6 Celebs With Surprising Post-Fame Jobs
Because they occasionally get to open malls with giant pairs of scissors, we presume that it's beneath any kind of celebrity to actually work for a living. But not all soap gigs are created equal, so some of them need to find other ways to pay their bills and get health insurance. That's why many also work steady, honest jobs in between their more glamorous gigs. But others ...
The Actor Inside Barney The Dinosaur Is Now A Tantric Sex Teacher
For most of the '90s, Barney the Dinosaur was the most beloved T-Rex on children's TV. And the man behind the fangs was David Joyner, who spent years inside a costume teaching kids how to love. And now he spends all his time inside adults, teaching them to love.
Joyner didn't start out life wanting to dress like a prehistoric eggplant. After graduating from ITT Technical Institute, he worked as a software analyst for Texas Instruments for six years. But he soon found his true passion: spreading love. Which he achieved by becoming the suit performer for Barney. But now Joyner spreads a different kind of love, via the 30 (exclusively female) clients he caters to in his tantric massage studio. For $350, Joyner will spend hours bathing, massaging, and balancing the chakras of his "goddesses" until they reach only the most enlightened of orgasms.
How do you go from smooth-crotched purple dinosaur to grandmaster of the G-spot? Well, for over a decade, Joyner had to jump and dance inside an uncomfortable 70-pound suit that often got as hot as 120 degrees. He used his tantric knowledge to keep this up for hours on end. But that energy wasn't just for him; it was for the kids as well. "The energy I brought up in the costume is based on the foundation of tantra, which is love," he later said. Anyway, that sentence right there is why he's probably on like six different secret watch lists. And now we are too.
Heroes' Masi Oka Became An Acclaimed Game Developer
Heroes asked the question "What would happen if you crossed the X-Men with Lost?" It's too bad the answer was "a confusing mess everyone bailed on halfway through." Still, the show lasted four seasons and launched many careers. And that includes Masi Oka, who portrayed the time-traveling swordsman / massive nerd Hiro Nakamura. And it seems that while playing those parts, Nakamura found his true calling: professional gamer.
How do you go from star of the biggest show on TV (for about three months) to indie game developer? Well, Oka spent most of his 20s as a coder for Industrial Light & Magic (ooh), working on the Star Wars prequels (aww). After Heroes, Oka continued making bank on Hawaii Five-0, but wanted to go back to his coding roots. So he founded Mobius Digital Games, hoping the gaming community would never find out he was partially to blame for Jar-Jar Binks.
But while Oka only planned to make small mobile games, in 2014 he fell in love with a demo for a larger game, coincidentally about time travel. And because he had those NBC fat stacks, he started hiring the team into his company to finish the project. In 2019, they debuted a little title called Outer Wilds to universal acclaim.
Related: 5 Celebrities You Had No Idea Quit Fame For Normal Jobs
Shirley Temple Quit Acting To Become An Ambassador
Shirley Temple stole 1930s America's heart with her charming smile and top-notch tap dance skills. But eventually she became tired of playing the same old roles, and quit acting at the age of 22. So what do you do after you've lost your last shred of childlike innocence? Enter American politics.
Immediately after retiring from the biz, Temple married Charles Alden Black, moved to Washington, D.C., and began a political career as Shirley Temple Black. Starting as a fundraiser, she charmed her way into the political scene. After a relatively unknown stint on a talk show and a failed bid for a congressional seat (which are basically the same thing), she found her true calling: diplomacy.
After working as a UN diplomat-in-training in Prague, Temple Black became U.S. ambassador to Ghana in 1974. In 1989, President George Bush noticed her impressive ambassadorial resume and appointed her the first (and only) female ambassador to Czechoslovakia. Maybe she found a more metaphorical use for those tap-dancing skills ...
NBA Great Adrian Dantley Became A School Crossing Guard
Adrian Dantley was a basketball legend. Not only is he 28th on the NBA's list of all-time leading scorers, but he also did something few star athletes ever achieved: He didn't blow all his money. So with his enduring fame, success, and fortune, he did what any 58-year-old retired millionaire would do and applied for a minimum-wage job.
In 2013, sports reporters were baffled to discover the former guard forward had become a crossing guard for Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland. Every school day, the 6-foot-5 basketball behemoth puts on his hi-vis to keep kids safe. Now, why would a millionaire former NBA All-Star want to earn an extra $14,685.50 a year as a traffic scarecrow? Well, to quote Dantley, it's only that he "ain't above it." When he heard a gym buddy talk about his wife being a crossing guard, he remembered how cool he always thought his old crossing guards were, and it felt like time better spent than sitting at home and swimming in his money Scrooge-McDuck-style.
OK, there's one other reason: the government health plan. When Dantley found out that insurance companies would charge a whopping $17,000 a year for coverage, "I told my wife, you know what, I don't care how much money people might think I might have, I'm not gonna spend $17,000 on health insurance."
Jon Gosselin From Jon & Kate Plus 8 Is Now A (Failing) DJ And Male Stripper
Jon & Kate Plus 8 was once a TV powerhouse, but when husband Jon Gosselin added an unwanted 11th character to the TV show -- his mistress -- the magic fell apart a little bit. Also the marriage. After getting booted from the show, he worked a variety of jobs, including solar panel installer, maitre d' at a restaurant, and line cook at a T.G.I. Friday's. And yet Gosselin wasn't ready to give up the limelight just yet. But what kind of attention can you get for having eight kids when you don't have full custody? Stripper, apparently.
In 2017, Gosselin joined the Senate DJ group at Dusk Nightclub in Atlantic City. But after getting permission from his kids (who by now have become immune to embarrassing parents), Gosselin also joined the club's Untamed Male Revue Show as "an integral part of the show."
But his highly anticipated debut -- which was, as if this could get any more depressing, on his 40th birthday -- didn't go exactly as expected. Taking to the stage, a sheepish Gosselin only stripped down to a tank top, on which he had drawn abs. His disastrously short-lived career as a professional sex machine did net him some reward, though. One generous patron stuffed a single $100 bill into his pants. Pity can be expensive.
Lots Of Celebs Are Getting Into The Legal Weed Business
When Heather Donahue, of The Blair Witch Project fame, found her acting career had fizzled, she decided to follow her boyfriend into the woods of rural California. There she became a "weed wife" and helped him set up a medical marijuana farm. Then one of her friends got busted, so Donahue stopped the dangerous practice of growing weed ... in favor of the lucrative practice of writing about weed. By 2013, she had written a memoir about being a pot grower, and has gone on several successful book tours.
Another retired celeb cultivating a rep in the weed scene is former Oregon Trail Blazer Cliff Robinson. Robinson's a frontman for Uncle Cliffy's Sports Cannabis, the first (and probably last) dispensary promoting the performance-enhancing properties of weed in high-stakes athleticism.
But the biggest Hollywood weed mogul is, somehow not surprisingly, Jim Belushi. Belushi is as ambitious about weed as he isn't about being a good actor. He converted his massive plot of Oregon land into Belushi's Private Vault, a massive growing factory which produces the very strand of Afghan kush he claims was responsible for the runaway success of ... Coneheads? Somebody needs a tolerance break.
For more, check out 4 Things Movies Get Wrong About Jobs (Office Space, Batman Begins):
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