Controversial industry sectors, such as alcohol, gambling, tobacco, and firearms, have suffered organizational legitimacy problems for a long period of time. This paper examines whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities reduce the level of risk for firms in controversial industries over the long term in an attempt to seek organizational legitimacy around the world. Using data covering 32 countries, this study finds that both the systematic and total risk for firms in controversial industries are generally higher than those for firms in uncontroversial industries due to their inherent harmful image. We then show that controversial industry firms’ engagement in CSR initiatives and policies has a substantial risk-decreasing effect, and that might increase the probability of obtaining and maintaining the social license to operate. The documented effect of CSR on firm risk, however, is more pronounced for firms in Europe and North America than in the Asia-Pacific region, suggesting differential CSR-risk association in different region. These results are significant and robust even after potential endogeneity problems are mitigated. Our results further show the longterm impact of controversial industry firms’ CSR engagement on firm risk, which is more pronounced in firms under highly developed financial system for each region. We interpret that our results are supportive of the “harmful image”, “social license to operate”, “differential recognition”, and “long-term risk reduction” explanations.