One of the hardest things to wrap your head around in life is that nothing is black and white. People are multifaceted and even the most awful humans in history had to have moments when they did normal, everyday stuff. It’s our nature to want to imagine people in one-dimensional terms – good people are all good and bad people are all bad. But it never works that way. Some of history’s greatest villains still had hobbies and did every day or even surprising stuff to keep themselves busy from day to day. Let’s take a look at 10 terrible people and their curious pastimes.
10. Robert Mugabe Collected Degrees
Robert Mugabe was the first Prime Minister of Zimbabwe after the end of the British rule (in what at the time was Rhodesia) and later became its President. He served in office for nearly 40 years. He had been the leader of the anti-British resistance and to many was seen as a revolutionary and even a hero, fighting for the rights of his people and his country. The problems with his rule would come later when the word “tyrant” began to get tossed around.
Mugabe’s policy destroyed the economic power of the white residents of Zimbabwe which eventually spread to everyone. He used threats and blackmail to get what he wanted in his later years and many people have said it seemed like something changed in him after his wife died.
Despite his dictatorial tendencies, most people agreed that Mugabe was an exceptionally intelligent man. And that meshes with his unusual hobby of being remarkably well educated. Not only did Mugabe have over a dozen honorary degrees, he had many he earned on his own. He allegedly earned two law degrees while he was in prison before rising to power, and had earned degrees in education and administration earlier in life, along with ones in English and History as well.
At least one accounting, though it’s from an unsourced blog, says Mugabe had 21 degrees, though it’s hard to keep them all straight. What we do know for sure is that at least three of his honorary degrees were revoked.
9. Kim Jong-un Loves Swiss Cheese
What can you say about Kim Jong-un? The North Korean Supreme Leader has been trying to become a nuclear power for years, routinely threatens to destroy South Korea and America, and has been accused of everything from forced abortions to murder to imprisoning his own people and sometimes family in work camps. It’s been said that the average North Korean citizen has almost no concept of the outside world and the few that escape are often surprised to learn what life and prosperity can be found abroad. So you have to assume the Supreme Leader is not the most relatable guy. But man does he love cheese.
Kim has been mocked frequently for his weight in the foreign press and it became something of an ingoing joke around 2014 that he had a real passion for both wine and cheese. It’s said he developed a passion for Swiss cheese as a student in Switzerland and imported massive amounts of it. If rumors are true, he loved the cheese enough to give himself gout.
8. Josef Stalin Was a Big Movie Guy and Loved Tarzan
History will probably never have a fully accurate accounting of just how badly people suffered under Josef Stalin, but what is known is that both directly and indirectly he caused the death of millions. Heck, he had one million of his own people executed. It’s been said his regime killed many more than even Hitler and the Nazis during WWII, rising well above 10 million dead. So what does a monster like that do to unwind? Turns out Stalin was a big movie guy. And he absolutely loved Tarzan.
The dictator’s love of the legendary ape man is so ubiquitous it’s even showed up in fictional tales about the man, some flavor to make him a more richly detailed but odd character. Weirdly enough, Edgar Rice Burroughs even wrote Stalin into one of his books, Tarzan Triumphant, which had to have amused the man as well.
7. Saddam Hussein’s Romance Novel
Saddam Hussein ruled over Iraq for years and across two wars with the United States. He was responsible for the deaths of many people including 5000 Kurds in a 1988 gas attack with deadly gas as well as the 1982 slaughter of 148 Shiite Muslims. It was that last one that ultimately led to the man’s execution so many years later.
Despite being responsible for so much death, destruction and corruption, Hussein had an almost baffling soft side that many people didn’t know about and, to be fair, probably don’t want to know about. Somehow, with everything else he had going on, the man took the time to write and publish a romance novel.
The book, called Zabiba and the King, was published in the year 2000 but was translated to English some years later. It told the story of a romance many years in the past between the King, a stand-in for Hussein himself, and a woman named Zabiba who represented not one specific person but all the Iraqi people.
Reviews for the book were not kind, as you can imagine.The CIA felt the book was ghostwritten under Saddam’s direction but not everyone agrees. The reason? It’s apparently so badly written that it couldn’t have been a professional doing the job for him. If you’re really curious, you can still find it in print.
6. Osama bin Laden Was a Huge Volleyball Fan
No one needs to be told what Osama bin Laden did. The worst terrorist attack on American soil was done at his direction and it was years before he was finally hunted down. During that time that he was at the forefront of the public perception there was little known about him other than his affiliation with al-Qaeda and that he was thought to be hiding in cave systems to keep off the radar.
It’s hard to imagine that the man had ever lived a normal life or did normal things, but as we have seen, even the worst people had moments of normalcy and bin Laden was no different. It’s been said that when he had the time and the ability to do so, he absolutely loved the game of volleyball. A man who spent years as bin Laden’s neighbor said he remembered the man playing volleyball with his kids in the yard almost every day.
5. Teodoro Obiang has Millions of Dollars Worth of Michael Jackson Memorabilia
Despite the many accusations against him, Michael Jackson’s popularity was second to none in the music world. He wasn’t called the King of Pop for nothing. And maybe that makes it at least a little relatable when you hear that Teodoro Obiang had millions of dollars worth of Michael Jackson memorabilia.
Obiang has been ruling over Equatorial Guinea for ages at his father’s side. His father, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, has been running the country since 1979 making him the longest-serving dictator in the world. His corruption is well documented, but his son goes to new heights. Among his many indulgences includes things like a $275,000 crystal-studded glove worn by Michael Jackson.
As far back as 2011 the US government was trying to seize Obiang’s assets, including Jackson memorabilia, a result of investigations into corruption.
4. Ayatollah Khomeini Was A Leapfrog Champ
Ayatollah Khomeini drove the Shah from power in Iran and established an Islamic Republic in his place. For some he was a revolutionary and a hero. For others, he was considered a monster who crushed dissent and instituted regressive and dangerous policies.
Despite being known as a devoutly religious man with very little in the way of a sense of humor. However, everyone has to come from somewhere and even the most dour and serious adult was once a child. Khomeini, it’s been said, was once the leapfrog champion of his village. He was energetic and happy and would play all day in the streets with his friends.
3. Gaddafi Was Obsessed with Condoleezza Rice
Muammar Gaddafi controlled Libya from 1969 until his death in 2011. During that time he was considered a despot, a revolutionary, a tyrant and an ally depending on who you asked and often when you asked.
He was often a curious man in public and was known for his flamboyant dress and speaking style. But in his personal life he could be beyond monstrous. It was said he kept the bodies (or at least the heads) of some of his enemies in freezers so he could visit and mock them. He had one head on ice for 25 years. He’s also been accused of having a room built on a university campus for the sole purpose of sexually assaulting hundreds of women and girls there.
In light of this, it makes Gaddafi’s singular fascination with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice even more disturbing. Rice herself acknowledged that it was creepy, and it really was. Gaddafi was open about his obsession with her. When the former dictator’s residence was raided, they found a scrapbook full of her photos. When she met him in person once, he played her a montage of herself set to music.
He spent over $200,000 on gifts for her, including a diamond ring. He also gave her a locket with a photo of him inside.
2. Hermann Goering Loved Animals
Hermann Goering was the highest ranking official from the Nazi party that was put on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity after WWII. He was found guilty but killed himself before his death sentence could be carried out. In life, he was head of the German Air Force and was also known to have been instrumental in ordering the mass murder of the Jewish people we know as the Holocaust.
It is hard to reconcile what we know about Goering with many of his actions in life. A man who could so callously participate in genocide, he also had a perplexing interest in the preservation of animal life. Goering held many titles, among them Reich Hunt Master and Forest Master. One of his pet projects was the repopulation and preservation of extinct species.
He created nature preserves and enlisted the aid of others to try to back-breed long dead species in the hopes of repopulating them to create a weird sort of German hunting fantasy world.
Even beyond that, Goring established laws to protect animals. Animal testing was outlawed because of the “unbearable torture and suffering” it inflicted on the animals.
1. Ted Bundy Worked at a Suicide Prevention Hotline
Ted Bundy was one of America’s most notorious and prolific serial killers. The Buffalo Bill character from The Silence of the Lambs was partially inspired by Bundy, who used charm and empathy as weapons to lure women who would then become his victims. He is known to have killed at least 20 women, though he confessed to even more and was suspected of more even beyond that. He was articulate, intelligent and by many accounts handsome, all of which played to his advantage. But in the man’s own words he was the “most cold-hearted son of a bitch you will ever meet.”
For a man who raped and murdered so many it’s hard to imagine he did anything that could be considered normal or kind. Against all odds, Bundy managed to deceive everyone by living a very normal life, even going so far as to work at a suicide prevention hotline. It’s been said he managed to save dozens of people’s lives during his time there. He even saved a three-year-old child from drowning in a lake once.
While we can never know for sure why Bundy, who fits a textbook definition of a psychopath, would have worked at a suicide hotline, there are some reasonable guesses. First, he was actually a psychology student at the time. It may have been something as simple as Bundy wanting extra credit for his class that in no way reflected on his true personality or monstrous nature.
More insidious possibilities are that, as a true psychopath, he was using his time there to gain a better understanding of faking emotions and learning how to persuade or manipulate people. Lastly, it could have been an expression of a kind of God complex, which would perhaps have made Bundy feel like he was special and had power over the lives of others, which obviously was something he later took to extremes.