How to Survive a Public Scandal
There’s no one-size-fits-all fix for a scandal. That’s the first thing to understand. Every case is different. What works for one person will be a disaster for another, even if the surface details seem similar.
A cheating scandal isn’t handled the same way as a professional misconduct allegation. A legal investigation needs a very different strategy to a tone-deaf tweet. And a teenage YouTuber making a mistake isn’t held to the same standard as a government official - even though the public often acts like they are.
I've worked with every type of cancellation, and even within the same field, no two cases unfold in the same way. That’s why surviving a scandal means stepping back and making smart, deliberate decisions… not jumping into crisis mode based on what someone else did.
Types of scandals, and why they matter
Before you decide how to respond, you need to know what kind of situation you’re in. Broadly speaking, most public scandals fall into one or more of these categories:
Personal: affairs, relationship breakdowns, offensive jokes, private messages leaked
Professional: workplace complaints, bad leadership, failed products, tone-deaf campaigns
Legal: arrests, lawsuits, regulatory breaches, criminal investigations
Moral or political: taking an unpopular stance, offending a specific group, social media backlash around values or views
Historical: old content resurfacing, things said or done years ago in a different context
Each path has different priorities. If legal action is involved, the first call should be your lawyer, not your audience. If the issue is emotional but not illegal, tone becomes everything. And if you're accused of hypocrisy, the facts matter less than how believable your response feels to the public.
The difference between now and then
Being cancelled today is a very different experience than it was fifteen or twenty years ago. Back then, unless you were a household name, most scandals faded quickly. If someone went on holiday for two weeks while your name was in the papers, they would have no idea. Unless someone brought it up in conversation, they might never even know.
Now, there’s a permanent trail. Tweets. Videos. Headlines indexed on Google. Out-of-context TikToks. Reddit threads. Instagram gossip pages. The scandal lingers, even after the public has stopped caring.
What’s more, everyone is a public figure now. YouTubers, influencers, podcasters, entrepreneurs, people with one viral post. You don’t need to be famous to be cancelled. You just need visibility, and that means more people are navigating scandals without a team, experience or any idea how to recover.
If it’s already public, you can’t pretend it isn’t
Once something has made it into the public domain (press, social media, email chains) you’re no longer dealing with something you can contain quietly. That doesn’t mean you need to respond to everything, but it does mean you need to factor in the reality that people are talking, even if you’re not.
This is where the support of a crisis PR consultant comes in. The goal isn’t spin. It’s clarity. What needs a response? What should be ignored? What can be corrected behind the scenes? What happens if you do nothing?
There’s always a strategy. It just has to be the right one for your situation.
Don’t rush to fix it - slow is strategic
The instinct in a scandal is to panic. But panic leads to statements that make it worse. Apologies that sound insincere. Videos that look overproduced. Declarations of innocence that no one asked for.
You don’t have to fix it in 24 hours. In fact, trying to do that usually makes things worse.
The best responses are slow, measured, and grounded. They come from someone who isn’t in shock, who understands how it’s landing publicly, and who knows the difference between temporary embarrassment and long-term reputational harm.
The public loves a scandal, but forgets fast
Outrage culture is performative. One day, you’re the main character of the internet. The next, someone else takes your place. But the digital footprint stays.
When the news cycle moves on, what you're left with is discomfort. Hesitance. People remembering you for the wrong thing. And future collaborators quietly deciding to look elsewhere.
This is where your recovery starts - not in the heat of the drama, but in the quiet after. I often start working with people at this point, helping them plan not just how to return, but whether to, and in what form.
Surviving is not the same as returning to normal
It’s tempting to think that surviving a scandal means getting everything back to how it was. In most cases, that’s not realistic. What you can get is clarity. Control over how you move forward. A new tone, a new strategy, and crucially, a new sense of how visible you want to be.
Some people rebuild publicly. Others move behind the scenes. Some shift industries entirely. There isn’t one right way. But there is a smart way, and I can help you find it.
Public scandal doesn’t have to be the end of your career. But it will almost always change it. Whether that change works in your favour depends entirely on how you respond. The right words, the right silence, the right timing, they all matter.
If you’re in that position and unsure where to begin, I help people find their way through it. Privately, strategically, and with no judgment.