Tossing Stone

Forbes - NY, USA - Lacey Rose and Tom Van Riper Oh, the risks of celebrity endorsers.

Upscale clothier Christian Dior (other-otc: CHDRF.PK - news - people ) is the latest company to learn that lesson, dropping Sharon Stone as the pitchwoman for its skin care line in China after the actress publicly blamed the devastating earthquake there on the "bad karma" that comes from the country's dismal human rights record in Tibet.

Stone has plenty of company, of course. For every Tiger Woods, there's a Kobe Bryant. Following allegations that the Los Angeles Lakers basketball star and popular shiller sexually assaulted a 19-year-old woman, he was pulled from high-profile campaigns with McDonald's (nyse: MCD - news - people ) and Nutella. Nike (nyse: NKE - news - people ) stuck with him, but began featuring him less. Charges were eventually dropped.
In Pictures: Eight Major Endorsement Misfires

Supermodel Kate Moss lost campaigns with H&M, Chanel and Burberry after alleged cocaine use was reported in British tabloids in the fall of 2005. She's since recovered and has won back an impressive stable of endorsement deals, including one with Burberry.

Bryant and Moss both recovered pretty quickly, but the lessons remain. No matter how ideal a celebrity endorser seems to be for a given brand, there's no telling what can suddenly pop up.

In today's celebrity-driven culture, it's tough to find any new product launch without a big name attached to it. Everyone wants to be like the beautiful people, to do what they do and wear what they wear. But where there's opportunity, there's also peril.

"The truth is, everybody says and does stupid things," says Noreen Jenney, president of Los Angeles-based Celebrity Endorsement Network. With celebrities, though, word travels fast. "Once you say it, it's out there. It's not that they're doing anything that everybody else isn't doing; it's just that when they say something, the world hears it."