Before 2008, Christine Beatty, as the chief of staff to Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, was a celebrated strategist with a promising future in politics. That changed the morning the Detroit Free Press published the private, intimate text messages that Beatty and Kilpatrick exchanged on their government-issued phones during their six-year extramarital affair.

The fallout was brutal. The texts proved that Beatty had once lied under oath by denying her affair with Kilpatrick. Beatty, a mother, was sentenced to 90 days in jail. In addition, she was mercilessly roasted in the press and by the public. And after the media smoke cleared and people moved on to drag someone else, Beatty still found herself branded with a scarlet A.