logo
21 Shocking Celebrity Facts That Are Really Fascinating

21 Shocking Celebrity Facts That Are Really Fascinating

Buzz Feed12-05-2025

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."

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Harvey Weinstein's retrial verdict is a measured #MeToo victory during the backlash era
Harvey Weinstein's retrial verdict is a measured #MeToo victory during the backlash era

Yahoo

time26 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Harvey Weinstein's retrial verdict is a measured #MeToo victory during the backlash era

– Verdict's in. In an era of #MeToo backlash, with hyper-masculinity ruling from Washington, D.C. to Silicon Valley, the retrial of Harvey Weinstein could serve as a kind of litmus test—would his guilty verdict hold up in 2025? Yesterday, a jury found the former Hollywood producer and convicted sexual predator guilty on the top charge he faced in New York—but acquitted him of the second and failed to reach a verdict on the third. Three women—former production assistant Miriam Haley, former model Kaja Sokola, and Jessica Mann, who aspired to become an actress—brought claims forward against Weinstein. These weren't the most headline-grabbing of Weinstein's dozens of reported offenses—no celebrities involved—but they were what ultimately brought him to justice in 2020 (as did a trial in Los Angeles, which Weinstein is appealing). Weinstein's attorneys were counting on the vastly different cultural moment we are in to protect the ex-mogul. As the New York Times put it, his lawyers bet that the '#MeToo movement had waned enough to cast doubt on the motives and credibility of his accusers.' Attorney Arthur Aidala previously said that the women who accused Weinstein were 'were trying to take advantage of [him]'—because of the impact of the #MeToo movement. Weinstein has continued to deny the allegations against him. While accusations against Weinstein sparked the #MeToo movement, they weren't its sum-total. The movement led to the passage of the Adult Survivors Act, which allowed victims of years-old abuse to come forward—including musician Cassie, leading to Diddy's ongoing trial today. The jury is expected to return today to deliberate on the third charge. Whatever the outcome, #MeToo is bigger than Weinstein—but the movement can still count his partial verdict as a measured victory during a hostile political moment. Emma The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune's daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Today's edition was curated by Nina Ajemian. Subscribe here. This story was originally featured on

Gigi Paris breaks silence on how Sydney Sweeney dating rumors fueled Glen Powell split
Gigi Paris breaks silence on how Sydney Sweeney dating rumors fueled Glen Powell split

USA Today

timean hour ago

  • USA Today

Gigi Paris breaks silence on how Sydney Sweeney dating rumors fueled Glen Powell split

Gigi Paris breaks silence on how Sydney Sweeney dating rumors fueled Glen Powell split Show Caption Hide Caption Glen Powell reveals 'mental health' reason he left LA for Austin Glen Powell, while promoting his new film "Hit Man," tells USA TODAY's Brian Truitt why he moved back to Austin, Texas, from Los Angeles. If you were on the internet during the "Anyone but You" press tour, it was hard to make it two scrolls without running into a theory about Glenn Powell and Sydney Sweeney dating. The co-stars, both engaged to other people at the time, were being "shipped" left and right as photos emerged of the two on set looking cozy (a likely thing for two rom-com stars to be mid-shoot), and neither party opted to shut down the rumors. A time-honored tradition in Hollywood, the fervor around the possibility of a real-life romance drove box office sales for the fake romance. But it wasn't without collateral damage. Glen Powell admits Sydney Sweeney affair rumors 'worked wonderfully' for 'Anyone But You' In 2023, Powell and his fiancée, Gigi Paris, called it quits. Now, Paris is speaking out about how the movie contributed to their downfall. Speaking to host Emma Paige on the "Too Much" podcast June 10, Paris said she first became aware of the rumors online and told Powell, "the whole world is watching" and to "proceed with caution, please." He didn't receive that well, she said, and the relationship began to deteriorate from there. She revealed she was once scheduled to meet him in Australia, where "Anyone but You" was filming, when Powell called to tell her, "The producers and I have discussed that I think it's best that you don't come to visit." 'Anyone But You': Glen Powell calls Sydney Sweeney the 'Miss Congeniality of Australia' "I think that's when I just also fell out of love," she said, explaining that she broke it off with him shortly after, only to later learn that he and Sweeney had been encouraging the speculation to help with the film. "The two things that you have to sell a rom-com are fun and chemistry. Sydney and I have a ton of fun together, and we have a ton of effortless chemistry," Powell said in an interview with the New York Times that published a year after their split. "That's people wanting what's on the screen off the screen, and sometimes you just have to lean into it a bit — and it worked wonderfully. Sydney is very smart." "I don't know if there was a relationship there or not, but then they came out to say it was all a PR scheme at the expense of our relationship," Paris said on the podcast. "I just wanted respect, especially if it's going to be public," she continued, "Like, just don't make a fool out of someone you've been with for over three years, talking about forever with. Just have some decency." Sweeney has since split with fiancé Jonathan Davino, only adding fuel to the still-burning dating rumors between her and Powell.

A Bunch Of Drag Queens Got The Opposite Reaction To Trump At The Kennedy Center
A Bunch Of Drag Queens Got The Opposite Reaction To Trump At The Kennedy Center

Yahoo

timean hour ago

  • Yahoo

A Bunch Of Drag Queens Got The Opposite Reaction To Trump At The Kennedy Center

Donald Trump had a big night out at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday. Just to recap: Trump is now the head of the organization since he fired the old director, fired the board, and replaced them with his supporters. The President was there for one of his favorite musicals, Les Mis. How romantic! Things weren't all that great for the President, though. There was that whole boo'ing thing: .⁦@realDonaldTrump⁩ gets cheered and booed at the Kennedy Center. — Jeff Mason (@jeffmason1) June 11, 2025 jeffmason1/Twitter: @jeffmason1 Though to be fair, there was that "U-S-A" chant too. Sooo, a bunch of drag queens were also in attendance. They got the opposite reaction. New York Times reporter Shawn McCreesh captured the moment when the queens came into the theater: At the Kennedy Center, half the theater just started clapping when a group of drag queens showed up to find their seats at opening night of Les Miserables, which Trump, Melania, Vance and their top allies have all come out to see. — Shawn McCreesh (@ShawnMcCreesh) June 11, 2025 ShawnMcCreesh/Twitter: @ShawnMcCreesh People in the replies are lovin' it: "This is an outstanding moment." Another person commented, "Protest can be as simple as being seen." "Trolling Trump, but make it slay," another person wrote. And this person has the best comment with: "America has no king, just Queens."

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store