There are plenty of reasons to become famous, but there are just as many, if not more, reasons
to step away from it all.
Whether because the work dries up or because they decide they'd rather have a quieter lifestyle,
some celebrities make career shifts to more "normal" jobs.
MC Hammer
MC Hammer was the biggest rapper in the world in the early '90s, but he would later become
the biggest financial cautionary tale after he lost his millions.
He's since given up on the entertainment world, save for the occasional commercial, but he's
back in the black after becoming a tech investor.
"There are so many incubators are around now.
There are so many paths to get here but you have to want it enough to get in."
It turns out that Hammer is one of the savviest tech gurus out there, and was one of the earliest
investors in companies like Square and Flipboard.
Still, don't count out a musical comeback from the rapper-turned-preacher-turned venture
capitalist.
As he put it to Billboard Magazine,
"Why not?
Quincy Jones was 50 when he produced the Thriller album.
It's not unprecedented."
Vanilla Ice
Stop, collaborate, and list it: Vanilla Ice has gone from rapping to house flipping.
Ice, whose real name is Rob Van Winkle, has found that his real estate business is just
as lucrative as rap was for him back in the early '90s.
He's even been chronicling this endeavor on The Vanilla Ice Project on the DIY Network.
"There's, you know, room to gain money and still give the people who buy it a great deal,
so."
"And have fun while doing it as we see if we watch the show."
In addition to making green, Ice has made sure his houses go green too.
He's worked to keep his carbon footprint low by using a lot of LED lights and installing
tankless water heaters outside.
He's even written a book called Get Rich Flipping Houses.
As for how he first got into the business, it happened by accident.
In his early 20s, he bought an apartment in New York City's Greenwich Village, as well
as a property in Los Angeles, but he sold them because he was never home and ended up
making a sweet profit.
Mara Wilson
Mara Wilson was the adorable child star of 1993's Mrs. Doubtfire and 1996's Matilda.
Then she disappeared from the public eye, embracing a career as a writer, though she
still makes some occasional appearances on nostalgia-themed programs and does voiceover
work once in a while.
But more than anything these days, Wilson is an activist promoting mental health awareness.
She herself was diagnosed with panic disorder, depression, and obsessive compulsive disorder
when she was just 12 years old.
"There was a big stigma around this and so we were all worried.
We were all worried about, you know, what it was and me especially being a child actor."
In November 2018, Wilson discussed her time as a child star with Entertainment Weekly,
stating,
"I do think that being a child actor was difficult in some ways, like it made me more of a perfectionist.
There were a lot of people out there who were very cruel.
But I had a lot of great opportunities that a lot of other people didn't, and I met a
lot of wonderful people.
You kind of have to come to peace with it all."
Brian Dunkleman
In American Idol's first season, Ryan Seacrest had a co-host: comedian Brian Dunkleman.
Dunkleman didn't come back for any subsequent seasons, and he currently works as an Uber
driver in Los Angeles.
His career shift was first reported by TMZ.
The gossip rag unearthed documents from his divorce that revealed his source of income.
He reportedly logs about 45 hours a week behind the wheel for the service, making about $800
to $1,000 a week.
Dunkleman, who has a 5-year-old son, told the site,
"I chose to stop doing stand up comedy and started driving an Uber so I could be there
for my son as much as he needed after our life as we knew it was destroyed."
George Foreman
George Foreman became famous in the boxing ring, but he became rich when he quit sparring
and started selling.
His hawking of the George Foreman Grill has become one of the most lucrative celebrity
endorsements in history.
Foreman has admitted he was skeptical when the Salton company first approached him for
the deal in the mid-1990s.
It wasn't until his wife, Mary, finally made him a burger on it six months later that he
signed on to sell them.
Under the deal, Foreman took 45 percent of the profits.
After collecting his first $1 million royalty check in 1997, he vowed to focus more on business
than on boxing.
"It knocks out the fat!"
A year later, Salton reportedly sold $200 million worth of grills and bought Foreman
out of his contract for a whopping $137.5 million.
Since then, he's endorsed other products through George Foreman Enterprises, including meats,
shoes, and shakes, but nothing was ever as hot as the grill.
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