Albert Einstein was so impressed by Marie Curie when he met her, that when Marie was dealing with a public attack on her persona for having exchanged love letters with a fellow scientist who was married, but at the time estranged from his wife, Einstein came to her defense.
He wrote her, “I am so enraged by the base manner in which the public is presently daring to concern itself with you that I absolutely must give vent to this feeling…I am impelled to tell you how much I have come to admire your intellect, your drive, and your honesty, and that I consider myself lucky to have made your personal acquaintance in Brussels…If the rabble continues to occupy itself with you, then simply don’t read that hogwash, but rather leave to the reptile for whom it has been fabricated.”
—
Albert Einstein defends Marie Curie sources: Portrait of Einstein and Curie taken in 1929 / Wikimedia Commons