How Celebrities Survive After Their Career is Over

Have you ever wondered what happens to celebrities when they’re just not famous anymore? While some of their careers just run out of momentum, others have screeched to a halt thanks to scandals and bad press. After being bought back to normality, many of your favorite former stars have taken surprising career changes; from cooking, preaching, sweeping up hair or even street busking! Let’s take a look at how some celebrities survived after their careers were over.

Louis C.K.

At his peak, six-time Emmy award winning comedian, writer, and filmmaker Louis C.K. was selling out Madison Square Gardens and made regular appearances on late night talk shows. He also appeared repeatedly on Forbes’ list of highest-paid comedians, and even earned $52 million in the year leading up to June 2017. It seemed like life couldn’t get any better for the hot-shot comedian.

But for lack of an explanation, Louis couldn’t keep it in his pants. In the wake of the #MeToo movement, a hideous scandal dashed his career into the dirt almost overnight. His second comedy special with Netflix, part of a deal worth $35 million, was immediately cancelled; HBO cut all ties with him, and his upcoming projects were terminated.

Since then, his face thankfully hasn’t been on any major screen. So, what’s a publicly shamed comic to do when he’s fallen so far from grace? Well, he’s back doing one of the only things he knows how: stand-up comedy. But definitely not for the prices he used to charge!

In North Carolina back in 2019, tickets for his show worth $49.50 were being sold online for just $9 due to lack of demand. In fact, one reporter from the LA Times managed to get a ticket for just $4! But even then, some of his shows like this one in San Jose were protested by locals. Somehow, it’s hard to see the funny side of this attempted career comeback.

Mara Wilson

It’s not often that you recognize someone from their childhood photos, but that’s how most people remember Mara Wilson! This American child actress rose to fame in the early 90s after starring in films such as Mrs. Doubtfire, Miracle on 34th Street and Matilda! And if you don’t recognize any of those iconic films, there’s a good chance it’s past your bedtime.

However, Wilson’s adorable face wasn’t enough to help her become a fully-fledged actress, and she quit film at the age of just 13. While many outlets state that she was just weighing up her career options, others report that the toxic pressures of the image-obsessed industry drove her into early retirement.

Not being "pretty enough" cost her castings and call backs, she even considered getting plastic surgery! But instead of going under the knife, Wilson used her experiences to become a full-time writer, penning the screenplay of Sheeple as well as her own memoirs in a book called Where Am I Now?.

She’s also worked for McSweeny’s, The Toast, the Daily Beast, and Cracked.com producing blog and opinion pieces. Although she’s steered clear of most acting roles, she did lend her voice to an anthropomorphic spider in Netflix’s BoJack Horseman in 2016.

Diamond Dallas Page

Professional Wrestling fans around the world should know that the careers of these big, bulky fighters are usually cut short by horrendous injuries. But multiple time World Heavyweight Champion Diamond Dallas Page managed to wrestle a brand-new career out his life changing injuries!

In 1998, he ruptured several discs in his spine and was told by doctors he would never wrestle again. But instead of giving up, Dallas took up yoga to help heal his body. Regaining flexibility and mobility, Dallas took his yoga one step further and developed a process called dynamic resistance that added intensity to the training.

Figuring he could make some serious bank on his new fitness routine; he wrote a book called Yoga for Regular Guys in 2005. Then, when most of Page’s wrestling work dried up in the late 2000s, he developed the book into a series of workout videos called DDP Yoga. So, this absolute beefcake managed to launch a yoga business off the back of his wrestling fame, that’s a crazier move than he ever could’ve pulled off in the ring.

While it’s hard to picture this muscly meathead twisting himself into a pretzel shape, he’s made a huge success out of the business. He even appeared on Shark Tank in 2014 seeking investment for a mobile app version of the workout! While he failed to secure the $200,200 investment he needed, in the following six days DDP Yoga made over $1 million in sales!

S Club 7

This preppy pop band were a group of 7 singers brought together by former Spice Girls manager, Simon Fuller. Thanks to his artistic direction, their debut single Bring it all Back hit number one in the UK charts in 1999. They then peaked in the early 2000s with hit albums such as S Club, 7 and Sunshine. Over the course of 4 years, the members earned about £600,000 each, that’s just over $1 million in today’s money!

But their cheesy music simply wasn’t meant to last, and the band split in 2003. While member Rachel Stevens went on to flourish in the UK music scene, the others struggled and never got their shot at individual stardom. Some members like Hannah Spearritt and Jon Lee pay their bills by acting on the West End, in occasional movie roles and British soap operas.

But others just haven’t been able to move on, and this is where it all gets a little cringe-worthy. After a brief reunion tour in 2015, members Jo O’Meara, Bradley McIntosh, and Tina Barrett have stayed together as S Club 3. But far from making any new music, this band just fall back on performing their greatest hits and can even be hired for events like weddings and parties. Looks like this trio just can’t let go of their once million-dollar dream!

Belle Gibson

There are plenty of tragic stories of celebrity downfalls, but Belle Gibson certainly isn’t one you should feel too sorry for. This Australian Wellness Blogger based her career off the claim that she cured her own terminal brain cancer with a simple mix of alternative therapies and diet changes. She shared her "cancer-free" lifestyle with the world by creating The Whole Pantry mobile app which saw her make $420,000, at least $300,000 of which she claimed she donated.

But in 2015, Gibson was called out for having failed to pay it on to the designated charities. And that, my friends, is when her wellness empire fell apart. Under intense scrutiny Gibson finally cracked and revealed that she’d never had cancer to begin with. Gibson wasn’t a victim. She was a fraud! It had all been a hook to get people to invest in her weird pseudo-scientific miracle app.

To this day, Gibson has refused to donate the money to charity, and despite being fined $410,000 in 2017 for duping consumers, she’s made no effort to pay it. She even rubbed it in the public’s face back in 2019 by spending $15,000 on a luxury holiday to Africa!

But just when you thought Gibson couldn’t make it any worse, she then claimed she had been adopted by the Oromo, an ethnic community native to Ethiopia! In an interview, Gibson referred to Oromia as home and even claimed to have earned herself a new name: Sabontu.

But no number of name changes could hide her past, and after having her history exposed, the Oromo quickly disowned her. Although the name supposedly conjures gentleness, sharpness, and exhilaration, you can only wonder if Sabontu is what they’ll start calling scam artists in Ethiopia from now on!

Ariana Richards

Do you remember the bit in Jurassic Park where young Lex saves the day by hacking into the park’s system, delivering an iconic line? It really set the bar for 12-year-old hackers all over the world! But despite winning a young artist award for the role, actress Ariana Richards never saw her silver-screen career take off from there.

The Door Locks by TEN2TEN

From 1993, she recognized that the bit roles and small parts she was offered weren’t going to help her career. So instead of taking more of these, the once-child star left the industry in 2013 and focused her efforts into making art. Today, she’s a successful professional painter! Still, it doesn’t look like she’s left the iconic role of Jurassic Park’s Lex behind completely, seeing as a shot from the movie is still the header of her website.

She sells signed photos of Lex from the site for $33 dollars, and you can even buy a print of this picture she painted of Lex with a raptor for $185. If this is what has been keeping her afloat for almost ten years, then god bless those Jurassic Park fans!

Robin Thicke

The last person anyone wanted to be in 2013 was Robin Thicke. He was launched into the stratosphere of success when his song Blurred Lines featuring Pharrell dominated the Billboard top 100 for 12 weeks straight.

But his career was over before it even started: an unrated video for the song was banned from YouTube for containing mostly naked models, it’s lyrics came under fire for being seriously creepy, and then he was sued for plagiarism, by musical-legend Marvin Gaye’s family, no less. Claiming Blurred Lines copied the 70s song Got to Give It Up, the Gayes won $5.3 million and 50% of all future Blurred Lines royalties.

Thicke hit the career-ending trifecta that ruined his reputation, and badly affected the release his second album. You heard that right, he had a second album. Though you may not have heard of it, because it only sold about 25,000 copies in the US in its first week, a huge drop from the 177,000 sales of Blurred Lines in its first week. And that’s saying a lot considering 36 seconds of Blurred Lines was made up by that ‘woo’ noise.

if you took all the woo's from the pop song blurred lines by Bread

Despite the backlash, Thicke stuck to his wheelhouse of singing and song writing, and even collaborated with artists like Flo Rida and Pitbull. But after keeping a low profile from 2016 to 2019, he was announced as a panellist on the reality TV show The Masked Singer. While this gave him a boost back into the industry, he messed up by accidently revealing the identity of one of the anonymous singers on Twitter. Maybe he should take a leaf out of Marvin Gaye’s book and just ‘give it up’ already!

Geoffrey Owens

While some of you probably remember Geoffrey Owens as the actor who portrayed Elvin Tibideaux on The Cosby Show, you probably can’t name a single other thing he’s been in!

Elvin imitating Cliff. Sea. 4, Ep.16 The Visit by itsallwham

After appearing in 44 episodes of the series throughout the late 80s and early 90s, the show came to an end in 1992. But Owens struggled to land high-flying acting work after that. He did appear in a few episodes of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Without A Trace in the 2000s. However, it was nothing close to his former stardom.

To make ends meet in between these small roles as well as teaching and directing, in 2017 Owens started working at Trader Joes in New Jersey.

According to the Trader Joes website, crew workers like Owens earn between $13 - $17 an hour. While that may not seem like a lot, a huge majority of actors belonging to the Screen Actors Guild of America only earn about $1,000 a year from acting jobs.

He’s since quit the position after being hounded by the media, but the press coverage of his situation raised him back into the limelight! It even helped him get roles in TV shows like Bless This Mess and The Haves and The Have Nots. So, while his career may have reduced in scale, at least this Cosby Show veteran is no longer reducing items down at Trader Joe’s!

Nikki Blonsky

The 2007 hit film adaptation of the musical Hairspray was the beginning and end of this actress’ mainstream career. Nikki Blonsky was actually discovered at an open casting call for the film’s lead back in 2006. After submitting an audition tape, she went from working in an ice cream shop to starring alongside John Travolta and Michelle Pfeifer on the big screen.

But even though she was nominated for several awards and even a Golden Globe for her performance, Blonsky’s acting career stalled soon after. She picked up a leading role in ABC’s 2010 TV show Huge, but from there she was relegated to bit parts in TV and film. With offers stagnating and bills pilling up, Nikki started working in a shoe store in 2011.

Although she didn’t seem too proud of the move and told the media she was just experimenting for a day in the boutique. The owner, on the other hand, confirmed that she was scheduled to work there 2 to 3 times a week! The media frenzy over her situation sadly forced her to leave the store.

But soon after she gained a cosmetology license and started working at Long Island’s ‘Superstar Salon’. She did everything from sweeping up hair to helping clients with their make-up. So, it seems that you can take the girl out of Hairspray, but you can’t take Hairspray out of the girl.

While she’s still pursuing her acting career, she also keeps herself afloat by selling her own merchandise at events like RuPauls Drag Con.

M.C. Hammer

All you have to do is think of this rapper’s name and the hit tracks Can’t Touch This and 2 Legit 2 Quit start playing in your head! Renowned for his flashy dance moves and Hammer Pants, M.C. Hammer rapidly rose to fame in the late 80s. By 1991, Forbes estimated his net worth to be $33 million!

But by the mid-90s, Hammer’s high energy musical style was relegated by the rise of R’n’B, and his popularity dropped. Along with a trail of irresponsible spending, Hammer filed for bankruptcy in 1995 with assets of $9.6 million against debts that neared $14 million. This career ending wake-up call apparently triggered a rediscovery of faith, because in 1997 the rapper was ordained and became a pastor! He even claims that M.C. now stands for Man of Christ!

Believe it or not, it only gets more bizarre from there. During the 90s, this lyrical miracle man also turned into a self-confessed super geek after getting interested in the tech surrounding music videos. From 1994 onwards, Hammer also invested his time in around 8 different tech companies in Silicon Valley and eventually became a popular web mogul in the late 2000s. His expertise in the area was so valuable that he even gave lectures on social-media marketing at Harvard and Oxford.

But a resurgence in his musical popularity towards the end of the 2010s saw him touring again. He graced the stage at venues like LA’s Staples Center, and brought back 90s nostalgia with his house party tour. Turns out this rapper really is 2 Legit 2 Quit!

Freddie Prinze Jr

If you were a teenage girl in 1999, there was a good chance you had a poster of Freddie Prinze Jr. tacked to your bedroom wall. His acting roles in She’s All That and I Know What You Did Last Summer launched his handsome face into the public eye. But after he was nominated for worst supporting actor at the Golden Raspberry awards for his role in Scooby Doo, his career began to flounder.

He was later cast in the hit TV show 24 in 2010. However, the show’s star Kiefer Sutherland was apparently so traumatically unprofessional that it made him want to quit acting all together. There was more beef between these two sons of Hollywood than a big mac speed-eating contest.

Speaking of beef, after bowing out of the limelight, Freddie Prinze Jr’s career took a rather unexpected turn into the world of cooking! In 2016, almost out of no-where, Prinze released his celebrity cookbook Back to The Kitchen, which was odd seeing as most people weren’t aware that he was ever really in the kitchen. It turns out his mother had tried to force him to go to a cooking school so that he had a backup plan if his acting career went rotten!

But he’s not just a cooking nerd, he’s a regular nerd as well! In 2018 he set up Gegghead, a YouTube channel dedicated to tabletop and video games! And when he’s not perched at the table, he also lends his voice to Kanan Jarrus in Star Wars Rebels. He even made a voice cameo in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker! Between his cooking side-gig and his nerdy hobbies, it turns out Fred wasn’t the dullest member of Mystery Inc after all!

Kevin Jonas

The Jonas Brothers gained popularity way back in 2005 from their appearances on the Disney channel. By 2010, this teen heartthrob musical trio had raked in approximately $35 million dollars from album sales and world tours. But just like their boyish good looks, this wasn’t meant to last. Stagnating record and ticket sales along with a disagreement in terms of musical direction lead to the band splitting up in 2013.

But as Nick and Joe continued their solo careers to stardom, Kevin turned his back on the celebrity lifestyle altogether. Instead, this floppy haired teen dream fixed his sights on real estate and construction! He became a founding partner of a company called JonasWerner, which sells custom builds like a $2.4 million dollar manor!

He even made a surprising cameo on The Real Housewives of New Jersey as a contractor. Not only that, he was also the co-CEO of The Blu Market, a social media advertising company thought to have a revenue of $56 million!

But despite his many business endeavors, the lure of the music industry was too much to keep the Jonas’ apart. As with any washed-up ex-act, the trio inevitably reformed in 2019. It seemed the reunion was intended to help heal some longstanding rifts between the band, but surely the $1.5 million the band pocketed per stop on the reunion world tour helped too!

Kevin Spacey

It’s ironic that Kevin Spacey is probably best known for his leading role in the TV show House of Cards, seeing how his career came tumbling down just like one. This two-time academy award winning actor appeared in iconic films such as American Beauty and The Usual Suspects, raking in around $12 - $16 million a year up until 2017.

That’s when allegations of harassment and assault against Spacey began to surface, and in the era of the #MeToo movement, this acting titan fell down hard. Netflix refused to continue producing House of Cards if Spacey was involved and severed all ties with the actor, a move thought to have cost him at least $6.5 million in earnings alone.

With many of his upcoming projects cancelled or shelved, the allegations took just a matter of hours to leave Spacey’s career in ruins. But he doesn’t seem to have taken it too badly, thanks to his estimated net worth of some $100 million! In 2019, he found the time to jet across the world and do spoken word poetry in Rome before busking on the street with a blues band.

Now that he’s no longer appearing on the silver screen, Spacey can be found flexing his acting muscles through YouTube videos. In one video, an address to a conference called Bits & Pretzels, Spacey compares his own loss of work to the widespread unemployment caused by the coronavirus. It’s safe to assume he’s doing just fine!

If you were amazed at how celebrities survive after their career is over, you might want to read about celebrities who now work normal jobs. Thanks for reading!