Taboo-teasing and scandal-raising: meet history’s most outrageous women

Forget raising a few eyebrows, these women raised the roof with their scandalous shenanigans!

In an age when women were expected to be meek and obedient, these dames demanded more. They turned their backs on convention and hurled themselves into adventure, danger, notoriety, and ultimately, scandal.

Whether pirates or power-possessed queens, outlaws or daredevils, they refused invisibility and lived loudly in a world that wanted them silent. In return, they made societies gasp, enemies whisper, and left legends that still spark disbelief, with us curiously asking... “Wait… she did what?”

History's most outrageous women

Mary Toft

Sometimes history is so bizarre you can hardly believe it, and this is one such case. In 1726, Mary Toft, a poor servant from Godalming, duped England’s finest doctors, even the king’s surgeon, into believing she gave birth to rabbits. Yes, rabbits!

Playing on the era’s obsession with monstrous births, she staged labour after labour with animal parts smuggled into her body. When the hoax collapsed, she was branded a “Notorious and Vile Cheat” and paraded in prison.

Sappho

Sappho is remembered as the great Greek lyric poet of Lesbos, but in her own time she lit the world on fire by writing openly of female desire. In a society where women were expected to remain silent and only marry men, her passionate verses to her close companions defied convention and scandalised both her contemporaries at the time, and many generations that followed.

So enduring was her notoriety that “lesbian” derives from her island, and “Sapphic” from her name.

Isadora Duncan

Hailed today as the “mother of modern dance”, Isadora Duncan was branded a radical bohemian in her own time, when audiences were outraged by her rejection of ballet’s strict rules in favour of barefoot performances in flowing tunics and movements they deemed as “indecent”.

Offstage, her affairs with both men and women, having children out of wedlock, and her marriage to a much younger Russian continued to stoke the fires of scandal. The final straw came when she was accused of Bolshevik sympathies, seeing her vow never to return to America.

Mary Carleton

In the mid-17th century, the so-called “German Princess” Mary Carleton became a celebrity criminal whose audacious deceptions both shocked and fascinated Restoration society.

She duped suitors with tales of noble birth, complete with forged letters and promises of fortune, and broke bigamy laws by marrying multiple men. She even capitalised on her notoriety by starring in a play about her life (The German Princess, 1664) and later published a memoir mocking her accusers.

After being transported to Jamaica for theft, she illegally returned to England, and when she was caught stealing again, she was hanged at Tyburn in 1673. At her execution, she dressed elegantly and gave a final “performance”.

Lady Hester Stanhope

Scandalising Regency England by rejecting every role expected of her rank, Lady Hester Stanhope first shocked society as the unmarried hostess of her uncle, Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger. She later abandoned England to roam the Middle East with lovers, raising eyebrows by travelling freely with men.

After surviving a shipwreck, she donned a flamboyant men’s dress and staged dramatic entrances on horseback, most famously into Damascus. Said to be the first Western woman to visit Palmyra, she led a notorious treasure hunt at Ashkelon before ruling her estate in Lebanon as the self-styled “Queen of the East”, only to happily embrace scandal as the price of freedom.

Annie Taylor

In 1901, at the age of 63, widowed and penniless Annie Edson Taylor shocked the world by going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Not only that, she was the first person to cascade to the bottom of the main Horseshoe Falls and survive.

In an era when women weren’t expected to do anything foolhardy and were meant to remain at home, her death-defying stunt scandalised polite society, and turned her into an unlikely rebel celebrity, earning her the title “Queen of the Mist”.

Empress Wu Zetian

As you’d expect of China’s only female emperor, Wu Zetian shattered every norm by going from teenage concubine in the 630s to throne-stealing ruler in 690 CE.

Brilliant and ruthless, she eliminated rivals, reshaped government, and oversaw a flourishing empire. Yet her rise scandalised Confucian officials, who branded her immoral with tales of seduction and cruelty.

Whether exaggerated or not, her audacity in ruling as both emperor and woman made her one of history’s most controversial figures.

Pearl Hart

By cutting her hair and dressing as a man, Pearl Hart was far from the quintessential Victorian American. Her early life was steeped in abuse and petty crime, later marrying and abandoning men under assumed names, and succumbing to drugs. But in 1899, her criminal daring escalated when she held up an Arizona stagecoach at gunpoint, earning the moniker “Lady Bandit” and a prison sentence.

Far from repentant, she revelled in her fame, charming reporters, escaping jail with a lover, and even keeping a bobcat in her cell. Defiant to the last, she declared she would not be judged by laws “my sex had no voice in making”. Yet her notoriety paid off when she was pardoned in 1902, cementing her as one of the most scandalous figures of the Old West.

Sophie Lyons

Protégée of Fredericka “Marm” Mandelbaum, the famed "Queen of New York’s underworld", Sophie Lyons became one of America’s most notorious female criminals. She mastered pickpocketing, blackmail, and cons across the US and Europe, once stealing as much as $200,000 in France in a single year.

She swindled wealthy men, amassed a fortune she later invested in Detroit real estate, married several of the country’s most wanted burglars, and even escaped Sing Sing in disguise. In later years, she rebranded as a reformer and author of Why Crime Does Not Pay.

Edith Swan

As the textbook picture of a sweet old lady, Edith Swan was the last person her Sussex neighbours suspected of the infamous “Littlehampton Libels”. But in the 1920s, Edith really did pen over 100 obscene, blasphemous poison-pen letters, dripping with curses no “proper” lady was meant to utter, even framing her neighbour Rose Gooding, who was jailed.

When suspicion turned on Edith, the scandal tore through the seaside town. Although acquitted when tried in court, her notoriety endured, retold a century later in the film Wicked Little Letters starring Olivia Colman.

Jeanne de la Motte

A master conwoman, in 1785, Jeanne de la Motte engineered the "Affair of the Diamond Necklace", duping Cardinal de Rohan into believing he could win back Marie Antoinette’s favour by secretly arranging the purchase of a necklace she supposedly longed for but could not publicly buy.

Using forged letters and a staged meeting with a decoy Queen, Jeanne secured the jewels. Though innocent, the Queen’s reputation was ruined and she was painted as greedy and corrupt.

The scandal fuelled public resentment and became a turning point in shaping her downfall, fanning the flames that helped ignite the French Revolution. When the truth was finally exposed, Jeanne de la Motte was branded and jailed, later escaping to London, where she published lurid memoirs attacking the Queen.

Grace O'Malley

The Irish “Pirate Queen” Grace O’Malley defied every expectation of a 16th-century noblewoman. Born into the powerful seafaring O’Malley clan of Gaelic nobility, she commanded ships, raided coasts, and levied tolls for safe passage across her waters.

Branded the “nurse to all rebellions” by English officials, she scandalised her age by seizing power as a woman and leading men into battle against Tudor forces.

Her audacity reached its peak in 1593 when she met Queen Elizabeth I at Greenwich, negotiating on equal terms with the monarch. The outcome was the release of her family and Elizabeth’s recognition of her authority, which was an extraordinary concession, one that allowed her to outlast most of her foes.

Mary Frith

Known as the criminal Moll Cutpurse, Mary Frith scandalised London in the early 17th century by defying every norm for women. A pickpocket and dealer in stolen goods, she wore men’s clothes, smoked, swore, brawled, and sang bawdy ballads in taverns and theatres, gleefully flaunting her notoriety.

So notorious at Bridewell, a prison and house of correction, she was immortalised on stage in Dekker and Middleton’s The Roaring Girl, a play about a cross-dressing woman who mocked convention. Contemporary pamphlets even credit her with highway robbery, though the truth of these tales is still largely debated.

Delia Bacon

Talk about causing a stir! In 1857, Delia Bacon scandalised the literary world by declaring Shakespeare a fraud. Convinced his plays were penned by a secret circle led by Francis Bacon (no relation), the English philosopher and statesman known as the father of empiricism, along with other top thinkers of the time, she mocked Shakespeare as an “illiterate deer poacher” and even plotted to open his grave for proof.

Backed briefly by Ralph Waldo Emerson, the philosopher, and novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, her theory gained traction before both men quickly distanced themselves. She published The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded, but was ridiculed, suffered a breakdown, and died two years later in obscurity, yet her obsession seeded a conspiracy that thrives to this day.

Catherine The Great

In the 18th century, Catherine the Great would have been a tabloid fave, shocking Europe as much for her private life as her politics. After deposing her husband in a coup to seize the Russian throne, she openly kept lovers, rewarding them with riches, estates, and power.

Yet Catherine’s unapologetic embrace of desire and her bold defiance of convention made her both feared and scandalous, even as she modernised Russia into a European powerhouse.

Stephanie St. Clair

During Prohibition and beyond, Stephanie St. Clair was lauded as the “Queen of Harlem”, running a lucrative lottery racket in 1920s and 30s Harlem and defying both the Mafia and the NYPD’s corrupt force.

Draped in furs and jewels, she rode in chauffeured cars and openly taunted mobster Dutch Schultz in the press. When newspapers smeared her as a drug dealer and extortionist, she sued them, she telegrammed mayors to expose police corruption, and even bought full-page ads mocking officials.

Stephanie St. Clair wasn't just a Queen of scandal; she was a one-woman crusader, only too happy to flaunt her power and turn crime into her unapologetic stage.

Mary Mallon

Not many people will recognise her by her real name, Mary Mallon, but “Typhoid Mary” is one you’ll certainly know, as the Irish cook turned kitchens into time bombs and ignited fierce debates about health, freedom, and responsibility.

Identified in 1907 as America’s first asymptomatic carrier of Salmonella typhi (typhoid fever), she infected at least 51 people, over 100 suspected, and caused several deaths.

Denying she was ill, she worked under aliases like “Mary Brown” and dodged doctors, health inspectors, and police to keep cooking. Officials finally had enough and quarantined her not once, but twice on North Brother Island. First for three years, then for the last 23 years of her life after causing another outbreak. She died there in 1938 as America’s most infamous disease-carrier.

Mary Reid

Early 18th-century life was pretty restrictive for women, so, craving adventure and freedom, Mary Read scandalised her age by living as both man and woman. First disguised as a boy to secure an inheritance, she later served as a soldier, and then a sailor, before becoming a pirate.

Joining Calico Jack Rackham’s crew, she fought alongside fellow female buccaneer Anne Bonny, Rackham’s lover. Duelling and killing with a ferocity that shocked even hardened seamen, it wasn't long before there was a bounty on her head, and in 1720, she was captured.

She was sentenced to hang, but a reprieve came when it was discovered she was pregnant. She died in prison the following year, leaving a scandalous legacy as one of piracy’s most audacious rebels.

Ida Pfeiffer

In 1846, long before Eat, Pray, Love, Ida Pfeiffer, a 49-year-old Austrian widow, shocked the world by becoming one of the first women to circle the globe alone, and she did it twice.

Reinventing herself as a bestselling travel writer, she wandered far beyond the polite bounds expected of women, venturing into jungles, volcanoes, deserts, and ruins where few Europeans dared go, let alone a middle-aged mum, travelling unescorted. Her most scandalous adventure came in Madagascar, where she fell in with French settlers plotting to overthrow the island’s formidable monarch, Queen Ranavalona I.

Pfeiffer was more a curious traveller than a conspirator, but her close ties to the rebels saw her accused of treason and expelled from the island. Gravely ill, she returned to Austria, where she died in 1858.

Queen Christina of Sweden

If you thought Edward VIII caused a stir abdicating the British throne in 1936, imagine the scandal Queen Christina of Sweden unleashed in the 17th century. Crowned at six, she was brilliant and headstrong, dressing in men’s clothes, swearing like a soldier, and refusing to marry or produce an heir.

She favoured male companions and cultivated an intellectual court, even inviting philosopher René Descartes to Stockholm. Her greatest scandal came in 1654 when, like Edward, she abdicated her throne, then went further by converting from Lutheranism to Catholicism and leaving Sweden to settle in Rome.

Maria Spelterini

The only woman ever to cross the Niagara Gorge on a tightrope, Maria Spelterini first dazzled crowds on 8 July 1876 during the U.S. Centennial. She continued to shock audiences by repeating the feat first blindfolded, then with peach baskets strapped to her feet, and finally with her wrists and ankles in chains.

Later touring Europe and South America in flamboyant costumes, she mocked Victorian notions of female fragility and turned death-defying spectacle into her own personal stage.

Violet Jessop

Some said she was cursed, others said blessed, but Violet Jessop lived life on borrowed time, and it was a life that shocked and tantalised her age.

Born in Argentina to Irish parents, she beat childhood tuberculosis before becoming known as the “Unsinkable Stewardess”, surviving successive shipping disasters that killed hundreds. In 1911, she walked away from the Olympic’s collision with HMS Hawke, then in 1912, she escaped the Titanic, clutching a baby in Lifeboat 16. Then, in 1916, she outlived the Britannic’s sinking after being sucked beneath the hull and fracturing her skull.

To Victorians and Edwardians alike, she was either blessed beyond reason or cursed as an omen at sea.

Lola Montez

Irish belle Elizabeth Gilbert reinvented herself in the 1840s as Spanish dancer and courtesan Lola Montez, scandalising Europe with her risqué “Spider Dance”, where she saucily raised her skirts to brush away imaginary spiders; the closest thing to a striptease in prim Victorian society.

Her lovers included composer Franz Liszt and writer Alexandre Dumas, but her greatest conquest was King Ludwig I of Bavaria, who made her Countess of Landsfeld. Unfortunately for him, the match meant he lost his throne after riots erupted over her political meddling.

Fleeing in disgrace, she refused to be sidelined, turning personal scandal into a lucrative art form/business. Thriving on notoriety, she toured America and Australia with whip-cracking lectures, brandishing pistols and even horsewhipping critics.

Josephine Baker

Meet the scandalous darling of the Jazz Age: Josephine Baker. Famous for her risqué banana-skirt dance at the Folies Bergère, she shocked and enchanted Paris in equal measure. With her pet cheetah, Chiquita, she became an eccentric legend, and her open bisexuality flaunted taboos.

Later, she turned defiance into activism, refusing to play for segregated US audiences and working as a spy for the French Resistance in WWII, where she used her fame as a cover to smuggle intelligence.

Anne Bonny

Reviled and revered, Anne Bonny scandalised the early 18th century by rejecting every expectation of a woman. Illegitimate and hot-tempered, she abandoned her husband to sail with notorious pirate Calico Jack Rackham, disguised herself in raids and fought ferociously in battle.

Swearing, taking lovers, and refusing to live as a “proper” wife, she shocked polite society and, alongside Mary Read, became one half of history’s most notorious female pirate duo. Captured in 1720, she escaped the gallows by pleading pregnancy, but unlike her comrade, who died in prison, Anne vanished into legend.

Some claimed she slipped quietly back to respectability in South Carolina, living into her 80s, while others swore she returned to piracy. Whatever the truth, the mystery of her fate only fuelled her legend.

Clémentine Delait

At a time when society was obsessed with feminine ideals, Clémentine Delait was only too happy to scandalise Belle Époque France, turning heads with her beard, which she turned into her brand.

She rechristened her café, Le Café de la Femme à Barbe (“The Bearded Lady’s Bar”), sold postcards flaunting her whiskers, and posed boldly in trousers and waistcoats. Far from a sideshow act, she dined with customers who came to gawk; aristocrats and soldiers alike.

While some say Clémentine was shocking, she actually turned stigma into spectacle and, while society gasped, she cheerfully stacked up the francs.

Margaret Caroline Rudd

Luring the wealthy Perreau twins into a notorious fraud scheme in 1775, Margaret Caroline Rudd forged government bonds; fraudulent IOUs worth tens of thousands, to swindle a hoard of London’s "best" bankers.

Arrested with her lovers, she coolly turned state’s evidence, painting herself as their victim. The brothers swung at Tyburn, while Caroline walked free, forever branded a femme fatale who courted scandal and milked notoriety with pamphlets and self-promotion.

Isabella of France

Remembered as the “She-Wolf of France”, Isabella of France, outraged by her husband Edward II’s devotion to his male favourites, flaunted her own affair with Roger Mortimer and, in 1326, invaded England, deposed the king, and was accused of orchestrating his horrific death by red-hot poker.

To a world that demanded queens be obedient wives, Isabella’s open adultery, rebellion, and ruthless grasp for power made her one of history’s most notorious women.

Julie d’Aubigny

Daughter of a court swordsman, Julie d’Aubigny, known as La Maupin, became a legend of 17th-century France. A cross-dressing opera star, bisexual duellist, and scandal-maker, she ran off with her fencing master, performed in taverns dressed as a man, and once tore open her blouse mid-duel to prove she was a woman.

When a lover was locked in a convent, she disguised herself as a nun, smuggled the girl out, and set the place ablaze, leaving a corpse in her bed to fake their deaths. Yet instead of punishment, King Louis XIV himself pardoned her, declaring she was too brilliant to silence.

Messalina

The third wife of Emperor Claudius, Messalina, is remembered for scandalising even decadent Ancient Rome. Great-granddaughter of Augustus’s sister, she was feared for her ruthless influence at court, accused of using treason trials to destroy rivals and enrich herself, while many historians paint her as insatiable in her affairs.

But her most shocking act came in AD 48 when, still married to Claudius, she staged a public wedding to her lover Gaius Silius. Spectacle it may have been, but it sealed her downfall, and she was swiftly executed for it.

Belle Starr

Giving herself the catchier name Belle Starr, Myra Maybelle Shirley became infamous after her 1883 conviction for horse theft and scandalised society by appearing in expensive plumed hats and velvet gowns, staring down the press with aristocratic poise.

Rumours tied her to Jesse James’s gang and stagecoach robberies, though these were likely more legend than fact. Still, she revelled in her outlaw image, posing for portraits as if crime were high fashion, a reputation she cultivated until she was mysteriously shot dead in 1889.

Catherine Deshayes

Slap bang at the heart of Louis XIV’s Affair of the Poisons in the late 1670s, Catherine Deshayes, known as “La Voisin” (meaning “the neighbour”), rocked Versailles with scandal.

Outwardly a respectable midwife, she secretly ran an underworld trade in illegal abortions, poisons, and fortune-telling. Nobles sought her for love potions, deadly draughts, and even Black Masses on naked bodies, where prayers were whispered for husbands or rivals to die.

Her most infamous client was Madame de Montespan, accused of plotting to poison Louis himself. Arrested in 1679, La Voisin’s trial exposed a world of adultery, sorcery, and murder at the French court, before she was burned alive in 1680.