A scandal is a widely publicized incident that involves allegations of wrongdoing, disgrace, or moral outrage. A scandal may be based on reality, the product of false allegations, or a mixture of both.

Some scandals are broken by whistleblowers who reveal wrongdoing within organizations or groups, most notably Deep Throat (William Mark Felt) during the 1970s Watergate scandal that involved President Richard Nixon. Falsely alleged scandals can lead to witch-hunts against the innocent. Sometimes an attempt to cover up a scandal ignites a greater scandal when the cover-up fails. Classes of scandals include:

• Political scandals
• Sex scandals
• Academic scandals
• Sporting scandals (especially Olympic Games scandals)

Western world

The United States in the 1950s was swept by a wave of game show scandals. Another major type of scandal is a corporate, especially those that involve accounting. A wave of such scandals swept American companies in 2002. Nineteenth-century Western society's Seven Social Scandals were fraud, bankruptcy, unwed pregnancy, adultery, homosexuality, divorce, and illegitimacy. In the United States, scandals are often referred to with a -gate suffix, particularly political .

List of scandals

• Corporate scandals
• Journalistic scandals
• Roman Catholic sexual abuse cases
• List of Christian evangelist scandals
• List of scandals with "-gate" suffix