Why Are Some Scandals Called “-Gates”?
In the early morning hours of June 17, 1972, five burglars broke into Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. A little more than two years later U.S. Pres. Richard Nixon resigned the presidency, and Watergate had become synonymous with scandal.
Ultimately, the practice of tacking -gate onto scandals is the result of the work of two very unlikely sources: National Lampoon magazine and former Nixon speechwriter and conservative commentator William Safire. A year before Nixon’s resignation in August 1974, National Lampoon created a fictitious scandal involving Soviet spying called “Volgagate.” During Jimmy Carter’s presidency, Safire, then writing for The New York Times, dubbed a scandal involving the president’s brother “Billygate.” During Bill Clinton’s tenure, Safire coined the term Travelgate to describe the firing of government workers from the White House travel office.
Not all scandals, political or otherwise, became commonly known as “-gates.” And yet more than 50 years after the Watergate break-in, the suffix still has a place in the lexicon. Here are several -gates that seem to have stuck.
Skategate
At the Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Olympics, the pairs figure skating competition was dominated by scandal when Canadian skaters Jamie Salé and David Pelletier, who skated a flawless final program, scored lower than Russians Yelena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze, who had made several errors in their performance. After the competition, a French judge admitted that she had been coerced into voting for the Russian pair by a skating official but later recanted her story. The resulting uproar led to the Canadian pair being awarded gold medals as well. The scoring system in figure skating also changed because of Skategate.
Nipplegate
Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake were performing during halftime of Super Bowl XXXVIII in 2004 when what Timberlake would dub a “wardrobe malfunction” occurred. Timberlake was meant to tear at Jackson’s top to reveal a red bustier. Instead, her bare breast appeared briefly on the television screens of some 100 million Americans. Viewers complained; CBS, which aired the game, was fined; and Timberlake and Jackson were accused of doing it all on purpose, which they denied.
Deflategate
In the AFC Championship game in 2015, the New England Patriots were accused of underinflating footballs used in the game against the Indianapolis Colts. Some players, although not all, say underinflated balls are easier to grip. After a monthslong investigation, the NFL determined that it was “more probable than not” that members of the Patriots’ staff deliberately deflated footballs and that quarterback Tom Brady was probably “at least generally aware” of the cheating.
This wasn’t the first -gate scandal involving the Patriots; in 2007 they were caught videotaping the New York Jets in order to steal play calls in a scandal dubbed “Spygate.”
Pizzagate
This debunked 2016 conspiracy theory holds that Comet Ping Pong, a Washington, D.C., pizza parlor, was really a front for a Democrat-led child pornography and sex trafficking ring. The conspiracy theory was widely spread on the Internet by Alex Jones and led to a December 2016 incident in which a North Carolina man entered the restaurant with a gun and fired shots in a bid to free children supposedly held in the eatery’s “secret passageways.” No one was hurt in the incident.
Partygate
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was heavily criticized in 2021 when reports came to light that he and members of his government had attended parties despite protocols barring such gatherings because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Johnson initially maintained that protocols had been adhered to “at all times,” but an official government report found some elements of wrongdoing, and there were calls for Johnson to resign. He survived Partygate only to be forced to resign in disgrace less than a year later, the result of a sex scandal involving a member of government. That scandal was not known as a -gate.
Signalgate
In March 2025 Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic, broke one of the biggest stories of the second administration of U.S. Pres. Donald Trump. Goldberg had inadvertently been added to a message group using the encrypted app Signal that included Vice Pres. J.D. Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and National Security Adviser Michael Waltz. The group was discussing impending U.S. air strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Goldberg initially published an article that characterized the discussions but left out specifics that could jeopardize national security. He immediately came under attack from the Trump administration, which called him a liar. Several days later The Atlantic published a follow-up that included screenshots of the text exchange, which outlined the specifics that were discussed on the timing, aircraft, and weaponry to be used in the attack. The controversy, which came to be known as “Signalgate,” raised questions about the manner in which sensitive intelligence is handled in the Trump administration.