About
The academy
An annual award for the people who were once on every magazine cover, every talk show and every lunchbox, and now aren’t.
The word
has-been (n., informal): a person who was once famous, popular or important, and no longer is. As in, “a man who once filled Madison Square Garden, now signing calendars at a car dealership outside Tulsa.” Fame is a lease, not a deed. We just check who’s behind on the rent.
How it works
- Nominees all yearThrough the year the academy nominates the formerly famous, one at a time, for the 2026 Awards.
- Three categoriesSteepest Fall (how fast they fell after the peak, in fame points per year), Longest Time in the Wilderness (years since the peak) and Outstanding Achievement in Fading (the Fade-o-Meter). The frontrunners are recalculated whenever someone new is nominated.
- One winnerIn December, one nominee is named Has-Been of the Year. There is an envelope. There is no ceremony, because nobody would come.
- The Fade-o-MeterA rigorous scale from 1 (briefly misplaced) to 10 (who?). Not peer-reviewed.
- The career chartOur estimate of their fame over time, pinned to real milestones: hits, flops, cancellations, comebacks. The milestones are sourced; the curve is opinion.
- In fairnessPlenty of people step out of the spotlight on purpose and are perfectly happy. If that’s the story, we say so.
House rules
We mock career trajectories, comeback attempts and public statements, not people’s lives. No slurs, nothing about anyone’s looks, age, race, religion, gender, sexuality, health or family. Nobody who left public life because of illness, addiction, bereavement or caring for someone. Public figures only, on the record only.
Photos are freely licensed (public domain, CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA) and credited every time they appear: the photo’s title, the photographer, where it’s from, the license, and what we changed. Private people are cropped out.
Got it wrong?
If a fact is wrong, a source has changed, or someone has staged a genuine comeback (good for them), we want to know and we’ll fix it. Email wherearetheynow@hasbeenoftheyear.com with the page and the source.
The sister title
Has-Been of the Year comes from the same desk as The Twat Spot, which gives out Twat of the Week to public figures who said something daft on the record. They’re for people who are talking too much. We’re for people nobody’s asking any more.