Robert Downey Jr. was thought of as a lost cause. From what I’ve seen, he’s become very giving and charitable.
Former pro musician here, i’ve met a lot of well known rock musicians.
The biggest surprises to me were Vinnie Paul (drummer for Pantera/Hellyeah) and Steel Panther.
With Vinnie, I expected the sort of tough guy attitude Phil Anselmo was known for. I have always loved Pantera, but didn’t know much about them offstage except for Phil being a prick. Vinnie remains one of the nicest famous people i’ve ever met. He was hilarious, and more than happy to hang out, BS, take photos, etc, with any fan. We were playing the same festival, but honestly, we fanboy’ed the fuck out when we found out we were gonna get to talk to him. It broke my heart when someone called me one morning and told me Vinnie had died, and the stories I heard from others who knew him made it even worse.
Steel Panther, we did a show opening for them, and I expected them to be in their personas all the time, because some fan who paid for a full-experience ticket/backstage pass or whatever might roll up at any second. Nope. They were chill as fuck. The only annoying thing was that they demanded anyone who takes pictures with them holds up the “shocker.” They weren’t rude about it, but it’s still kind of stupid IMO.
I’ve definitely had more bad experiences with famous/formerly famous people than good ones, so the good ones stick out.
Something from my personal experience: Michael Rooker. He played Merl from The Walking Dead and Yondu from Guardians of the Galaxy. Not necessarily “bad” guys, but definitely not “good” guys. Anyways, I had the honor of meeting and having a wonderful conversation with him and he’s extremely nice and friendly. And other people I’ve talked to who have met him said the same thing.
Kesha from what I’ve heard about her got like a 1200 on the SAT and is also a really nice person. And tbh I didn’t expect that.
I’ll admit I always assumed Snoop Dogg wasn’t a good guy (in hindsight I don’t really know why I thought this, I guess that was just my first impression of him and it stuck), but after learning more about him he’s a really nice guy. He’s a family man, donates to many charities, and is genuinely a really good person.