Like I suspect a lot of people did, I Googled PT Barnum when I got back from The Greatest Showman and was disappointed to find he was an absolute shit. I mean… he owned a slave. (I know he became strongly anti-slavery later, but still, the way he exploited her really can’t be forgiven I think)
On the other hand The Greatest Showman contains absolutely no historical accuracy whatsoever (Barnum also as far as I can tell didn’t live on the streets and steal food to survive, and he didn’t know his wife since they both were young children, and I’m pretty sure they didn’t actually come from wildly different social classes, and they had four daughters together not two, and there’s no indication he and Jenny Lind had anything close to a fling.. etc etc) and a part of me wonders if they should’ve just kept the story but changed all the names.