Top 5 celebrity legal scandals as Felicity Huffman pleads guilty in college scam

The past several months have been rife with legal controversies involving big-name actors, singers and athletes: from college admissions scams and allegedly staged attacks, to accusations of sexual abuse and working as sex cult recruiters.

"Desperate Housewives" star Felicity Huffman pleaded guilty to a college admissions bribery scheme, having admitted to paying $15,000 to boost her daughter's college entrance exam scores on Monday.

In light of Huffman's admission, here's a selection of arguably the biggest celebrity legal scandals that have shaken the whole world over the past few months:

R. Kelly

The grammy-winning R&B star has been all over the news since the release of the explosive docuseries "Surviving R. Kelly", which sparked renewed interest in allegations of sexual misconduct by him. For decades he's been haunted by sexual abuse against underage girls and women that were fuelled by reports of his later annulled marriage to his 15-year-old protégé Aaliyah in 1994 while he was 27 years old.

The "I Believe I Can Fly" singer has always denied the allegations, but after the documentary premiered to big ratings, calls for him to be investigated were renewed.

In February, he was charged with 10 counts of aggravated sexual abuse and now faces up to 70 years in jail on charges of sexual abuse of four women, including three minors ranging in age from 13 to 16.

Kelly pleaded not guilty, denying claims that he had beaten, starved, and held women against their will.

Jussie Smollett

In late January, the "Empire" actor made it into breaking news after reports emerged that he had been hospitalised after being attacked by two unidentified people in Chicago, Illinois.

Jussie Smollett, who is openly gay, told police that the two assailants were wearing ski masks and beat him, placing a rope around his neck and pouring an unknown substance on him. 

Initially, law enforcement treated the incident as a potential hate crime, but the trajectory of the investigation shifted after they arrested two men in connection with the attack, later identified as Nigerian brothers Olabinjo and Abimola Osundario.

The brothers were released without being charged, and a couple of days later Smollett was officially treated as a suspect in the probe following multiple media reports suggesting that Chicago police believed Jussie had staged the assault, having allegedly paid the duo $3,500 to attack him.

Even though Jussie has denied any wrongdoing, he turned himself in to police, and shortly after was indicted by a Chicago grand jury on 16 felony counts of disorderly conduct for filing what law enforcement said was a false police report.

In two weeks, as support for Jussie became — to put it mildly — less vocal, with many speculating that the attack was a hoax, prosecutors mysteriously dropped all charges against Smollett without providing further clarification.