opium Den

Not surprisingly, there were opium dens in port cities all over the world, even one on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC. It was located at 325 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest, to be exact, about where Constitution Avenue intersects with Pennsylvania. On July 22, 1907, The Washington Post ran an article about a police raid of Moy’s Store, a front for a so-called “hop room.” The article, which is laden with every sort of racial slur and offensive stereotype you can possibly imagine, tells a pretty sordid story.

According to Lee On, who ran the hop room, a man named Harry Puryear burst into the room armed with a revolver and demanded opium. When On ran, the police showed up to find the armed man, tables of drug paraphernalia, and a major problem—Puryear was the nephew of a former police chief. According to Puryear, he was only there to try to borrow some money, and when he saw all the opium pipes, he was so clueless as to what they were that he had to ask.

Opium dens had been around in Washington, DC, for some time. Another Washington Post article talks about a September 1894 raid on one at 425 10th Street Northwest, where police were greeted by the sight of nine opium smokers “almost completely under the influence of the subtle drug.” Edward Williams, who gave his occupation as “gambling,” faced charges for keeping the place. The club was officially called the Excelsior Pleasure Club, a legitimate club that was incorporated as a front for the well-dressed patrons who visited regularly. Police had been looking for two “notorious opium fiends” named Matinee Charley and Gypsy Joe, but all they found were several government employees.

8 The Terminology We Still Use

Many of our words have their roots in Victorian England, and if you talk about your friend’s “bachelor pad,” you might not realize what you would have once been implying. “Pad” is arguably a weird term for a residence. According to Jesse Sheidlower (who is a lexicographer, former president of the American Dialect Society, Random House editor, and one of New York Magazine’s 100 smartest people in New York), the terminology goes back to opium use.

“Pad” originally popped up in the 17th century, when it was used to refer to a rag or straw bed. Such things were usually used by transients or criminals, and while we’re not sure where that started, we do know that by the time that the early 20th century rolled around, “pad” had morphed into meaning something else. Now, a pad was a different kind of bed, and it was in the rooms used by opium smokers. Users would crash on their pad while the drugs worked their magic, and it wasn’t long before it was associated with all sorts of criminal activity. A pad became a place not necessarily for opium, but for any kind of shady dealing.

By the 1960s, the hippie movement had commandeered the use of the word, and it started to become more associated with the idea of an apartment. It’s still kept a bit of its original meaning, as “pad” generally doesn’t refer to any dwelling larger than an apartment. That’s because most of the criminal activity with which “pad” was originally associated was small-scale.

7 The Opium Vampires

While opium was first associated with docks and sailors who’d become addicted to the drug while overseas, by the end of the Victorian era, opium was firmly entrenched as the drug of the exotic and the decadent. Not everyone was so enthralled with the idea of opium, and in the 1920s, female addicts of a certain standing became known as “opium vampires.”

Opium vampires were largely upper-class women who had little else to do with their time and the money to afford whatever pastime they set their minds to. In 1926, Sara Graham-Mulhall wrote an expose on the opium culture called Opium: The Demon Flower. She wrote of women who were so addicted to the drug that nothing, not even pregnancy, could stop them from taking it. By that time, it was too late, and they were so filled with the drug even on a cellular level that they had no hope of bearing a healthy child.

The opium vampires were a Victorian-era version of heroin mothers and crack moms, and they were seen as something of a polar opposite to the good, respectable sort of woman that was the ideal. They were also seen as more than just self-destructing; they were vampires in almost every sense of the word. They were seen as preying on men, relying on their allure and their exotic charm to entice. They were seen as incapable of caring for themselves or their children, and Graham-Mulhall called for the unconditional removal of any child born to one of these fashionable, well-off, and cursed addicts.

Graham-Mulhall also went on to warn about how these opium vampires spread their habit like a disease. They went away on exotic vacations and returned to colleges with a new habit. They targeted younger men, and they were called “actresses in the great drama of opium.” They dazzled with their high-society ways and lured the unsuspecting into addiction and ultimately downfall.

6 Godfrey’s Cordial

It’s well known that opiates were a frequent ingredient in medications of all sorts, but there’s one in particular that stands out from the crowd. Godfrey’s Cordial was also known as “comfort,” and is mind-blowingly common. One version, made by the Loewy Drug Company in Baltimore, Maryland, lists its ingredients as 1.6 grams of opium per fluid ounce, 5 percent alcohol, potassium carbonate, and sassafras oil. At the time, a single adult (or young teenager) would often be responsible for caring for a whole flock of children when parents and other family members went to work. It could be a little overwhelming when the kiddos were, you know, conscious. Godfrey’s Cordial was nothing less than a godsend.

One anonymous statement to the benefits of the deadly mixture was this glowing review: “The young’uns all lay about on the floor like dead’uns, and there’s no bother with ’em. When they cry, we gives ’em a little of it—p’raps half a spoonful, and that quiets ’em.” Another testimony came from a 14-year-old girl who was often tasked with watching a whole pack of kids. She was grateful “that they leave me plenty of stuff, ’cause then, when they begins to cry or get troublesome, I shoves some of it in their mouths, and that stops ’em”.

As barbaric and dangerous as it was effective, this practice was so normal that it’s amazing anyone survived past infancy. In 1862, a survey in Coventry found that 12,000 doses were given to kids every week, and chemists in the 1840s would often measure their sales not in ounces or bottles, but in gallons. In 1871, a Lincolnshire chemist (one of several in the area) who served around 6,000 people reported that he sold about 25.5 gallons every year, while one of his competitors dispensed about six pints a week.

It wasn’t just child care workers who resorted to Godfrey’s to keep their charges quiet, either. Women who worked from the home in domestic industries like lace-making often doped their children up so they could work uninterrupted, like the sad case of Nottingham lace maker Mary Colton. She relied so heavily on Godfrey’s Cordial that her baby grew thin and sickly enough for neighbors and friends to feel it necessary to intervene and suggest that she start the baby on a regimen of another substance that was bound to bring back the child’s color and appetite.

What was the substance that they all prescribed? Laudanum.

5 The Roosevelts And Opium

The US has its share of old money and pseudo-royalty, and not all of them made it in ways that their descendants are proud of.

Warren Delano, grandfather of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was part of a massively successful seafaring family. When he came of age and entered the family business, he journeyed from South America through the Pacific Islands and finally into China, where his experience as a merchant and trader allowed him to become the head of Russell and Company. At the time, the company was one of the major players in the tea business, overseeing the export of Chinese tea to the rest of the world. While tea was certainly in demand and certainly profitable, Delano found something even more profitable during his nine years there—opium.

At the time, it was technically illegal to trade in opium, but illegality only occasionally stopped people when there was a literal boatload of money to be made. In letters home, Delano wrote of the effects that he knew opium had on those who became addicted and talked about the corpse-like addicts he’d met. He then went on to justify it and liken it to the trade of wine and spirits that the US was already engaged in.

Operations proved more than a bit tricky, however, and in 1836, the Russell and Company facility was stormed by 8,000 men, up in arms over the trafficking of a substance that had created millions of addicts. Delano got out of the business and headed back to the US, where he attracted a wife with his newfound wealth. They moved to China for three years but eventually settled in New York.

A financial panic in 1857 caused Delano’s wealth to evaporate even more quickly than it had come, causing him to return to China for five more years. Since opium was still popular, he went back to the business. He eventually scored a huge client—the Medical Bureau of the US War Department. The Civil War was in full swing by then, and Delano contracted with the US government to be their opium supplier. He spent the duration of the war in China and shipped medical opium back to the States. He was joined by his family, including his daughter Sara, who would become the mother of a president.

4 The First Morphine Murder

In 1823, France was host to the first trial of a man accused of using the opium-based drug morphine as a tool for murder. The accused was 27-year-old doctor Edme Castaing, and his story was a bizarre one of desperate measures taken to secure a lavish lifestyle.

He was already living beyond his means by the time that he began caring for the unlikely named Hippolyte Ballet. Hippolyte was dying a rather slow death from tuberculosis, which gave him enough time to rewrite his will to exclude his brother, Auguste, and keep him from inheriting any of the fortune that was going to be up for grabs upon his death. Castaing and Auguste not only destroyed the new will, but hurried Hippolyte’s death along with a fatal dose of morphine.

Castaing, now in good with his new friend Auguste, convinced him to rewrite his own will to include the doctor. Once the will was safely in the hands of legal counsel, Castaing took Auguste for a ride to a farm in the country. While they were there, Castaing slipped a lethal dose of morphine into Auguste’s wine. Suspicions mounted, and the doctor went on trial.

The idea of morphine as a deadly substance was so new that it was tough to prove. There were a couple telling pieces of evidence against Castaing, though, including his recent purchases of a relatively large quantity of morphine, his known experimentation with different poisons, and a series of inquiries he’d made trying to find out what poisons were likely to go undetected during an autopsy.

Of course, there was also the massive amount of money that he suddenly came into after the deaths of the two brothers. Castaing was found guilty. He continued to insist that he was innocent, all the way to the guillotine.

3 Alchemy And Opium

Alchemy has given birth to a wide range of modern ideas, and even though laudanum is most often associated with the Victorian era, it had a long, strange history before that.

Credit for its discovery is usually given to Paracelsus, who started the process by mixing opium with alcohol and finding out that it was much more soluble in this form than it was when it was added to water. The simplified version of the history is that he added opium to wine, threw in some spices to make it more palatable, and went on to claim that it was a miracle concoction which even allowed him to raise the dead. (The one thing that it couldn’t do, however was cure leprosy.) Although the basics of the drug were the same as the one that would change the face of the Victorian era, Paracelsus’s laudanum had a few extra ingredients: He included powders of pearls and gold and gave it its notorious name, based on the Latin word laudare, meaning “to praise.”

By the 17th century, there was a new version of laudanum on the market. English doctor Thomas Sydenham claimed to have reinvented laudanum and made a new tincture based on the work of Paracelsus. His version was made from opium, cinnamon, cloves, saffron, and high-quality sherry. He claimed that his version could cure just as many diseases, ills, and illnesses as Paracelsus’s tincture, and a key part of its popularity seems to have been saffron. Sydenham’s version became the drug whose popularity lasted for centuries, hailed as a miracle cure and initially a legitimate medicine. It was only later that it became known for its widespread recreational abuse. In areas where saffron wasn’t widely available, it was left out of the recipe, and laudanum failed to take hold in those areas like it did in other parts of Europe.

2 Branwell Bronte

The Bronte sisters are well-known for their depictions of contemporary life and love, and part of that society was the impact of opium. In The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte wrote of the fictional Lord Lowborough. He was a down-on-his-luck member of her main character’s inner circle, beleaguered by his wife and plagued with an addiction that countless people of the era would find familiar.

His melancholy misery had a very real-life inspiration—Anne’s brother, Branwell. Addicted to both laudanum and gin, he was her source for getting inside the head of a man so desperate to escape the realities of life that nothingness was preferable. Letters between the sisters talk about his descent into the “full oblivion” of his addiction. He didn’t notice when his family spoke to him most of the time, and when he did, he described “such strange and wandering images [that] filled the room.” Sinking farther and farther into debt, any money that he did get went to feed his addiction, and it all stemmed from an affair that was worthy of a Bronte novel in itself.

At 25 years old, Branwell was hired by Reverend Edmund Robinson to tutor one of his children. He went to live with Robinson’s family at Thorp Green Hall, where he promptly fell in love with the lady of the house. Just what happened next is a complete mystery.

According to Branwell, he began a torrid love affair with the 43-year-old mother of five. The feelings were absolutely mutual, and the affair lasted for two and a half years before it was discovered by the reverend, who immediately fired Branwell. He’s the only one who said that there was any kind of mutual affair, though, and according to The Bronte Society, one of the only things he was probably guilty of was overestimating the lady’s opinion of him.

Regardless, he was still fired in 1845 and would later sink into a deep depression and drug addiction from which he would never recover. He wrote poetry dedicated to the lady of Thorp Green Hall while drowning reality in a cloud of alcohol, opium, and laudanum. It was made even worse when Reverend Robinson died. Branwell couldn’t return to his lady-love because she told him there was a stipulation in the reverend’s will that she would lose her children and her estate if she ever continued contact with him.

In truth, there was no such stipulation, and she went on to marry a wealthy widower almost 30 years her senior. Branwell died three years after he was fired.

1 Experimentation And Morphine

By 1815, morphine was the go-to remedy for pain and for those who were trying to get off opium and laudanum. It was discovered in 1805 by a German scientist named Friedrich Serturner, and he went to some terrifying lengths to prove that his findings were the real thing.

He’d started his research about two years earlier, and it was all based on his observations that some samples had a clear pain-numbing effect, while other samples didn’t. He figured that opium must contain something that could counteract pain, but it wouldn’t work unless the dose was high enough. Using ammonia to separate opium into its base components, he isolated what he called morphine.

No scientific find is given any kind of attention whatsoever without some solid proof, so he started down the horrific path of dosing mice that lived in his basement and then dogs that wandered around his neighborhood. The mice and the dogs died, but Serturner wasn’t dissuaded. Still convinced that he was on to something, he decided that he needed to test his drug on living creatures that could tell him exactly what was going on and what they were feeling. He did what any enterprising 20-year-old would do: He recruited three teenage friends and handed out his morphine and alcohol mix.

By the end of the experiment, he and his friends each consumed around 10 times what’s now recommended for a single dose of morphine. They started to experience nausea, fever, and dizziness. Serturner, who was taking the same stuff, thought they were poisoned. He handed out 8 ounces of vinegar to induce violent vomiting, followed by carbonate of magnesia and a long sleep. The aftereffects of the morphine, headaches, stomachaches, and extreme fatigue, lasted for a few days after their experiment, but it gave Serturner the data that he needed. By 1831, he had received a massive cash prize from the Institute of France for his work in medicine, but there’s no record on whether or not he shared the 2,000 francs with his friends.

When you think of baseball royalty, Mickey Mantle instantly comes to mind, and the 10 sordid stories that surround his life illustrate just how wild the legend really was. Mantle is celebrated as one of the all‑time greats and, without question, the most powerful switch‑hitter the game has ever seen. He thundered onto the scene in the 1950s and dominated through the 1960s, an era when the sport’s culture was as loose off the field as it was competitive on it. While his on‑field achievements are etched in the record books, his off‑field escapades redefined the term “debauchery.”

10 Sordid Stories Uncovered

10 Every Morning Started With A Drink

Mantle’s career numbers were nothing short of spectacular: 536 home runs—a record that still stands as the highest total ever posted by a switch‑hitter. His blend of raw power and lightning‑fast bat speed was astonishing, especially when you consider that he routinely suited up after a night of heavy drinking. While modern athletes meticulously count every calorie and macronutrient, Mantle took a very different approach to his morning routine.

Instead of a bowl of Wheaties or a protein shake, the Yankee slugger swore by what he called “the breakfast of champions.” He would start each day with a generous splash of Kahlua mixed with cream, followed by a neat shot of brandy. This potent concoction was his way of kicking the day into gear, and it powered him through countless games despite the public’s general obliviousness to his drinking habits.

In an era when most players kept their diets under a microscope, Mantle’s secret was a well‑guarded mystery. The public was largely unaware that his legendary power was fueled by a cocktail that would make today’s nutritionists gasp. Yet, night after night, he would raise a glass, finish his drink, and still step onto the diamond with the same ferocious swing that made him a household name.

9 He Thought He’d Die Young

Mickey’s childhood was shadowed by tragedy, beginning with the early death of his father, Elvin “Mutt” Mantle. Mutt, who was only 19 when Mickey was born, devoted himself to shaping his son into a baseball prodigy, even naming him after Hall‑of‑Famer catcher Mickey Cochrane—though Cochrane’s real name was Gordon. Mutt’s training regimen was rigorous: he threw right‑handed pitches to his son while insisting Mickey bat left‑handed, and his own father—Mickey’s grandfather—threw left‑handed to force the youngster to swing right‑handed as well.

The strain of this intense preparation took a dark turn during Mickey’s rookie season in 1951. While the Yankees were battling the New York Giants in the World Series, a knee injury forced Mutt to try and help his son walk. In the process, Mutt collapsed under Mickey’s weight, revealing that he was already battling Hodgkin’s disease—a condition that had already claimed the lives of Mickey’s grandfather and uncle at relatively young ages.

Mutt succumbed to the illness less than a year later. The loss left Mickey haunted by the specter of an early death, a fear that drove him to a reckless lifestyle. He later confessed that he used alcohol as a means to “escape the pain of losing my dad,” a confession that underscores how deeply his father’s demise impacted his choices both on and off the field.

8 He Believed He Could Fly

Mickey’s most infamous drinking partner was the fiery Billy Martin. Martin, best known for his multiple stints managing the Yankees, was a scrappy, hard‑nosed Italian who shared Mantle’s love of a good bottle. Their camaraderie reached legendary heights one night in Detroit after a binge that left them both stumbling back to Mantle’s hotel.

Martin, ever the instigator, suggested they “climb out on the ledge and see what’s going on in the other rooms.” The two men, half‑asleep and fully intoxicated, slipped onto the 22nd‑floor ledge of the building. They peered into a window, saw nothing, and realized the ledge was too narrow to turn around. Determined, they inched their way around the entire perimeter of the hotel, finally crawling back into their room with a story that would become an infamous anecdote in baseball folklore.

The episode perfectly encapsulated the duo’s reckless abandon: a mix of bravado, poor judgment, and a willingness to flirt with danger for the sake of a night’s entertainment. It remains a vivid illustration of how far Mantle and his companions would go when the wine flowed.

7 Fireworks Off The Field

Mantle’s third notorious drinking companion was Whitey Ford, the Hall‑of‑Famer pitcher celebrated for his calm demeanor on the mound. While Ford and Mantle shared a reputation for clutch performances, their off‑field antics could be just as explosive—literally.

Following a game in Baltimore, Mantle and Ford missed the scheduled team bus bound for Washington, D.C. Opting for a taxi instead, they lugged a bottle of Scotch along for the ride. En route, they spotted a fireworks stand and persuaded the driver to stop. The pair bought a handful of Roman candles, ignited one right inside the cab, and then, upon arriving at the elegant Shoreham Hotel, set off the remaining candles in Mantle’s room, startling both teammates and unsuspecting hotel guests.

The incident cemented their reputation for turning a simple night out into a chaotic spectacle. It also highlighted how Mantle’s love of mischief could erupt into full‑blown pyrotechnic mayhem, leaving a lasting impression on anyone who witnessed the scene.

6 He Loved The Ladies

Mantle married his high‑school sweetheart, Merlyn Johnson, in 1951, but the marriage never kept his wandering eye in check. As the years went by, Merlyn grew increasingly aware of Mickey’s womanizing ways. By the final six years of their union, the couple lived apart, though they remained legally married until his death in 1995.

For Mantle, the three loves of his life—baseball, wine, and women—remained constant. Even as his athletic performance waned, his appetite for the latter two never dulled. In a 1980 interview with New York magazine, a female reporter asked him what he liked to hunt. Mantle, with a mischievous grin, replied, “Puss,” hinting at his ongoing fascination with women.

Beyond the bedroom, Mantle’s lecherous tendencies manifested in other, more covert ways. He was known to climb onto the roof of the Shoreham Hotel to engage in what he called “beaver‑shooting,” a euphemism for spying on naked women from a hidden perch. This habit, combined with his penchant for fireworks, painted a picture of a man whose off‑field life was as raucous as his on‑field exploits.

5 The Hungover Home Run

Mantle often boasted that his drinking never hampered his performance, yet one of the most famous anecdotes—documented in Jim Bouton’s candid memoir Ball Four—suggests otherwise. The story recounts a day when Mantle, nursing a foot injury and not slated to play, decided to take a swing despite a brutal hangover from the night before.

Called upon in a pinch, he stepped up to the plate, squinting through a haze of pain and alcohol, and launched a massive home run to left field. The crowd erupted, and Mantle, still groggy, allegedly declared, “Those people don’t know how tough that really was!”

Baseball statisticians have since verified the tale. Of Mantle’s 536 career homers, five were pinch‑hit. Only three of those occurred at home, and just one took place during a day game at Yankee Stadium—a match on August 4, 1963, where he homered off George Brunet to tie the game at ten runs. This singular instance confirms that the legendary “hungover home run” did indeed happen.

4 He Made A Mockery Of A Grand Jury

May 16, 1957, was supposed to be a celebratory night for the Yankees, marking Billy Martin’s 29th birthday with a performance by Sammy Davis Jr. at the Copacabana. The event took a dark turn when hecklers began hurling racial slurs at Davis, prompting a physical altercation that left one heckler with a broken jaw.

While many pointed fingers, Hank Bauer—then batting a modest .203—claimed innocence, telling police, “I didn’t hit him. I ain’t hit anybody all year.” Yet Bauer wasn’t the only one to offer a tongue‑in‑cheek response. When the case went before a grand jury, Mantle’s testimony was notably whimsical.

After being asked if he’d seen a man unconscious near the Copa entrance, Mantle replied, “Yes, I did.” When probed for an opinion on how it happened, he paused, then quipped, “I think Roy Rogers rode through the Copa, and Trigger kicked the man in the head.” The district attorney, finding no substantive evidence, dismissed the case, leaving the incident shrouded in absurdity.

3 His Favorite Yankee Stadium Memory Was Off The Field

When Yankee Stadium approached its 50th anniversary in 1972, officials asked the franchise’s legends to recount their favorite memories within the historic park. One would expect Mantle, a three‑time MVP, Triple Crown winner, and seven‑time World Series champion, to share a glorious on‑field moment. Instead, he submitted a startlingly candid response.

On the form, Mantle wrote that his most “outstanding experience at Yankee Stadium” was a blow‑job he received beneath the right‑field bleachers, near the bullpen. He further detailed that the encounter occurred around the third or fourth inning, noting a pulled groin that prevented him from “f—k” at the time. When asked what to do with the “cum” afterward, he bluntly answered, “Don’t ask me, I’m no cock‑sucker.” He signed the form with the moniker “Mickey Mantle, The All‑American Boy.”

This revelation underscored how Mantle’s off‑field exploits often eclipsed his athletic achievements in the eyes of those who knew him, painting a portrait of a man who lived as boldly off the diamond as he did on it.

2 The Liver Controversy

By 1995, Mantle’s health had deteriorated dramatically, with liver failure looming as the primary cause. What shocked many was that he secured a donor match after just two days on the transplant waiting list—a timeline that sparked controversy over whether a famous, alcohol‑induced liver disease should receive preferential treatment.

Investigations revealed that Mantle had not received any special favors; he simply got lucky. After quitting drinking in 1994, he had been sober for a year when a donor match finally appeared. Unfortunately, doctors later discovered that cancer had already spread from his compromised liver into the surrounding bile ducts, rendering a new liver ineffective against the terminal disease.

In a reflective statement, Mantle warned young athletes, saying, “I’d like to say to kids out there, if you’re looking for a role model… don’t be like me.” He passed away on August 13, 1995, just two months after the transplant, leaving behind a complex legacy of triumph and tragedy.

1 His Alcoholism Ruined His Family

Mantle believed that alcoholism ran on his mother’s side of the family, a trait he inevitably passed to his own children. He openly admitted that he was more “The Mick” than a father, with his four sons becoming his drinking companions rather than his protégés.

Later in life, Mantle lamented how his addiction may have stunted his sons’ athletic potential, noting that he often chose the bar over the backyard batting cage. His eldest son, Mickey Mantle Jr., pursued a brief stint in the low minors, while his youngest, Billy—named after friend Billy Martin—died at 36 from a heart attack exacerbated by substance abuse, after also battling Hodgkin’s disease like his grandfather.

Both Mickey Jr. and his wife Merlyn eventually sought treatment at the Betty Ford Center. Tragically, Mickey Jr. succumbed to cancer in 2000. All four of Mantle’s sons spent time in rehab, never reaching the major leagues but inheriting their father’s love of liquor. Jake, the author of a quirky trivia e‑book, compiled these bizarre anecdotes and invites readers to follow him on Twitter for more useless facts.