8 Celebrities Who Fraternised With Dictators

By Allan Johnstone / February 3, 2014

The recent spectacle of Dennis Rodman fawning over Kim Jong-un has taken many people by surprise. Why is an aging basketball star palling around with a man whose chubby digits linger over the nuclear button? Well, there are more similarities between the dictator and the celebrity than are at first obvious- both are immensely powerful in their own way, have earned the adoration or hatred of billions of people worldwide, and can have their every ridiculous whim catered to.

When you can't hang out with ordinary people for fear of being assassinated/photographed, of course you're going to find some common ground. And this isn't a recent phenomenon. The history of celeb/tyrant hook-ups goes as far back as the 1930s, to our first example...

8. Charles Lindbergh and Adolf Hitler

The Dictator: Hitler. THE Hitler. The Celebrity: Charles Lindbergh, world famous aviator. The Friendship: Although he never met the dictator, Charles Lindbergh€™s name is now as inextricably linked with Hitler as it is his record breaking 5800km flight from New York to Paris in 1927. The later tragedy of the kidnapping and murder of his infant son drove Lindbergh to Europe, where he came to observe the activities of Germany€™s most famous moustache-owner.

Tasked by the US government to report on Nazi air strength, Lindbergh was impressed by their apparent technological superiority and believed that America should, at all costs, avoid conflict with the regime. This led to concerns that Lindbergh was a sympathiser, not least because he had been awarded the Order of the German Eagle on Hitler€™s behalf. On returning to America in 1939, he didn€™t exactly distance himself from the Nazi tag with nutty comments about €˜dilution by foreign races€™.

His pro-German stance meant that for much of World War Two he was barred from active service as a pilot- the very role that had won him fame in the first place. The Nazi association has lingered, providing the basis for Philip Roth€™s 2004 novel, The Plot Against America. A speculative fiction in which Lindbergh is elected President in 1940 and allies the US with Germany, it proves that the merest hint of a friendship was enough to derail his legacy as an aviator. It€™s a lesson other celebrities seem to have ignored.