Who is Rob Ford and what happened to the Toronto mayor after crack cocaine video scandal?
A video emerged online in 2013, showing Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine.
Rob Ford, former mayor of Toronto, made headlines for an infamous video that brought his career down. In 2013, a video emerged online that showed Ford, then-in-office, smoking crack cocaine. This incident and what followed made Ford one of the most divisive political figures in recent times.
Even before this event, Ford had a history of substance abuse and legal controversies, although none of them dissuaded him from running and winning a seat on the council. He was accused of an impaired-driving conviction in 1999, a possession-of-marijuana charge in 2006, a conflict of interest case for using office stationery in exchange for funds, and repeated signs of alcohol addiction.
How did the crack cocaine video surface?
Ford was elected to office in 2010. Although his troubled history with substances and alcohol was well-known, matters reached a saturation point in 2013 when Robyn Doolittle of The Toronto Star received a call from a source claiming to have a video of Ford smoking crack cocaine.
Although he initially denied the allegations, he was ultimately forced into confessing the truth when the police claimed to have recovered the video during a massive gun smuggling raid.
Here's what followed
Following this scandal, videos emerged of Ford ranting about wanting to kill a person, calling the police chief a derogatory name, and imitating a Jamaican accent. The city council stripped Ford of most of his power and funds in November of that year. He finally stepped down on November 30, 2014, by making a public statement that read, “I have tried to deal with these issues by myself over the past year. I know that I need professional help and I am now 100% committed to getting myself right. I have a problem with alcohol, and the choices I have made while under the influence."
Soon after he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer called liposarcoma and underwent chemotherapy for the same. He ran for mayor again and won by a landslide number two years later but lost his life in March 2016 to cancer, 18 months after his initial diagnosis.
A Netflix documentary on the subject called Trainwreck: Mayor of Mayhem was released on June 17.
– By Stuti Gupta
