It's a fact: nearly every celebrity out there has had their time in the small-screen, low-budget,
advertisement limelight.
Companies will pay a lot of money to put a well-known face on their product.
But when an Oscar-winner starts peddling ice cream, you know that fame and prestige are
playing second fiddle to a juicy paycheck.
Here are some celebs who totally sold out.
​Kevin Bacon—EE
There are some things you can't unsee, and UK cell phone service provider EE knew that
all too well when they cast Kevin Bacon in a bizarre ad for Apple music.
The ad saw Bacon tear off his clothes and dance around in skin-tight leather, before
joking about stealing clothes from Britney Spears.
Needless to say, the costume should have stayed in the year 2000.
This isn't the first TV spot the Footloose star has done for EE — previous ads riffed
on the "six degrees of Kevin Bacon" thing as a way to show how well connected EE customers
are.
"But I'm not here to talk about Kevin Bacon, Hollywood A-Lister.
I'm here to talk about Kevin Bacon, center of the universe."
​Benicio Del Toro—Magnum Ice Cream
Fans of Academy Award winner Benicio Del Toro were gobsmacked in 2010 when the Usual Suspects
star popped up in a commercial for Magnum Gold ice cream bars.
He stars alongside Brazilian model and actress Caroline Correa in a trailer-length commercial
for the company's Gold range.
Viewers accused the Puerto Rican actor of selling out via ice cream heist.
Others pointed out that del Toro looked a little embarrassed throughout the commercial.
Can you blame him?
Del Toro was back for more easy money in 2016, signing on as the brand ambassador for Dutch
beer Heineken.
The commercials attempt to paint the brewery as a family orientated business.
"I actually bought these myself.
Hah hah!"
In truth, Heineken is no mom-and-pop enterprise.
It's a global conglomerate 73,000 employees across 70 countries.
Regardless, Del Toro seems more than happy to promote the brewery, calling his involvement
"an honor."
​Samuel L. Jackson—Capital One
Just a quick glance at Samuel Jackson's filmography suggests that the actor isn't above doing
a movie just for for the paycheck, and he proved that beyond a doubt with his controversial
Capital One commercial in 2013.
In the clip, Jackson waxes lyrical about the benefits of having the Quicksilver Cashback
Card in your wallet.
The problem: he waxes a little too lyrical.
"Unlimited 1.5% cash back every purchase, everywhere, every damn day."
Fans of his movies are used to hearing Jackson say a lot worse than that, of course, but
viewers reportedly lodged complaints and threatened to close their accounts.
The bank buckled under the backlash and re-shot the ending of the commercial, replacing "every
damn day" with "every single day."
M. Night Shyamalan—American Express
In 2006, American Express booked a 2-minute advertising spot during the Academy Awards,
so the company called on renowned horror filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan to write, direct and star
in an ad titled Time To Dream.
The cinematic spot takes place in Shyamalan's head as he sits in a restaurant drawing inspiration
from the other customers.
Apparently he should have sat at that table a little longer because the commercial is
a mixture of horror clichés and nonsensical creepiness that does little to promote the
company's brand.
According to a behind-the-scenes featurette, Shyamalan viewed the project as a two day
movie where he could do whatever he wanted.
"And in a way it was just my opportunity to just make fun of myself a little bit."
Which is, coincidentally, the way he approached the next 10 years of his career.
Uma Thurman—Schweppes
This bizarre European commercial for Schweppes Fruit Fusions was named one of the worst celebrity
ads of 2011 by Campaign magazine, who criticized the colorful spot for being uncomfortable
to watch.
And it's definitely uncomfortable.
"I love Schweppes.
And I need to have it, all the time."
It's a pretty poor gag, but not as poor as Thurman's performance, which falls well below
the high standard she set in work on Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill.
In the Schweppes commercials, she leaves noticeable gaps between sentences, as if she's either
being fed lines off camera or was just unwilling to commit the dreadful dialogue to memory.
Whoopi Goldberg—Poise
When the Kimberly-Clark Corporation launched its Poise line of incontinence products for
women, the goal was to humanize the issue and take away the stigma attached to using
pads.
Poise senior brand manager Joe Kuester told The New York Times, "We're building a great
deal of feminine details into this product so women can feel like this is not an institutional
product."
According to surveys conducted by the company, one in three woman over the age of 18 experience
"light bladder leakage" and many fail to discuss the problem out of embarrassment.
What better way to do that than by enlisting Whoopi Goldberg, dressed as several historical
female figures, to complain about it?
The actress appears as Joan of Arc and Cleopatra to name a few, and the result is a commercial
that turns incontinence into a joke.
"I've been leaking for years.
Years."
Perhaps that was the desired effect, but it's hard to take a product seriously when all
you can remember about it is Goldberg making pee-spray sound effects.
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