These jaw-dropping stories prove that the 1990s were one wild decade.
The 1990s were a remarkable time. There were young politicians, new kinds of music, and technology that promised to change the world. But although the decade will certainly be remembered for things like the development of the internet and the explosion of grunge, the 1990s will also be remembered for its wide array of shocking scandals.
Many of the scandals were sexual. The 1990s will always be linked with the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, when the U.S. President admitted to having an extramarital affair with a 22-year-old White House intern. But the decade also included shocking celebrity scandals like Hugh Grant’s arrest for “lewd conduct” with a sex worker and Paul Reubens’ arrest for indecent exposure.
Other 1990s scandals were all about crime. There were the Menendez brothers, who killed their parents and then inherited their millions, Lorena Bobbitt, who cut off her husband’s penis, and Mary Kay Letourneau, who raped her 12-year-old student — and then later married him.
Read on to learn about some of the most jaw-dropping 1990s scandals.
“Long Island Lolita”: The Story Of Mary Jo Buttafuoco, Joey Buttafuoco, And Amy Fisher
Marianne Barcellona/Getty ImagesMary Jo Buttafuoco with her husband, Joey Buttafuoco, in an undated photo.
On a spring day in 1992, Mary Jo Buttafuoco heard a knock on the door of her home in Massapequa, Long Island, that she shared with her husband, Joey, and their children. Mary Jo opened the door and found a teenage girl standing outside. The girl introduced herself as Anne Marie — and then told Mary Jo that Joey was having an affair with her younger sister.
When Mary Jo tried to go back into the house, the teen — whose real name was Amy Fisher — took out a gun and shot Mary Jo in the head. With that, one of the most shocking scandals of the 1990s began.
Mary Jo did not die, but she was badly injured. And in a story that slowly unspooled during Amy Fisher’s trial in September 1992, it emerged that the 17-year-old Fisher was the one who’d been having an affair with Joey. Their sexual relationship began in the summer of 1991, after Fisher had taken her car to Joey’s auto repair shop. Fisher was then 16; Joey was 36.
Kypros/Getty ImagesAmy Fisher was just 16 when her affair with Joey Buttafuoco began.
Fisher, who was soon dubbed the “Long Island Lolita” by the press, initially alleged that Joey had told her to murder Mary Jo. Joey, for his part, initially claimed that they had not slept together at all.
In the end, Fisher was sentenced to 15 years in prison. In October 1993, Joey also pleaded guilty to one count of statutory rape (since Fisher had been younger than the age of consent when they first slept with each other).
Though Fisher took full responsibility for shooting Mary Jo in 1999, the same year she was released from prison, she, Joey, and Mary Jo have had a complicated relationship. Mary Jo and Joey divorced in 2003 (Mary Jo has since claimed that Joey is a sociopath) and Joey and Fisher briefly reconciled. Fisher, who later became an adult film star, has also been critical of Mary Jo in the press, claiming in 2008 that Mary Jo was a “nonentity.”
This 1990s scandal transfixed the nation for years, but it was nothing compared to the allegations that the U.S. President slept with an intern.
