ExplainerSeptember 11’s biggest names: where are they now?
- Here are some of the boldface names of that tumultuous time
- What they were then, and what has happened to them since
Rudy Giuliani was a hero before he was a punchline. Lisa Beamer was a wife and mother before she became a symbol of September 11 – and though her celebrity passed, her widowhood cannot.
In the aftermath of the planes falling from the sky, America and the world were introduced to an array of personalities. Some we had known well, but came to see in different ways. Others were thrown into public consciousness by unhappy happenstance.
Some, like Osama bin Laden and Mullah Mohammad Omar, are dead. But others have gone on to lead lives that are postscripts to September 11, 2001.
Rudy Giuliani
Then: Mayor of New York City, he was a hero of the moment – empathetic, determined, a focus of the nation’s grief and a constant presence at ground zero. “The number of casualties will be more than any of us can bear ultimately,” he said on September 11. Oprah Winfrey pronounced him “America’s Mayor”; Time magazine declared him “Person of the Year”.
Since: After suggesting that his expiring term be extended due to the September 11 emergency – an idea that was roundly dismissed – Giuliani went into private life, but not all that private. He launched a profitable security firm and ran abortively for the Republican nomination for president in 2008. His adventures as a supporter of and agent for President Donald Trump are well documented, and resulted in the suspension of his law license in his home state.