Oftentimes images of terrifying people become so indelible in the hippocampus, that it’s almost unfathomable for us to think that they can be anything but. However, the 10 photos shown below prove that even the most terrifying people can still be human, or show at least some semblance of it.
10 Gordon Ramsay
He’s the chef we all love to hate, and why not? His expletive-laced outbursts on his shows make him a very terrifying but entertaining figure to watch. Gordon credits his various mentors as well as his father-in-law for his explosive personality.
However, Gordon Ramsay the Family Man is just… more docile than Gordon Ramsay the Chef. He has 3 daughters and 1 son together with his wife of 17 years.
9 Mike Tyson
During his prime, Mike Tyson was widely feared for his amazing boxing skills, but did you know he was also an avid lover of pigeons? That’s right, Iron Mike loves his feathered friends.
In fact, one of the main reasons Mike got into boxing was because during his childhood, one of his pet pigeons got killed by a bigger kid. And in fact, just recently, he complained that one his ex-girlfriends ate one of his beloved birds. Ouch.
8 Danny Trejo
Aside from being a total bad-ass, Danny Trejo is also an ardent dog lover. The Machete star and his wife Debbie run K9 Compassion Foundation, a shelter that rescues and puts dogs up for adoption.
Danny also uses his star power to help owners find their missing pets.
7Vladimir Lenin
One of the key players in the formation of the USSR, Vladimir Lenin was a political genius admired by his supporters and feared by his enemies. His fiery speeches and indomitable leadership allowed the Soviets to tighten their grip and eventually become the dominant party in Russia. He was so revered that after his death, Communist leaders re-named a city in his honor, and had his body preserved, which is still exhibited to this day.
Lenin was a cat person, and he reportedly owned several of them throughout his lifetime.
6 Al Capone
Al Capone was one of the most famous and controversial gangsters to have operated in the US. Nicknamed “Scarface”, he effectively turned Chicago into his personal fiefdom in the Prohibition-era. Smuggling, prostitution, and extortion were some of his gang’s common illegal activities. He was also implicated in the infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, when he ordered the execution of seven rival gang members.
Despite being a notorious criminal, Al Capone was very close to his mother. That bond remained strong throughout life, as mother and son were seen frequently together, even during the last days of his life.
5Charles Manson
The psychopathic leader of the cult-like Manson Family died at the end of a life sentence for masterminding the murders of several people, including Sharon Tate, who was the wife of the famous pedophile and film director Roman Polanski.
What could easily have been mistaken for a young boy’s mischievous grin was in fact the beginning of the facial expressions of a future madman. By the way, is it just me or could this be mistaken for a photo of a young Tobey Maguire?
4 Ted Bundy
It can be said that one of the triggers that prompted Ted Bundy to become a serial killer was his resentment for his mother. Louise Cowell gave birth to Ted as an unwed mother, and though he was suspicious about it, Ted grew up believing she was his sister and his grandparents were his biological parents. His mother eventually married John Bundy, and it was only in college that Ted found out about his true parentage.
Despite what he did, his mother loved him all the way to the bitter end. Moments before he was executed, they talked on the phone and she told him “You will always be my precious son.”
3Osama bin Laden
It’s hard to think of Osama Bin Laden as anything more than a radical Islamic terrorist who met his well-deserved end in 2011. After all, he was the man responsible for the attacks that resulted in the deaths of thousands, innocents who had nothing to do with his “holy war”. Yet, there was a time when he seemed just like any other person.
Osama went on a visit to Sweden with the rest of his family when he was a teenager. Judging by that look, you’d never guess that he’d grow up to become one of the world’s most notorious terrorists.
2 Josef Stalin
Josef Stalin became the de facto leader of the Soviet Union following the death of Lenin. To consolidate his rule, he and his followers organized massive purges in the military and imprisonment or exile of all his political opponents. It can be said the brutality of his regime goes far above that of his German rival, Adolf Hitler. Stalin’s oppressive rule only got worse as time went by, such that his own family grew to loathe him.
Out of his three children, Stalin only enjoyed the company of his daughter Svetlana. However, even that relationship deteriorated thanks to Stalin’s controlling personality.
1 Adolf Hitler
Regarded as the one of the most evil men of the last century, and deservedly so, Adolf Hitler and the Nazis orchestrated the deaths of millions of people in one of man’s worst genocides, beaten out on numbers only by the socialist purges of Stalin.
Surprisingly, Hitler was very fond of animals. He owned a German Shepherd named Blondi who kept him company until the closing days of the war. It is bizarre how someone who loved animals so much could also commit such atrocities against his fellow man.