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17 Stars Who Should Stick To Their Day Job
Bruce Willis
Attempted Musician
Bruce has had a long career spanning over 3 decades now. Most will always know him as John McClane, and he’s been one of the best action stars of the era with great performances in “12 Monkeys”, “The Fifth Element”, “Sin City” & “The Expendables”. Not to mention his many dramatic and comedic roles, Bruce has helped movies gross over $3 billion at the box office.
Yet in the late 80s Bruce Willis had a dream of being a pop-blues artist releasing “The Return of Bruno” in 1987. The album is alright overseas but never picked up traction in the US, so he tried again. In 1989 he released his 2nd album, which went over even worse, and since then has stuck to acting. Despite the lack of success in music, somehow in 2001 Bruce released a Best of album, which I’m sure his few fan picked up quickly.
Mariah Carey
Attempted Actor
Mariah Carey will be remembered for many career highlights beginning with her Grammy for Best New Artist in 1991, selling over 200 million records across the planet and an incredible 79 week run at the number 1 spot on Billboard Hot 100. Mariah also derailed all that success with her unsuccessful attempts at acting.
Her leading role in the 2001 film ‘Glitter’ wasn’t well received by critics or her fans. This film only lasted in most theaters for 1-2 weeks, and most of those seats were empty. Mariah didn’t take many more roles after this, and admits that the failure of ‘Glitter’ had her rethinking her career choices, she did finally land a well-received role in 2009’s ‘Precious’
Shaq
Attempted Rapper and Actor
Shaq is a talented guy and was a phenomenal athlete, with 4 NBA Championships, 3 Finals MVP, 15 All Star Games, just to name a few. Shaq is also a funny guy, intentionally and un-intentionally, and is a staple in NBA on TNT. With all of Shaq’s talents and successes he’s also had many other career attempts and failures.
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Shaq’s acting hasn’t taken off like his athletic career did, he started off on a good note in 1993’s ‘Blue Chips, but since then it has been all misses. Leading in ‘Kazaam’ followed by ‘Steel’ both leaving many empty seats at the theater. Since those miscues Shaq has stuck to playing the one role everyone loves of him, just being Shaq.
Shaq hasn’t just tried to act, he’s also release 4 rap albums with a little more success. In fact his first album ‘Shaq Diesel’ made it to Platinum. But just because it sold didn’t make it any good, and his next 3 albums did continuously worse. Shaq hasn’t released any albums since 1998, so either he’s sticking to what he’s great at or he is saving up for a 3 disk album.
David Bowie
Attempted Actor
The acclaimed singer & songwriter has won numerous Grammy & BRIT awards, has earned 9 Platinum & 11 Gold albums and sold an estimated 140 million albums worldwide!
Since his commercial breakthrough in 1969 with “Space Oddity”, Bowie has released countless hits with his own unique brand of music. Even as pop genres changed decade over decade, Bowie continues to release classics.
Despite this Bowie has always loved being on the big screen, with numerous acting roles, but very little success. His acting is most well-known for the 1986 role of The Goblin King in Labyrinth, which received mixed reviews. Since then however, his Hollywood career hasn’t gone very well, other than a few cameos his only known role as Nikola Tesla in The Prestige, a great film, but a not the job of casting.
We love Bowie’s music, but he shouldn’t tarnish his image with anymore Hollywood roles, stick to Hollywood soundtracks.
Sting
Attempted Actor
Sting has many fans from his work with The Police, and some even love his solo work, but few if any have ever uttered the words ‘That Sting is a great actor’.
For his work with The Police & solo, Sting has earning 16 Grammy awards including winning Song of the Year in 1984 with the classic “Every Breath You Take”. Not to mention that he has been nominated for 3 Academy Award, sadly none for his acting talents, just for Best Original Score.
His first breakthrough acting role was for the Sci-Fi movie Dune in 1984, anyone who has seen this film can easily see why he hasn’t been given many roles since. His last Hollywood role that wasn’t a cameo was back in 1998, in ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’, a cult classic but most people forget Sting was even in it. It seems Sting has gotten the picture to stay on the stage and off the screen, hopefully he can work out another Police reunion tour, that’s how people should remember him.
Lindsay Lohan
Attempted Singer
Lindsay Lohan has a stretch where she was one of the most sought after actresses in Hollywood. From her breakout role in 1998’s ‘The Parent Trap’ to ‘Freaky Friday’ & ‘Mean Girls’ every movie she touched did great at the box office. During Lindsay’s era she also released her 1st album ‘Speak’ late in 2004.
The album did shockingly well, selling over 1,000,000 albums. But a lot of these sales can be attributed to her fame, not her vocal talents. It received mixed reviews from critics, but most agreed that albums was a product of celebrity culture and probably a good auto-tune.
Eddie Murphy
Attempted Musician
Eddie Murphy was one of the kings of comedy in the early 80s since his days at Saturday Night Live, 48 hrs. & Trading Places. Those paved the way for on the greatest stand up specials ever Delirious in 1983 and followed up by Raw in 1987.
He could have anything in the 80s and Eddie wanted to be a musician. With the help of Rick James, Eddie Murphy released his first single ‘Party All the Time’ and by 80s standards isn’t that bad. Since then his music career hasn’t showing any signs of improving, with his last album being released in 1993. Even with this Eddie hasn’t abandon his love of making music, recently releasing a couple of poorly received reggae singles.
Tyra Banks
Attempted Singer
Tyra’s has tried everything in her career, most very successfully. Starting as a famous model, working with Victoria Secret and appearing on the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover twice. She’s had success in TV & movies, with roles on The Fresh Prince and Gossip Girls. Tyra had her own talk show and is the host of America’s Next Top Model. Could anyone really blame her for trying her hand in music?
Tyra Banks
Attempted SingerTyra’s has tried everything in her career, most very successfully. Starting as a famous model, working with Victoria Secret and appearing on the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover twice. She’s had success in TV & movies, with roles on The Fresh Prince and Gossip Girls. Tyra had her own talk show and is the host of America’s Next Top Model. Could anyone really blame her for trying her hand in music?
In 2004 she released the single “Shake Ya Body”, but this didn’t go over well with her fans. In a recent interview she acknowledged this failure, and Tyra admitted that just because you really want something, if you don’t have the talent learn to stay away.
Joe Pesci
Attempted Musician
It is nice when your careers gets started with a role with Martin Scorsese, Joe Pesci first major role in ‘Raging Bull’. They liked working with each other, and since then have collaborated in ‘Goodfellas’ & ‘Casino’, and Joe kept busy between then too. Pesci has had a lot of success in ‘Home Alone’, ‘Lethal Weapon’ and ‘My Cousin Vinny’, to name a few.
Despite this, someone gave Joe some bad advice when he released ‘Vincent LaGuardia Gambini Sings Just for You’ in 1998. This album was based off his character in “My Cousin Vinny” and hopefully intended to be humorous. Unfortunately this album also contains Pesci trying his hand at hip-hop. In 1999 Pesci retired from acting to pursue his musical career, and since then he has yet to release another album, it doesn’t look like it is going according to plan for Joe.
Kelly Rowland
Attempted Actor
Kelly Rowland will always be best known for Destiny’s Child, selling over 60 million albums. She’s also enjoyed a successful solo with 4 albums and another 27 million sales, impressive considering she isn’t even the most successful former member of Destiny’s Child. Kelly has also done well with reality TV as a judge on X Factor UK & X Factor US.
With her busy life, Kelly decided during a hiatus to grow into Hollywood. Starting with mild success in a supporting role 2003’s “Freddie vs. Jason”, although the success of that film probably didn’t have much to do with Kelly’s acting talents. She followed up this with a lead in the 2004 romantic comedy “The Seat Filler”. If you don’t remember this movie you aren’t alone, this movie only made it to a handful of theaters.
Wilt Chamberlain
Attempted Actor
To this day Wilt Chamberlain is the only NBA player to score 100 points in 1 game, his #13 is retired by 3 different teams. Wilt has a large list of accomplishments on the court, with 2 NBA Championships and 4 NBA MVPs. He also holds a well-known record off the court, claiming to have bedded over 20,000 women over his long career.
10 years after his NBA career was over, Wilt wanted to be an action star and started with a supporting role in the sequel “Conan the Destroyer”. While the first Conan launched the career of Arnold, the sequel didn’t lead to many callback for Wilt, this was his one and only role in Hollywood.
Tom Brady
Attempted Comic
Tom Brady will one day be in the Hall of Fame, after being drafted 199th overall Tom has gone on to win his 4th Super Bowl and 3rd Super Bowl MVP. He holds the record for most career playoff wins and most playoff TDs with still a few more years to go in his NFL life. Tom has also enjoyed a successful modeling career, and has been married to the hugely successful Gisele Bundchen since 2009.
That said, Tom Brady should never again work in Hollywood or the stage. In 2005 Tom was the host of Saturday Night Live, and to be fair many athlete have hosted and have struggled. However Tom’s performance might have been a low point for athlete hosts, and this is one area the Manning brothers will always have over Tom. Tom may have more rings, but both Manning’s will always be more entertaining.
John Cena
Attempted Actor and Rapper
John Cena is one of the biggest stars in the WWE, holding a record of winning the WWE championship 12 times. Cena hold another amazing record, he granted over 400 Make-A-Wish Foundation wishes, more than anyone else, an honor he plans to hold for a long time.
Most would assume that a lifelong professional wrestler would be great at acting, but it isn’t the case for Cena. In 2006 Cena stared in “The Marine” opposite Kelly Clarkson (she should have also made this list), the film was poorly received, but didn’t do poorly at the box office. His next leading role was “12 Rounds” in 2009, and this didn’t last long in theaters. Thankfully since then Cena has only been in TV movies.
Cena has been known to freestyle when in the ring, so who wouldn’t want an entire album by him? In 2005 Cena released his only album “You Can’t See Me”, which sold over 100k units, but we bet most of these albums have been collecting dusk for a decade.
Kobe Bryant
Attempted Rapper
Kobe is most likely in the final years of his NBA career. With 5 NBA Championships, 17 All-Star Games and being the youngest player to reach 30k points, it won’t be long until he joins the Hall of Fame.
Kobe had a hip hop group in high school and planned to release some solo work when as his NBA career took off. In 2000 he released his first single aptly title “K.O.B.E” with another member of our list Tyra Banks. The single bombed and his label dropped him. Kobe is one to learn from his mistakes, and hasn’t pushed any further hip hop on his fans since.
Michael Jordan
Attempted Baseball Player
MJ is the greatest basketball player to ever live. Before anyone gets upset, Jordan isn’t on here because of his acting. MJ has 1 acting role on his resume and “Space Jam” was amazing, still watchable to this day.
The 6 time NBA Champion is here because of his dream to become a baseball player. In 1993 Jordan retired from the NBA and pursued his dream of baseball, in the prime of his career. His lackluster baseball stats in the minor league didn’t help with only 3 home runs, but that didn’t stop fans from packing the stands every game. Thankfully his retirement was short lived, returning to the Bulls late in 1995.
Mick Jagger
Attempted Actor
Mick is one of the most influential frontmen in rock & roll history, as a founding members of the Rolling Stones. His accomplishment are too great to list, and we should be referring to him as Sir Mick.
He’s only played 1 major role for Hollywood, in the 1992 sci-fi movie “Free Jack”. Mick’s acting wasn’t a hit with the critics and the film did poorly at the box office not even recouping the production cost. Surprisingly the sound track to this movie doesn’t contain a single song feature Sir Mick Jagger, most musician insist on a track for any movie they appear in, so kudos to Mick for trying to act without needed to plug a new song as well.
Britney Spears
Attempted Actor
The former teen pop star has had a very public career, and despite a few bumps in the road has been a continuous success since her debut in 1999. With over 100 million albums sold, Britney is one of the highest earning female musicians of all time.
During the peak of this success she stared in “Crossroads”. Despite getting low reviews from critics and viewers alike, this was during the peak of her popularity and the movie did quite well in theaters grossing over $37 million in theaters. Thankfully after this Britney didn’t get the acting bug and she’s only had a few small roles since.
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