Secret Sex Lives of Tyrants is a six-part historical documentary series uncovering the private worlds of some of history’s most notorious dictators. In a world first, colorised and animated archive is combined with expert insight from historians, psychologists, and sociologists. Each episode examines the sexual power plays, obsessions, and abuses that influenced these rulers’ reigns — and, at times, the fate of nations.
From Muammar Gaddafi’s secret sex chambers to Fidel Castro’s unsatiable womanising, Joseph Goebbels’ calculated and politically charged affairs, Saddam Hussein’s sexual brutality, Mao Zedong’s vast network of concubines, and Idi Amin’s murderous polygamy, the series reveals how intimate appetites became deliberate instruments of control. Desire, dominance, humiliation, and violence were not simply private indulgences but were often inseparable from the ruthless political strategies these leaders used to secure and maintain absolute power.
Drawing on official testimonies, historic records, rumours, and personal diary entries, the series connects these leaders’ most guarded secrets to the regimes they built. Their sexual conduct reflected deep-seated insecurities, personal vendettas, and calculated self-mythologising — shaping propaganda, state policy, and systems of repression.
The Secret Sex Lives of Tyrants goes beyond scandal, offering a psychological and historical investigation into how private behaviour and public power collided, leaving legacies of fear, oppression, and devastation, that impacted countless lives and left an indelible mark of the countries they ruled.
EPISODE 1: Joseph Goebbels – The Randy Goat of Babelsberg
Behind the devoted Nazi propaganda minister was a man obsessed with sexual conquests.
EPISODE 2: Idi Amin – The Butcher of Uganda
The reign of terror that extended into a violent private life of polygamy and murder.
EPISODE 3: Muammar Gaddafi – The Desert Deviant
The private world of abuse and terror at the core of Muammar Gaddafi’s tyrannical dictatorship.
EPISODE 4: Mao Zedong – The Red Emperor of Lust
Behind the austere image of China’s “Great Helmsman” was a ruler consumed by sexual excess and perverted convictions.
EPISODE 5: Saddam Hussein – Madman of the Middle East
Behind the ruthless dictatorship lay a world of sexual sadism, cruelty and violence.
EPISODE 6: Fidel Castro – The Bastard of Havana
Beneath the revolutionary image, Castro’s womanizing was a calculated game of power, desire, and control.