Big time! They threw mud all over the place! You should see the stuff Cicero says about Clodius (they really hated each other). At one point Clodius invaded a religious festival dressed as a woman and had sex with Caesar's wife, or was it his own sister??? Historians refer to this as the "Bona Dea Scandal" and Cicero never talked about Clodius without bringing it up. You can see all sorts of other character accusations in Cicero's speeches against Cataline especially, but also in just about every one of his speeches.

Then there are the scandalous rumors surrounding the emperors. Tiberius supposedly kept young boys as sex slaves on the island of Capri. Caligula supposedly raped his sister. There were a lot of comments about Nero's reactions to his mothers death and the great fire that made people speculate that he was responsible.

Because of the nature of ancient history as a genre, politicians are as close to a celebrity as we can get. There were a few famous performers but they are mentioned usually because a politician was pals with them (Nero supposedly hit the town with some famous actors).

I forgot my favorite description of Rumour from the ancient world. In this passage Virgil imagine's Rumour (Fama) as a monster born of the Earth:

Rumour, compared with whom no other is as swift.

She flourishes by speed, and gains strength as she goes:

first limited by fear, she soon reaches into the sky,

walks on the ground, and hides her head in the clouds.

Earth, incited to anger against the gods, so they say,

bore her last, a monster, vast and terrible, fleet-winged

and swift-footed, sister to Coeus and Enceladus,

who for every feather on her body has as many

watchful eyes below (marvellous to tell), as many

tongues speaking, as many listening ears.

She flies, screeching, by night through the shadows

between earth and sky, never closing her eyelids

in sweet sleep: by day she sits on guard on tall roof-tops

or high towers, and scares great cities, as tenacious

of lies and evil, as she is messenger of truth.

Now in delight she filled the ears of the nations

with endless gossip, singing fact and fiction alike:

Aeneas has come, born of Trojan blood, a man whom

lovely Dido deigns to unite with: now they’re spending

the whole winter together in indulgence, forgetting

their royalty, trapped by shameless passion.

The Rumor being spread here is that Aeneas (a Trojan refugee and would-be founder of Rome) and Dido (the founder and queen of Carthage) just shacked up in a cave, or maybe they got married in a cave???

Whenever discussing people in historical times, I always think it is important to remember that while cultures and technology and religions and customs have changed, human nature has remained the same since prehistory. Humans have always had the same capacity for love, lust, compassion, intelligence, hatred, greed, violence, bigotry, sexual deviance, politics, ambition, love for their children, etc. People love to gossip today, people loved to gossip in Roman times, and even 40,000 years ago, people loved to gossip about those jerks living in that other cave across the river. People are people, and have always been people, ever since people became people.