5 TV Actors Whose Lives Got Way Weirder After The Show Ended

5 An Actor From The Sopranos Made Millions Buying on Old Painting

Before they perfected their "Just throw some attractive naked people into stories about dragons or robots or some such shit" approach to television, HBO had a little show called The Sopranos. After the series ended in either a totally satisfying way, or with a technical error they decided to pass off as a bold artistic statement, one cast member had a particularly noteworthy experience; Federico Castelluccio, who played Furio Giunta.

Castelluccio, who is an artist himself, is also an expert in Baroque European art. He noticed that a gallery in Frankfurt had attributed a painting by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri to a random "18th-century Italian holy painting of Saint Sebastian" like a bunch of dum-dums.

After spotting the error, like most of us obviously would, Castelluccio picked it up for around $140,000. Which is a lot a lot of dough, but the painting is thought to actually be worth around $10 million. Which is exciting, but presumably not as exciting as the time he was called upon by the future President to judge the quality of hats made by LaToya Jackson and Gary Busey. He's since exhibited the painting at Princeton, and was sued by the guy who helped publicize the painting but apparently wasn't paid for his services because Castelluccio claimed to be "flat broke." Oof, Marone.

Frankie Muniz has a number of screen appearances under his belt, from My Dog Skip to the Agent Cody Banks series which, while not amazing, were still miles ahead of Agent Toby Barks starring Jon Lovitz as the voice of a canine secret agent -- which came out this year, further cementing 2020's soul-crushing hellscape credentials. But Muniz is perhaps best known for his role on the Fox sitcom/stealth Breaking Bad sequel Malcolm in the Middle.

Muniz's life has certainly been eventful; he's driven race cars, drummed in bands, gotten stung by a scorpion and recently admitted that he suffers from severe memory loss and doesn't recall his time making Malcolm in the Middle. Now he runs an olive oil store. Which is apparently a thing.

Muniz and his wife Paige bought Outrageous Olive Oils & Vinegars in Scottsdale, Arizona in 2018. So now the star of Big Fat Liar is selling fancypants "ultra-premium" olive oils, eschewing the celebrity life for the life of a background character in an episode of Frasier.

3 Louis CK Released a Stand-Up Special During the Pandemic to ... Help?

You probably know a fair bit of what Louis CK's been up to since the most recent, and likely final, season of his FX show Louie. A New York Times investigation outlined a history of sexual misconduct which he acknowledged but stopped short of actually apologizing for. Revelations of his years of creepiness led to CK's already super-creepy movie being cancelled -- and presumably boxed up in a crate next to the Ark of the Covenant. In his statement, CK promised to "step back and take a long time to listen." Which ... didn't happen. Louis showed up for an unannounced stand-up set less than a year after the Times story, which is not so much a step back as it is a step in the exact same goddamn place.

CK's return was less than smooth. At one show a female audience member yelled "get your dick out" at the stage. At others his set were recorded and leaked online, featuring self-pitying, cringey jokes that mined such hilarious topics as the Parkland shooting and Auschwitz. Concerned with the concept of consent for the first time ever, CK began insisting that audience members lock up their phones during the show, and more worryingly, that they not repeat his jokes "in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed." Then, in the midst of this pandemic, Louis CK randomly released a new stand-up special online for "those who need a laugh."

Despite the fact that the special is titled Sincerely, it's not exactly an introspective, heartfelt statement on the comedian's life regrets. It's mostly just his familiar schtick. CK only addresses the scandal "51 minutes into the hourlong special." And even then, he frames the issue as a quirk which now causes him embarrassment because even "Obama knows my thing." But his "thing" was sexual harassment, followed by threats to keep quiet. He even accidentally admitted to shoving a woman against her will into a bathroom, which is less of a "thing" and, uh, more of a crime.

The Office, the beloved comedy that's entertained millions of Americans and inspired countless dudes to creep on their female coworkers. One of the strangest arcs of the series belongs to Ryan Howard, who goes from the office temp to a cokehead executive, to a hipster working inside of a closet like a Monsters Inc. character.

Ryan is, of course, played by B.J. Novak, who followed his Office success with a bestselling children's book and now, not unlike a Batman villain, he wants to run for Mayor. On a recent podcast appearance, Novak unironically declared his interest in running for Mayor of Los Angeles, where he would want to "invest in the city's identity." Maybe he'd be a great mayor; but it kind of sounds like the wacky plot of a late-season episode we all forgot about because Steve Carrell wasn't in it.

Fans of Lost may have wondered what happened to its star Matthew Fox after the show's controversial (and widely misunderstood) finale. After all, Fox has appeared in just a handful of roles since the show ended in 2010 -- and doesn't even show up as a colorful taxi driver or something in the recent Party of Five reboot. His biggest role was in the big climax of World War Z which ... was completely scrapped, meaning he's barely in the finished movie. Fox did make headlines, though -- not for his stellar work as, say, "Picasso" the serial killer in Alex Cross, but for allegedly assaulting a party bus driver.

In 2011, Fox allegedly tried to board a party bus parked outside an Ohio bar late at night. According to the driver, Heather Bormann, Fox "smelled like a liquor cabinet" and had tried several other bus drivers for a lift home. She told him: "Sorry, buddy, this is a private party" at which point he allegedly attacked her. Fox was detained by the cops who were told by witnesses that he punched Bormann "multiple times in the chest, stomach and groin." Prosecutors opted not to charge Fox with assault; Bormann's lawyer claimed he received "preferential treatment" due to his celebrity.

So Bormann sued Fox, seeking $25,000 for "physical pain and emotional distress". Instead of just claiming that it was his sideways universe doppelganger, or the Smoke Monster in disguise, Fox countersued. Not helping Fox's case, his Lost co-star Dominic Monaghan claimed on Twitter that he "beats women ... often." Also not helping Fox's case, he was arrested for a DUI while making a fast food run at three in the morning.

But ultimately, Bormann's suit against Fox was dropped. And her own lawyer quit, claiming she "intentionally failed and refused to provide full and timely cooperation and information." While that may frame the story in Fox's favor, the same lawyer also said that, while she was "difficult to deal with" he believed Bormann's account of events, and she only dropped the suit because "Fox and his lawyers frightened her with his ability to wage legal war against her." And since he was a literal movie star,she "decided as a single mother with three children that she couldn't afford it." Later Fox claimed that what really happened was that he was "sucker punched" by a man, prompting a fight and "a woman that was in proximity to that" tried "to extort money" from him. Which is a nicer version of events than the one in which he drunkenly tried to board someone else's vehicle and punched a woman in the vagina in front of multiple witnesses.

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Top Image: NBC Universal