Dan Wilbur
The stars, they’re just like us. Celebrities also have moments they’d rather forget. Luckily, most people did. How else would someone smuggling drugs get the chance at later being Buzz Lightyear?
I don’t want to go around airing everyone’s dirty laundry, but it’s also important to know that even the biggest celebs are human. They make choices. They have lives outside of the media.
We take for granted that many of the movies, music, TV shows we love we created be real human beings. Human beings who could have made those beloved pieces of art differently. No one had a gun to their head! Well, maybe the ones who smuggled drugs.
Here are the strange but true celebrity facts that will change how you think about these actors and musicians forever:
1. Bill Murray tried to smuggle 10 pounds of marijuana into the United States in 1970.
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It makes me like him even more. On Bill Murray’s 20th birthday, he was caught in the Chicago airport with bricks of marijuana worth around $20,000. And that’s in 1970s money! You could buy anything. You could buy, let’s see… well, a lot of marijuana, that’s for sure. I can’t really think of anything else you’d want to buy back then. He was released soon after but decided to drop out of college before being kicked out for having a criminal record.
2. Rob Lowe is deaf in one ear due to the Mumps.
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Mumps was a terrible disease that killed and maimed tons of children. Rob came out smelling like a rose but unable to hear out of one ear. Please vaccinate your kids. He claims he doesn’t really think about it all that much, but that loud restaurants drive him nuts. Sadly, he could not appreciate classical music in the same annoying way other Sorkin characters did on The West Wing.
3. Megan Fox believes in leprechauns.
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OK, not like the “Lucky Charms” one you’re thinking about in your head. But traditional Irish folklore had to come from SOMEWHERE, and Megan believes they came from somewhere real. She told Esquire that she “has a childlike spirit” and “wants to believe.”
4. Ryan Gosling was almost in The Backstreet Boys.
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I recently watched a documentary about the boyband reuniting, and this tidbit was not mentioned! Gosling lived in the same apartment building as singer A.J. just as the band was beginning. Gosling didn’t believe they would hit it big. He was wrong. Gosling also lived for a time during his stint on The Mickey Mouse Club with another famous singer: Justin Timberlake. Timberlake’s mother was for a time, Ryan Gosling’s legal gaurdian.
5. Tim Allen was caught with a pound of cocaine and served 2 years in prison for it.
It’s hard for me, a person who was 14 when 9/11 happened, to imagine doing anything illegal in an airport. But, the 70s and 80s were a different time. This is yet another comedic actor moving drugs before they were famous. Of all the places to be caught.
6. Before being on ‘Friends,’ Jennifer Aniston turned down the chance to join SNL.
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Saturday Night Live is always looking for funny people. According to my mom, I should call them up and ask for a gig. Lorne? Are you reading this? Apparently, Jennifer Aniston was on Lorne Michael’s radar. Sadly, she declined the opportunity much to the chagrin of Adam Sandler who was reportedly excited to have her on. Probably a good choice since the other show eventually garnered her a million dollars per episode.
7. Nicolas Cage once outbid Leonardo DiCaprio for a 67-million-year-old dinosaur skull.
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All right, this one isn’t that unbelievable. Start a sentence with “Nicholas Cage once…” and whatever comes after I’ll agree is true. Unless you tell me he turned down a role! Haha. I kid, of course. He’s a genius. He paid $270,000 for a skull. Good for him.
8. Ricky Martin’s “She Bangs” music video features a young Channing Tatum.
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I thought I’d followed him from the start. By the start, I mean his appearance in the movie Step Up. Apparently, he’d worked before then, including Ricky Martin’s music video, where he appeared as a bartender. Can you imagine?
9. Lady Gaga spent $50,000 to find out if a ghost named Ryan was haunting her.
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We’ve all been there. We think we hear a bump in the night, and think “it’s probably just Ryan. Wait, I don’t know a Ryan!!” Fortunately, Lady Gaga has the means to check if there is, in fact, a ghost following her. She has professionals check the electromagnetic field in all the hotels she stays in when on tour. Can you imagine? A ghost so stubborn it tours with you? Freaky.
10. Kanye West, a rapper whose songs obsess over style and clothing, used to work at The Gap.
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Kanye says when he was 15 working at the chain store in Chicago, he couldn’t afford the clothes there. It started what was to become a lifelong love of nice clothes. Also, he stole from the store and eventually quit. They should pay their employees and give them free clothing.
11. Britney Spears was in an all-female girl group that was America’s answer to The Spice Girls.
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It’s Britney, B****! And she’s shed The Mickey Mouse Club, and is moving on to bigger and better things. She was in college, already nominally famous, and she started a girl group with some friends. It didn’t get big, but can you imagine being one of the people who was in a group with one of the biggest pop stars of all time?
12. Madonna was once fired from her job at Dunkin’ Donuts.
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She was playing with the jelly machine. If you’re going to mess with anything at Dunkin, it’s best that you mess with the equipment, not the customers. The customers will cut you. I read about Madonna working at Dunkin’ and the blogger wrote “can you believe she did that before she was famous?” Yes. If she did it after she was famous, though, that would be cool. More stars should do it.
13. Eva Mendes wanted to be a nun.
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What turned her away from the convent life? She found out that nuns don’t get paid. Laid? No. Paid. They can’t make money. I respect her choice.
14. Angelina Jolie wore a vial of Billy Bob Thornton’s blood around her neck.
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The two stars were both filming movies in different parts of the world, and Angelina came home one day with a little kit. They used razor blades on their fingers and gave a literal piece of themselves to the other. They wore the blood in lockets around their necks to always feel close to each other. Not nearly the weirdest thing on this list, honestly.
15. George Lucas employs his own personal 14-person fire brigade.
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More money, more problems, am I right? George Lucas, who famously almost destroyed his own intellectual property by making pointless prequels to Star Wars, built a $100 million place for all his equipment called “Skywalker Ranch.” The place is full of priceless items, and therefore needs its own fire station in case of an emergency.
Thoreau said: “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.” Well, these stories are the truth, I swear!
16. Bono once bought a plane ticket for his hat.
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Bono forgot a hat at home right before a big show, and instead of going on without it, he paid $1,200 to book the hat its own seat on a plane. Can you imagine getting to your seat, and then having to ask a hat if you can switch seats so you can be closer to a family member?
17. David Bowie’s left eye was permanently dilated thanks to a fight when he was 15.
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Maybe he was born seeing the world differently, but this little malady was caused by a teenage brawl. He probably did a few drugs that made the other eye open up. Don’t get me started on his third eye.
18. Matthew Broderick was in a car accident that left two people dead.
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This tragedy is something he’d rather put behind him. He was charged with reckless driving and nearly spent 10 years in prison after crashing into another car in Ireland. The accident still haunts him to this day.
19. Julia Roberts’ smile is insured for a whopping $30 million.
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You think you have a million-dollar smile? Julia Roberts has a 30-million-dollar smile! Actors have to worry about their appearances. If something bad happens to their face or body through no fault of their own, who takes care of them? Welp, insurance companies. You need to protect your investments.
20. Kim Basinger bought an entire town in Georgia.
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Kim Basinger is orignally from north of Atlanta, Georgia. She and some other investors bought an entire 8,000-person town for $20 million. It’s now a cultural destination and a place for filmmakers to shoot films.
21. Madonna wanted to do that kiss at the VMAs with Jennifer Lopez.
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I completely understand what it’s like to feel like the second choice. I didn’t get into the college I applied to early decision. So I know your pain, Britney. The truth is that Christina and Britney had a weird history, and the producers thought it would be tough to get them to appear with Madonna. But, they agree, and the rest is history.
22. Dennis Rodman claimed to have 46 siblings. Turns out it was only 28. 28 brothers and sisters.
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Rodman’s father left his family behind when he was only 5 years old. He was inducted to the Basketball Hall of Fame, and gave an emotional speech about his father, whose real name is Philander. Rodman claimed his father was responsible for 47 kids, but the dad clarified. He only had 29 kids.
23. Matthew Perry lost part of his middle finger in early childhood.
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RIP to a legend of the screen. But here’s a fact about him: fans watching Friends only recently figured it out. You can clearly see the actor’s middle finger is about the length of his index finger. Could we be any less observant when we watched the show? He lost part of the finger in a car door.
24. Martha Stewart started out as a fashion model before she got into insider trading and cooking.
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Martha Stewart was getting $50/hour to model in college. She worked for Chanel. She had it made. And then decided to become the biggest brand in cooking! Good for her. She should try modeling again! The world would rally behind her.
25. Snoop Dogg and Brandy are cousins.
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Dennis Leary and Conan O’Brien are also related. You learn a lot when you click through various celebrity news websites.
26. Katy Perry keeps a lock of Taylor Swift’s hair in her purse.
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Also, some of Miley Cyrus’s hair is in there too. Perry revealed this tidbit at an iHeartRadio Q&A where an audience member asked the innocuous question “what’s in your purse?” Instead of lipstick or eyeliner, she revealed she’d gone backstage at the Grammys and asked her friends for some hair and they said yes. Fun!
27. Charlie Sheen tried to hunt the Loch Ness Monster with a leg of lamb.
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This one is believable. I bet he’d been thinking of the strategy for months. This story, by the way, came before his manic public breakdown. Sheen’s just always been that weird.
28. Tom Cruise bought a sonogram machine for $200,000 so he could see Suri in the womb every day.
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Ask yourself: do I love my kids? Do you love them enough to see them every day? Did you want to see them every day before they were even born? Well, that’s what Tom Cruise did. He jumped on a couch yelling that he loved his wife, and then bought a device to look at her womb every day. He also divorced every woman he was married to when they turned 33. Pretty specific and odd stuff. Not nearly the weirdest thing about Tom Cruise.
29. Fran Drescher believes she and her ex-husband were abducted by aliens.
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She believes they both were programmed to meet. The Nanny star says the couple both had similar scars on their hands where aliens implanted chips under their skin. It’s nice to believe you were destined to be with your partner but this is a little much.
30. Michael J. Fox’s middle name is Andrew.
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The “J” is an homage to actor Michael J. Pollard.
“Some are born weird, some achieve it, others have weirdness thrust upon them.” -author Dick Francis. The weirdness is what makes these people great. More people should know these strange facts!
31. Macaulay Culkin has a band called The Pizza Underground that sings covers of The Velvet Underground but about pizza.
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The actor did not want his band (that only plays parody songs about pizza) to be mocked just because he was in the band. He didn’t want people to listen to the band just because he was “that actor from Home Alone.”
32. Waka Flocka Flame paid someone a yearly salary of $50,000 to be his personal blunt roller.
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There’s no word on the health benefits, but if you want to make a living wage, learn how to roll blunts. Can you imagine getting notes from your boss? Or one day being let go from the job? “I’m sorry. We’re looking for someone who wants to grow with the brand. You need to learn how to get different drugs for us.” Dang. Sounds like a lot of fun though.
33. Paul Newman taught Jake Gyllenhaal how to drive.
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Actors tend to gravitate toward other actors. That’s true even on a basic level like learning how to drive. I wonder if they also see dentists who also act. How do they keep their teeth so white otherwise?
34. Lucy Liu had sex with a ghost.
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Lucy Liu said the experience was gratifying and when it was over the ghost just slipped away. I have filed a police report and am waiting to hear back.
35. Jonathan Franzen writes blindfolded.
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Jonathan Franzen hates distraction, so he wrote his epic-length novel The Corrections while blindfolded. He also had earplugs in. Oh, and it took him four years to finish the book. That’s dedication to the craft.
36. Michelle Pfeiffer spent her younger days in a cult that believed humans only needed air and sunlight to survive.
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If all the documentaries I’ve watched have taught me anything, it’s that she could have been in a much worse cult. No wonder she’s so thin! She lives on photosynthesis.
37. Tom Hanks has many many typewriters.
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Though he occasionally finds himself forced to work on a laptop or other newfangled device, the actor has a passion for collecting typewriters. He owns over 250. It all started in 1978 when he took in a cheap plastic typewriter to a Cleveland restorer who refused to work on the machine. Hanks invested then and there in his first good typewriter and has been hooked ever since.
38. Leonardo DiCaprio speaks fluent German.
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Now I understand why Tarantino wanted him in the cast of Inglorious Basterds!
39. There was a sixth Spice Girl named Smart Spice.
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“The Sixth Spice” is a movie I would watch. Instead of seeing dead people, the kid sees all the Spice Girls everywhere he goes. Michelle Stephenson was going to be the “smart spice” who was in college. She never quite mixed well with the others, and didn’t love the pop music they made.
40. Keanu Reeves nearly changed his name to Chuck Spadina.
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It’s an interesting name, and he’s led an interesting life. He was born in Lebanon, bounced around the world as a kid, and still has never applied to become an American citizen. Thanks to time spent in Canada, he also found a love of hockey.
41. Cameron Diaz went to high school with Snoop Dogg and he sold her weed.
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The actress claims she “was green even in high school.” She remembered Snoop wearing a lot of ponytails, and that she got into lots of fights in school. Never would have guessed.
42. Harry Styles has four nipples.
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It’s a common condition called polythelia and it does not seem to freak out anyone’s who’s seen him shirtless.
43. Ashton Kutcher has webbed toes.
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Also, his real first name isn’t Ashton. It’s Chris. Chris is the name of a kid with webbed feet.
44. Rebel Wilson decided to become an actress after catching malaria and hallucinating for weeks.
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The actress was a studious type until a trip to South Africa. She was sick for weeks, and came out of the illness a new person who wanted to act.
45. Oprah has a bathtub shaped like her own body.
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Oprah Winfrey’s adult life is a far cry from her humble beginnings in Mississippi. She now has a custom tub. She used to live with her grandma in a house that had no running water. Now she give away cars to people who come to see her show. She’s the best!
46. Host James Lipton spent a year working as a pimp in France.
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If I had to guess what James Lipton did before he interviewed actors, I would have said “pimp” on the first try. I’d be right. The actor and TV show host said it was the best year of his life.
47. The Obamas were still paying off their student loans in their 40s.
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Makes you wonder why we don’t cancel student debt for more people. Rich, successful people can barely pay these things off. Now that they have a Netflix deal, I’m guessing they’re paying off multiple houses.
48. Miley Cyrus’s real name is Destiny Hope.
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The woman had three different names she was known as before she was 18. That’s a celebrity hattrick.
49. Jennifer Lawrence has a tattoo on her hand that says “H2O” to remind her to drink water.
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Where else are you going to write it? She’s like that guy from Memento but instead of being motivated by revenge, she’s motivated by her basic bodily needs.
50. Christopher Walken used to be a lion tamer.
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I mean… obviously!
