They were some of 9/11’s biggest names. Where are they now?

Rudolph Giuliani was a hero before he was a punchline. Lisa Beamer was a wife and mother before she became a symbol of Sept. 11 — and though her celebrity passed, her widowhood cannot.

In the aftermath of the planes falling from the sky, America and the world were introduced to an array of personalities. Some we had known well, but came to see in different ways. Others were thrown into public consciousness by unhappy happenstance.

Some, like Osama bin Laden and Mullah Mohammad Omar, are dead. But others have gone on to lead lives that are postscripts to Sept. 11, 2001. Here are a few of the boldface names of that tumultuous time — what they were then, and what has happened to them since.

Rudolph Giuliani

THEN: Mayor of New York City, he was a hero of the moment — empathetic, determined, a focus of the nation’s grief and a constant presence at ground zero. “The number of casualties will be more than any of us can bear ultimately,” he said on Sept. 11. Oprah Winfrey pronounced him “America’s Mayor”; Time magazine declared him “Person of the Year.”

SINCE: After suggesting that his expiring term be extended due to the 9/11 emergency — an idea that was roundly dismissed — Giuliani went into private life, but not all that private. He launched a profitable security firm and ran abortively for the Republican nomination for president in 2008. His adventures as a supporter of and agent for President Donald Trump are well documented, and resulted in the suspension of his law license in his home state.

Bernard Kerik

THEN: New York City’s police commissioner. Bald and stocky, he never left Giuliani’s side in the days after Sept. 11 — and followed the mayor after he left office, joining the Giuliani security firm.

SINCE: President George W. Bush appointed Kerik as Iraq’s interim minister of the interior in 2003 during the Iraq war, and nominated him to head the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in 2004. He withdrew from consideration when it was revealed that he had employed an undocumented worker as a nanny and housekeeper; there followed a series of legal troubles, including convictions for ethics violations and tax fraud. He was pardoned by President Donald Trump in 2020.

George W. Bush

THEN: The 43rd president of the United States, Bush was informed of the 9/11 attacks while reading “The Pet Goat” to second graders in Sarasota, Florida. He spoke to the nation that night and visited ground zero three days later, grabbing a bullhorn to declare: “I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people — and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.” His support in the polls reached 85 percent.

SINCE: The War on Terrorism begat the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Bush’s demand that the Taliban “hand over the terrorists, or … share in their fate.” He had long retired to oil painting in Texas when Navy SEALs killed bin Laden, and when President Joe Biden pulled U.S. forces…