Will All This Scandal Kill Jesse James' Career?

He's posed for Nazi photos and seems to have a pretty obvious problem with gay people, but that and some tattooed ladies won't bother his fan base

Will the Bombshell McGee/Nazi/other nasty ladies scandal kill Jesse James' career? I would think so.
—Jennifer D., via Facebook

You would think wrong.

Yes, Jesse James has posed for photos while festooned in Nazi wear and seems to have a pretty obvious problem with gay people. And he's cheated on Sandra Bullock with women more tackily decorated than Neverland Ranch.

And true, James has no TV career right now—his latest show, Jesse James Is a Dead Man, went away a while ago—and some magazine has branded him the most hated man in the country. But don't count on him crawling off into a hole just yet...

Remember, Jesse James has a core audience—yes, really, he still does have one of those—that is very, very different from his wife's. (As of this hour, yes, James also still has a wife.)

And you can take some wisdom from a man who would know:

James Cruz, marketing wizard behind names as diverse as Sean Combs and the Ultimate Fighting Championship. He says that not only could James make a comeback, but also he could make one soon. Like in a few months, if he wanted to. In front of millions of people even.

Why? Because James' people don't really care about cheating.

"At the end of the day," Cruz tells me, "Jesse James' core fans are car guys, and the people who are really taking the scandal to heart are married women or single women who have been cheated on."

In other words, if Jesse James had a show on the Food Network or a daytime talk empire instead of a business called West Coast Choppers and reality projects based on stunts and wheels, James would be in major trouble right now careerwise.

But, Cruz says, he's not. He's just not.

"This is always going to be a part of his luggage," Cruz notes, "but three, six months from now...he'll be able to move forward—it will be however long it takes until people start to forget. Until the next superstar cheats on his wife."

And speaking of wives, don't worry about Sandy, either.

Despite her husband's taste in entertainment, she's holding the sympathy card right now, especially via her core audience of women, Cruz says. "Women are going to understand that kind of pain that she's going through," Cruz explains.

Which leads me to my elevator pitch for a new reality show. It's part road trip, part docuseries: Jesse James Gets Slapped by Women Across America.