Who are the 10 most hated people in America?

posted at 3:08 pm on December 12, 2011 by Howard Portnoy
[ Culture ]   

The year is drawing rapidly to a close, prompting list makers to begin assembling their rankings of the most, the least, the best, and the worst for 2011. One such list, GQ‘s 25 Least Influential People Alive, generated a minor stir since one of the individuals included was President Barack Obama—a man once so revered as to be adjudged too cool to joke about.

The Associated Press reports on another such list, this one the ten* most hated people in America. The list is the result of an opinion poll conducted by E-Poll Market Research. Here, in descending order toward “most hated” are those who were named. See how many you can guess. (A slideshow of the “honorees” is here.)

No. 9: Howard Stern. The shock jock still manages to ruffle enough feathers to edge onto the list.

No. 8: Heidi Fleiss. If you were of a mind that the “Hollywood Madam” is yesterday’s news, you are not alone. What may have catapulted her back into the spotlight was her stint on Celebrity Rehab as well as her upcoming reality show Heidi Fleiss: Prostitutes to Parrots.

No. 7: Paris Hilton. Her highly publicized (and all too brief) stint in jail, followed by continued brushes with the law, make the heiress a perennial object of scorn. Her towering intellect is a factor as well.

No. 6: Levi Johnston. The celebrity media magnet would be an obscure 21-year-old oil rig worker in Alaska if it were not for his one brush with fame—fathering a child with former fiancée Bristol Palin when her mother was in the headlines as GOP veep nominee. Some respondents probably responded unfavorably to Johnston’s Playgirl spread.

No. 5: Jon Gosselin. The former reality TV star of Jon & Kate Plus 8 likely made the list because of his very public and very messy divorce from Kate Gosselin, the mother of his eight children. Rumors of his infidelity are no doubt a contributing factor to his placing fifth.

No. 4: O.J. Simpson. Not much to say here except that murdering your children’s mother and then walking away scot-free is a source of ongoing revulsion for many. Simpson is currently serving prison time for armed robbery.

No. 3: Nadya Suleman. The Octomom’s story—giving birth to octuplets while an unemployed single mother with six other children in tow—is an object lesson in how to not to win friends and influence enemies. Suleman denies ever having said, “I hate the babies, they disgust me,” and “My older six are animals.”

No. 2: Spencer Pratt. It’s obviously the year to hate reality TV stars (maybe reality TV, too?). Rumor has it that Pratt and wife Heidi Montag are broke. No word on whether they think of themselves as belonging to the 99 percent.

No. 1: Casey Anthony. The Florida mother who was found not guilty of murdering her two year-old daughter is a member of the O.J. club. She is also the most hated person in America for 2011, described by 60% of respondents in the E-Poll survey as “creepy” and “cold.” And those are among the more charitable comments.

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