
21 Shocking Celebrity Facts That Are Really Fascinating
Legendary composer John Williams' son, Joseph Williams, is an accomplished musician himself. Joseph provided the singing voice of adult Simba in The Lion King (1994). He also sang vocals for the iconic theme song for Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears.
And, because those accolades are not enough, Joseph is ALSO the lead singer of the popular band Toto. Although, it's worth noting he's not the original lead singer, Bobby Kimball was. Williams didn't join the band until 1986. Joseph is, however, the longest-serving lead singer of the band.
In Saturday Night Fever, John Travolta is NOT in the very first shot as Tony. In the opening credits, the first time we see Tony, he walks up to a shop window, holds his foot up to a shoe in the window, and bounces along to the iconic "Stayin' Alive" beat. But this was not John Travolta, it was actually his stand-in, Jeff Zinn.
According to a New York Times article from 1983, "It was Mr. Zinn's feet and legs, in disco boots and jeans, that walked into the camera during the memorable 1977 opening credits for Saturday Night Fever,' to the music of 'Stayin' Alive.' That was along 86th Street in Bay Ridge, during Mr. Zinn's 11 weeks as the star's double and stand-in."
Mark Ruffalo's brother, Scott Ruffalo, was found inside his home with a gunshot wound to the head in 2008. Initially, a woman named Shaha Mishaal Adham claimed that Scott had "shot himself accidentally" during a game of Russian Roulette. However, the L.A. coroner ruled Scott's death a homicide, saying the gun was fired from a 45-degree angle above and in front of Scott's head. The case remains unsolved.
Melanie Griffith grew up as a teenager with pet lions. The lions actually belonged to Melanie's mother, actress Tippi Hedren (pictured below), who still has many of them today! According to W magazine, "Hedren lived with exotic felines in her home, right alongside her husband and kids, in the '70s. She began rescuing them in 1972, and in 1983 founded the Roar Foundation, the mission of which 'is to educate the public about the dangers of private ownership of exotic animals.'" Hedren eventually said in a memoir that it was "stupid beyond belief" to let the big cats "roam free around the house." Today, the big cats all live in "huge compounds" according to granddaughter Dakota Johnson.
Brad Pitt voluntarily had pieces of his front teeth chipped off for his role in Fight Club.
According to Entertainment Weekly, Brad Pitt had "undertaken a decidedly unsexy form of method acting by voluntarily chipping out pieces of his front teeth." He apparently visited a dentist to have the work done. 'Brad's willing to go to great lengths for a character,' said Pitt's publicist, Cindy Guagenti, at the time.
Suzanne Somers was fired from Three's Company for asking for equal pay with her male costar, John Ritter, who was earning five times her salary.
According to People, "In 1980, after four seasons on ABC's Emmy-winning comedy series, the 73-year-old actress and entrepreneur was fired after she asked for a pay hike from $30,000 an episode to $150,000 an episode, which was on par with her male costar, John Ritter. The show's response was, 'Who do you think you are? John Ritter is the star,' said Somers." Somers, who played Chrissy on the show, was replaced by Jenilee Harrison in the role of "Cindy," Chrissy's cousin.
Michael Jackson did not invent the Moonwalk.
According to ABC News, "Professional dancer Derek 'Cooley' Jaxson says he was one of the people who showed Jackson how to do the 'moonwalk,' which he said was based on a different move called 'the backslide.'"
In fact, here's footage of Bill Bailey (who's frequently credited with originating the move) doing "the backslide" way back in 1955:
Dolly Parton was a (silent) producer on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
According to Today, "Parton founded Sandollar Entertainment with her friend and business partner, Sandy Gallin, in 1986. The production company is listed as the producer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer [on] IMDb. Sandollar Entertainment also worked on the original 1992 Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie."
Also, fun fact, "Later, when Parton learned that (then-executive producer) Gail Berman had been given less royalties from Buffy the Vampire Slayer than her male counterparts, Parton invited her to lunch and handed her a check to make sure she was paid equally, Berman told the New York Times in 2016."
Before he was famous, Steve Martin went on the game show The Dating Game and actually won three times.
Prior to his groundbreaking comedy career, Martin was a writer for the show The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in the late 1960s. In an interview with Los Angeles Magazine he said, "While I was on that show, I was a contestant on The Dating Game three times. I got picked three times. Three for three. I won a trip to see Wayne Newton perform at Melodyland, I won a trip to Tijuana to the bullfights, and then the big one was I won a trip to Portofino, Italy, with Deana Martin, Dean Martin's daughter."
Frances McDormand was actually born Cynthia Ann Smith.
According to the New York Times, McDormand was adopted at 1 years old, by Noreen and Vernon McDormand. Vernon was a pastor and McDormand's birth mother was "as far as anyone knows" a young woman in his parish. The Vernons changed McDormand's name from Cynthia to Frances.
Mick Jagger sings uncredited backing vocals in Carly Simon's iconic 1972 hit 'You're So Vain.'
According to Entertainment Weekly, "Jagger contributed uncredited backing vocals to Simon's 1972 hit 'You're So Vain.' In her 2015 memoir Boys in the Trees, Simon revealed that the two had actually recorded another song the same day as their 'You're So Vain' session." That "long lost" duet was recently unearthed and, according to the Associated Press, was called "Fragile."
Listen to "You're So Vain" here to see if you can audibly spot Jagger's voice (once you hear it, you can't unhear it!):
Jim Carrey was the first actor to have three films go straight to No. 1 in the same year.
The year was 1994 and the films released were The Mask, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, and Dumb & Dumber, over an 11-month span.
Famous radio personality, Casey Kasem, was the original voice of Shaggy on Scooby-Doo Where Are You! from 1969–1995. He was also a vegan and quit the show in 1995 when asked to voice Shaggy for a Burger King commercial.
According to Business Insider, "In 1995, he was asked to portray Shaggy in a Burger King commercial. Kasem was not impressed. Refusing to promote a brand that sold hamburgers, he not only wouldn't do the commercial, but he walked out on the show entirely and a role he'd been playing for decades." Kasem eventually returned to the show in 2002 but only after the show's producers agreed to make Shaggy a vegan.
Although he's best known as an action movie star, Bruce Willis actually had a brief career as a musician.
The Return of Bruno was Willis's debut studio album, released by Motown Records in 1987. Check out this video of Bruce singing live in concert:
James Cameron almost made Jurassic Park, and his version would have been A LOT darker.
In an interview with The Huffington Post UK, Cameron said, "I tried to buy the book rights and he [Steven Spielberg] beat me to it by a few hours. But when I saw the film, I realized that I was not the right person to make the film, he was. Because he made a dinosaur movie for kids, and mine would have been aliens with dinosaurs, and that wouldn't have been fair. Dinosaurs are for 8-year-olds. We can all enjoy it, too, but kids get dinosaurs and they should not have been excluded for that. His sensibility was right for that film, I'd have gone further, nastier, much nastier."
Famous 1920s jazz pianist Fats Waller was kidnapped by Chicago gangsters for Al Capone's birthday party.
According to the Independent, Waller had left his native New York to play in Chicago for a few gigs. The account said, "One evening Fats felt a revolver poked into his stomach. He found himself bullied into a black limousine and heard the driver ordered to East Cicero. [They arrived] at a fancy saloon and he was merely pushed toward a piano and told to play. He played. [There was] applause from a beefy man with an unmistakable scar. Al Capone was having a birthday, and he, Fats, was a present from 'the boys.'"
Laurence Fishburne was just 14 years old when he started work on Apocalypse Now in 1979. He had lied about his age to land the part.
Fishburne's character Tyrone "Mr. Clean" Miller, is actually 17 years old in the film. However, according to Screenrant, "Fishburne told CBC that he lied about his age in his interview for the part, telling Coppola that he was 16 years old when he was actually two years younger." To be fair, the film took over two years to make, so by the time his work was done, Fishburne was finally his character's age.
This impressive basketball shot Sigourney Weaver makes in Alien Resurrection was real, not CGI.
According to Den of Geek, Weaver had practiced and trained for two weeks with then-basketball star Nigel Miguel. She wrote in a journal at the time, 'By the time we are ready to shoot, my average on the shot [was] one basket for every six tries.' On the day, however, director Jean-Pierre Jeunet decided he wanted the shot to happen much further away and said if she couldn't make it they'd fix it with visual effects. After a few missed shots and more practices, Weaver finally made the shot. Jeunet, however, lamented, "The ball left the frame. So everyone will think we tricked it, even though we didn't.'
Tom Cruise's first cousin is actor William Mapother, aka Ethan from Lost.
Tom's birth name is Thomas Cruise Mapother IV. According to Entertainment Weekly, their fathers were brothers.
Iconic actor Tommy Lee Jones and former US Vice President (and one-time Presidential candidate), Al Gore were roommates in college, and at Harvard, no less.
In 2000, after winning the Democratic primary for President, Gore said at the DNC convention, "Al Gore has been one of my closest friends since the day we met on the first day of college 35 years ago."
And finally, this is really random, and something you may have never noticed in all these years, but Bob Ross was actually missing a finger (on his palette hand/left hand).
According to Good Housekeeping, "As a teen, while working as a carpenter with his father, his left index finger was a casualty of the job. But, since he held the palette with his left hand to paint, you need to look closely to spot it."
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
‘Lilo & Stitch' Positively Bubbly With $611M Global, ‘Mission: Impossible – Final Reckoning' Easily Runs To $354M WW
Updated: With a pair of phenomenal holds, Lilo & Stitch and Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning continued to dominate global turnstiles this weekend. To wit: Disney's Lilo & Stitch added $113.1M from 52 offshore markets, lifting the international box office cume to $330.7M. The overseas drop was just 28%. The worldwide total through today is $610.8M. More from Deadline 'Lilo & Stitch' Kicks Up $63M Second Weekend, 'Mission Impossible 8' $27M+, 'Karate Kid: Legends' At $21M - Box Office Update 'Lilo & Stitch': All The Box Office Records Broken Peter Bart: Barry Diller's New Memoir Might Be The True Final Reckoning Paramount/Skydance's Mission: Impossible 8's sophomore offshore session was good for $76.1M, a great 33% dip from opening. The international total on the Tom Cruise-starrer is now $231.2M, and global is $353.8M. Before we dig into details on the above, note that Sony's Karate Kid: Legends, which kicked off international rollout in early May ahead of its wide global release this weekend, kicked up another $12M from 43 offshore markets this session. That takes the international cume to $26M through Sunday. Alongside domestic, the global gross to date is $47M. Major markets to come on this one are: Australia (June 5), Italy (June 5), China (June 7), Spain (August 8), France (August 13) and Japan (August 29). Now, turning back to Lilo & Mission… Disney's live-action take on the 2002 animated adventure has already become the No. 2 studio release of the year internationally, and is the No. 1 non-local title across Europe (except for Denmark and Finland), and in all markets across Latin America as well as Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Philippines and Thailand. Notable holds this frame include France (0%), Germany (-12%), UK (-28%), Australia (-29%), Brazil (-34%), Spain (-36%), Mexico (-40%), Korea (-44%) and Italy (-46%). Some markets saw increases, including Netherlands (+21%), Belgium (+13%), Saudi Arabia (+8%), Poland (+7%), Singapore (+3%) and Ukraine (+1%). New this session was Hong Kong ($1.1M), where the little blue alien opened at No. 1 and 4% ahead of The Minecraft Movie. Among other benchmarks, L&S is notably the 2nd highest grossing Disney live-action title of all-time across the Latin American region (behind only The Lion King); the 2nd highest grossing Disney live-action title ever in Mexico, 3rd highest in Colombia and 4th highest in Brazil. Further, it is the highest grossing film of 2025 in Italy (non-local), Brazil, Mexico and Thailand. The Top 5 to date are: Mexico ($45.9M), UK ($34.5M), France ($23.1M), Brazil ($21.6M) and Germany ($18.1M). Japan opens next weekend. As for Mission 8, audiences continued to accept. Notable strong holds were seen in Netherlands (-4%), Germany (-10%), France (-21%), Indonesia (-21%) and Japan (-23%). Also notably, China debuted this frame. This is a market that typically gravitates towards the franchise, but has been wonky of late with Hollywood fare. So, great news that The Final Reckoning became the highest-grossing imported film on a single day this year, and the fastest imported film to reach the RMB 100M mark in 2025. The gross there is a strong $25.2M while social scores are the highest of the franchise. The Top 5 markets to date are: China ($25.2M), UK ($22.3M), Japan ($18.5M), Korea ($17M) and France ($14.2M). Elsewhere, New Line/Warner Bros' Final Destination Bloodlines landed with another $14.4M from 75 offshore markets, a strong 37% drop from last weekend. The international running total is $117.6M through Sunday with worldwide at $229.3M. The Top 5 are: UK ($12.5M), Mexico ($11.2M), India ($7.6M), Philippines ($6.9M) and France ($6.7M). The film has also become the biggest horror movie of all time in Pakistan, and the 4th best ever there for a WB title. MISC UPDATED CUMES/NOTABLE (UNI): $4.2M intl weekend (41 markets); $6.2M intl cume/$6.8M global (WB): $3.1M intl weekend (73 markets); $524.1M intl cume/$947.1M global (DIS): $2.8M intl weekend (52 markets); $187.7M intl cume/$369.6M global (WB): $1.8M intl weekend (59 markets); $83M intl cume/$350.1M global (SNY): $1M intl weekend (8 markets)*Denotes new Best of Deadline Everything We Know About 'Stranger Things' Season 5 So Far 2025 TV Series Renewals: Photo Gallery 2025 TV Cancellations: Photo Gallery
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
J-Pop Star Comes Clean on Claims She's Newest Musk Baby Mama
A Japanese performed dubbed the 'Empress of J-Pop' broke her silence Monday on rumors that she is a secret Elon Musk's baby mama. Ayumi Hamasaki denied the theory that she was one of the multiple women with whom Musk had fathered a child after an another baby mama told The New York Times that he had a child with a Japanese pop star. 'I've been keeping an eye on this, and I guess it's time for me to speak up. Elon Musk is not the father of [either of] my children,' Hamasaki wrote on her Instagram Story, according to Tokyo Weekender. Hamasaki, 46, has two sons with two different men, born in 2019 and 2021. The fathers' identities have not been publicly revealed. The rumors around the singer began to spread when MAGA author and influencer Ashley St. Clair—who gave birth to his 13th child, a son, last year—claimed that the billionaire had also told her that he had a child with a J-pop star. Musk has previously claimed that 'civilization is going to crumble' if people did not have children, stating that 'I do have a lot of kids, and I encourage others to have lots of kids.' 'He made it seem like it was just his altruism and he generally believed these people should just have children,' St. Clair said. According to text messages reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, Musk texted St. Clair in 2023 about a meeting he had with people he referred to as Japanese officials, saying that they wanted him to be a sperm donor for a high-profile woman. 'They want me to be a sperm donor. No romance or anything, just sperm,' Musk texted St. Clair, later telling her that he agreed to give his sperm to the unnamed woman. As social media users and J-Pop forums began speculating which Japanese star St. Clair could be referring to, Hamasaki quickly became the prime suspect. The singer admitted she could understand why this seemed like the 'sort of thing' she would do. 'Even my mom laughed when she heard the rumors, saying, 'This seems kind of Ayu-like,' and if I were someone else, I'd probably be saying 'Ayu is the pop star [St Clair] was talking about, right?' But it's just not true,' she said on Instagram. 'Setting aside my personal image, when my kids are old enough to start Googling things, I don't want them to run into the rumors and think they're true, so I'm firmly denying them,' the singer added. Hamasaki is the best-selling solo artist in Japan, having sold over 50 million albums. Her influence across Asia has earned her the title the 'Empress of Pop.' Musk's complicated family dynamics have long been in the spotlight. His first six children, the eldest of whom died as a baby, were with first wife Justine Wilson, and include transgender daughter Vivian Wilson, who has become a prominent public critic. He went on to have son X, now five, with Canadian musician Grimes, then two more children during an on-off relationship. But in July 2022, when the relationship with Grimes had apparently recently ended, he had twins with Neuralink executive Shivon Zillis. He then had two more children with Zillis, the latest born this year shortly after his son with St. Clair. On her end, St. Clair is currently in an ongoing custody battle with Musk over their son, Romulus, the MAGA influencer wanting full custody over their child. She officially announced the pair's secret child on X in February, asking for privacy from the media and to 'refrain from invasive reporting.' 'Five months ago, I welcomed a new baby into the world. Elon Musk is the father,' she wrote in a statement on X with the caption 'Alea Iacta Est,' meaning 'the die is cast.' Alea Iacta Est — Ashley St. Clair (@stclairashley) February 15, 2025 In March, Musk also took to his app to claim that he had given St. Clair enough money to take care of their child, despite not knowing whether Romulus was his or not. 'I don't know if the child is mine or not, but am not against finding out. No court order is needed,' he wrote. 'Despite not knowing for sure, I have given Ashley $2.5M and am sending her $500k/year.' I don't know if the child is mine or not, but am not against finding out. No court order is needed. Despite not knowing for sure, I have given Ashley $2.5M and am sending her $500k/year. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 31, 2025 According to the Journal, the paternity test results from Labcorp revealed that Musk's 'Probability of Paternity' was 99.9999%.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Wordle hints today for #1,452: Clues and answer for Tuesday, June 10
Hey, there! We hope your week is off to a great start, and that includes keeping your Wordle streak rolling along. Here's our daily Wordle guide with some hints and the answer for Tuesday's puzzle (#1,452). It may be that you're a Wordle newcomer and you're not completely sure how to play the game. We're here to help with that too. Wordle is a deceptively simple daily word game that first emerged in 2021. The gist is that there is one five-letter word to deduce every day by process of elimination. The daily word is the same for everyone. Wordle blew up in popularity in late 2021 after creator Josh Wardle made it easy for players to share an emoji-based grid with their friends and followers that detailed how they fared each day. The game's success spurred dozens of clones across a swathe of categories and formats. The New York Times purchased Wordle in early 2022 for an undisclosed sum. The publication said that players collectively played Wordle 5.3 billion times in 2024. So, it's little surprise that Wordle is one of the best online games and puzzles you can play daily. To start playing Wordle, you simply need to enter one five-letter word. The game will tell you how close you are to that day's secret word by highlighting letters that are in the correct position in green. Letters that appear in the word but aren't in the right spot will be highlighted in yellow. If you guess any letters that are not in the secret word, the game will gray those out on the virtual keyboard. However, you can still use those letters in subsequent guesses. You'll only have six guesses to find each day's word, though you still can use grayed-out letters to help narrow things down. It's also worth remembering that letters can appear in the secret word more than once. Wordle is free to play on the NYT's website and apps, as well as on Meta Quest headsets and Discord. The game refreshes at midnight local time. If you log into a New York Times account, you can track your stats, including the all-important win streak. If you have a NYT subscription that includes full access to the publication's games, you don't have to stop after a single round of Wordle. You'll have access to an archive of more than 1,400 previous Wordle games. So if you're a relative newcomer, you'll be able to go back and catch up on previous editions. In addition, paid NYT Games members have access to a tool called the Wordle Bot. This can tell you how well you performed at each day's game. Before today's Wordle hints, here are the answers to recent puzzles that you may have missed: Yesterday's Wordle answer for Monday, June 9 — BOARD Sunday, June 8 — LEASE Saturday, June 7 — REUSE Friday, June 6 — EDIFY Thursday, June 5 — DATUM Every day, we'll try to make Wordle a little easier for you. First, we'll offer a hint that describes the meaning of the word or how it might be used in a phrase or sentence. We'll also tell you if there are any double (or even triple) letters in the word. In case you still haven't quite figured it out by that point, we'll then provide the first letter of the word. Those who are still stumped after that can continue on to find out the answer for today's Wordle. This should go without saying, but make sure to scroll slowly. Spoilers are ahead. Here is a hint for today's Wordle answer: A type of chewy candy that has a saltwater variety. There is a pair of repeated letters in today's Wordle answer. The first letter of today's Wordle answer is T. This is your final warning before we reveal today's Wordle answer. No take-backs. Don't blame us if you happen to scroll too far and accidentally spoil the game for yourself. What is today's Wordle? Today's Wordle answer is... TAFFY Not to worry if you didn't figure out today's Wordle word. If you made it this far down the page, hopefully you at least kept your streak going. And, hey: there's always another game tomorrow.