ANGUS T. JONES
They may have left the screens, but we still remember them. Where are they now? Maybe closer than you think. They might be your son’s teacher or your Starbucks barista. Here’s a list of the celebrities who ended up with normal jobs.
Angus’ life took a very sharp turn after leaving Two and a Half Men. After bashing the show and the values it presented, Jones found religion when he became a member of the Seventh Day Adventists church. He currently makes a living working for Tonie, a multimedia company founded by P.Diddy.
Aubrey O'Day
American singer Aubrey O’Day is best known as a member of the popular girl group, Danity Kaneーand more recently, as a part of the music duo, dumblonde. Having realized her love for the stage when she was five years old, the blonde spent most of her youth performing.
As a young girl, she participated in many musical productions such as Fame, Grease, The Sound of Music, and The Wizard of Oz.
O'Day was fired from girl group Danity Kane in 2008. She then reunited with them in 2013 only to split from the band again a year later.
She believes it’s easier to be lesser-known “because the man needs to feel like the man.”
JON GOSSELIN
Reality show star Jon Gosselin went from Jon & Kate Plus 8 to waiting tables.
He was recently fired from his job at the Black Dog restaurant in Beckersville, PA.
FREDDIE PRINZE JR
After starring in movies like She’s All That and I Know What You Did Last Summer he married Sarah Michelle Gellar and had two children.
Today he is a chef and recently released a cookbook called Back To The Kitchen.
Julia Stiles
Julia O'Hara Stiles (born March 28, 1981) is an American actress.She has starred in many blockbuster films. Most famous for her roles in 10 Things I Hate About You, Down to You, Save the Last Dance, The Business of Strangers, Mona Lisa Smile, and The Omen, Stiles has won numerous awards and accolades for her acting performances. Where is she now?
In June 2012, the web series Blue, produced by WIGS, premiered. It stars Stiles as a single mother with a 13-year-old son. She works at an office and also as a call girl to make ends meet on an otherwise meager income, and must fight to protect her son from the collision between her complicated past and tenuous present.
PETER OSTRUM
Peter was 12 when he starred in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.
Today he is 59 and a veterinary in Lowville, New York.
KIRK CAMERON
The former Growing Pains star ended his acting career to become an author of Christian books.
TOM SELLECK
Although he still occasionally acts, Selleck retired to a 60-acre ranch where he tends to his 20-acre avocado farm.
Selleck said that his work on the farm allowed him to finally find balance after his stressful acting career.
NIKKI BLONSKY
This former Hairspray star struggled to find new roles after her 2007 movie.
Today she is a hairstylist in Great Neck, New York.
LIAM GALLAGHER
After his brother Noel left Oasis to pursue a solo career, Liam started the band Beady Eye, but that ended after only two albums. Today Liam runs a fairly profitable fashion label in London, Pretty Green.
TONY DANZA
The star from Taxi and Who’s the Boss is now an English teacher at Philadelphia Northeast High School.
Who wouldn’t love to be his student?
CHRIS OWEN
Despite the success of American Pie, Chris Owen never quite found success.
Today he is a waiter at a sushi restaurant and has less than 100 followers on Twitter.
JESSICA SIERRA
The fallen American Idol singer Jessica Sierra had to take a day job at Hooters when she realized singing wasn’t enough to pay the bills.
VANILLA ICE
When his career started to die down, Vanilla Ice decided to launch a real estate website. Now he is a real estate investor and home renovator.
He also teaches new investors how to make a profit selling houses.
M.C. HAMMER
After accumulating $13 million in debt and filing for bankruptcy, Hammer got his life back together.
These days he officiates weddings, develops iPad apps and lectures about new media at Ivy League universities.
JEFF COHEN
After playing the role of Chunk in The Goonies Jeff chose to put an end to his acting career.
Today he is a lawyer and lives in Los Angeles.
CHARLIE KORSMO
Charlie Korsmo was famous for staring next to Robin Williams in the 90’s blockbuster film Hook which shot the young star to success. However, Korsmo was not quite happy with his career in Hollywood since his interests lay in the field of physics instead of acting.
The brilliant-minded star attended MIT where he got a degree in science. After graduating, Charlie worked as a lawyer for a few years before deciding to join the faculty of Western Reserve University School of Law in Cleveland, Ohio as a law professor.
TIFFANY
The ’80s pop star Tiffany rode the wave of success with hits like her 1987 cover song, “I Think We’re Alone Now,” but after a long stretch of small-time music, television and film gigs, Tiffany returned to the simple life. But first, she posed nude in Playboy back in 2002 after her records failed to sell.
Now she runs a vintage shop called “Tiffany’s Boutique” off of Highway 76 in White House, Tennessee.
TARAN NOAH SMITH
He’s known by most people as the ugly kid from the popular sitcom Home Improvement.
And when he was 17, Taran Noah Smith had a falling out with his parents, because they bought themselves a cosy mansion with his hard earned life savings. He sued them, got married to a vegan gal who could have been his mother and invested the money he got from the lawsuit in a vegan dairy farm and catering service.
And even though dairy is not vegan at all, the company was pretty successful, until he found out his old lady was using it to launder money.
So he divorced his sixteen years older wife, and sued her too. Taran continued living the vegan hippy lifestyle and got arrested when the cops found a bag of organic pot in his car.
JOSH SAVIANO
In the 90s the most popular rumor about Josh Saviano (Paul from the Wonder Years) was that he grew up to be Marylin Manson. The truth is not quite as exciting.
PHOEBE CATES
Best known for her role in Fast Time at Ridgemont High, Phoebe quit acting rather suddenly in the mid 90’s.
She originally left to focus on her family life but does a lot of work for charity and raises awareness for Juvenile Diabetes.
DYLAN SPROUSE
After the former child star left the Disney series that he shared with his identical twin brother Cole, people wondered where he’d gone. Many years later, tabloids found a photo of him working at a New York City restaurant.
Turns out, he was only working part-time and is enrolled a New York university.
KEVIN JONAS
After leaving The Jonas Brothers, Kevin launched the food searching app Yood.
The app is location-based and gives the location and phone number of restaurants in your area.
DANNY LLOYD
He was only 5 when he starred in The Shining.
After the movie was released Danny quit acting and today he is a biology teacher in Kentucky.
MICHAEL MARONNA
Children lucky enough to grow up during Nickelodeon’s ‘90s heyday will remember Mike Maronna as the older of the two Petes on the now classic program The Adventures of Pete and Pete.
After The Adventures of Pete and Pete ended in 1996, Maronna had small roles in a few other films before finding a job that he still has to this day – an electrician on film sets.
AL FRANKEN
Eventually, Franken decided that he had tired of simply making fun of lawmakers, he wanted to be one himself.
In 2008, Franken ran for the United States senate in his native state of Minnesota, narrowly beating his Republican opponent by a few hundred votes.
GEORGE FOREMAN
The former boxing champion got into financial debt and needed a way to make ends meet. So he became the spokesperson for the George Foreman Grill.
Since introducing it in 1994, he’s helped sell over 100 million grills worldwide.
STEVEN SEAGAL
Most of us remember Steven Seagal as a master of martial arts and actor in movies such as Under Siege. Today he is still fighting crime as a New Mexico deputy sheriff.
Most recently, Seagal has been sworn in as a New Mexico sheriff’s deputy.
Let’s hope he leaves the tank in the garage this time.
FRANKIE MUNIZ
Most people probably thought this child actor couldn’t get a job in Hollywood after being the star in Malcolm in the Middle, but he signed a two-year contract as a driver with Jensen Motorsport. Muniz also had a short gig as the drummer for Kingsfoil, a pop-rock group in Pennsylvania.
“It’s my focus 1,000 percent right now. I want to be the best drummer I can be for the band and for me.”
BRITTANY ASHTON HOLMES
Darla from Little Rascals didn’t make it very far in her acting career. She was 5 years old when she won the hearts of Alfalfa and Hollywood, and she had a few minor roles after that movie, but she left all of that behind.
She was reportedly pursuing a political science degree the last anyone heard from her, and she works at a Starbucks.
JONATHAN BENNETT
You might remember him from Mean Girls, well he is now an instructor at Flywheel in Los Angeles.
MERCEDES LANDER
For those who might not remember, Kittie was an all-girl metal band who scored a radio hit with their song “Brackish” near the turn of the millennium. Originally grouped in with the genre “nu-metal,” they switched to a more extreme sound after Nu-Metal became about as fashionable as goatees, backward Yankees caps, and a bad attitude (which were actually all surprisingly fashionable during a weird time from about 1997-1999). Unfortunately, the change in styles didn’t exactly expand Kittie’s fanbase, so Ms.
Lander was forced to find alternative employment in order to pay her bills. These days, when she’s not on tour with Kittie she works as a real estate agent in her native Canada.
GARY COLEMAN
The former Diff’rent Strokes star was a household name during the 70s and 80s but his fame slowly faded as the years went on. Before he passed away in 2010, Coleman was apparently working as a security guard.
He was arrested and tried, receiving a 1-year suspended sentence and had to pay $1,665 for the medical treatments.
TARAN NOAH SMITH
After Home Improvement Taran’s career had a short life.
Today he runs an organic, vegan cheese manufacturer called Playfood.
ERIN MORAN
Despite what seemed like a promising career, Happy Days star Erin Moran started to fade in the 80s.
Today she is trying to make it as a writer, working out of an Indiana hotel room after being kicked out of the trailer park she used to live in.
JACK GLEESON
It must’ve been hard being one of the most hated people on TV, and it explains why Jack Gleeson has decided to retire from the acting world.
The former King of Westeros is now studying philosophy and theology at Trinity College, Dublin.
JONATHAN TAYLOR THOMAS
This young man was a big star in the early 90s. Jonathan Taylor Thomas was on the successful show Home Improvement and then lent his voice to the Lion King movie.
He retired from acting, bar a handful of guest appearances throughout the years, to focus on his studies and even graduated from Harvard.
CARRIE HENN
Carrie will be remembered by many as the cute kid from the smash hit Alien, starring alongside Sigourney Weaver.
That was her only acting credit, despite appearing in many documentaries on the movie since, and would eventually go on to become a teacher.
KARYN PARSONS
Karyn played Hillary Banks on The Fresh Prince of Bel Air but decided to leave the show and the Hollywood life for something more normal.
She founded a company called Sweet Blackberry – a company that funds animated films about unsung Black heroes.
ERIK PER SULLIVAN
Much like his on-screen brother, Erik Per Sullivan decided the limelight wasn’t for him and went on to other things. What he does exactly is unknown, but he graduated from the University of Southern California in 2010.
We’re sure he’s doing something ‘normal’.
GEENA DAVIS
Geena Davis was once a Hollywood heavy-hitter. She starred in Thelma and Louise, A League of Their Own, and Stuart Little and Geena even has an Oscar win under her belt.
In 2007, Davis moved on from Hollywood and started the Geena Davis Institute to promote gender in media.
DORIS DAY
Doris Day lit up the big screens in the 60’s and 70’s. Her life in the public eye sadly took its toll on her personal life and after years in the spotlight, Day decided to leave Hollywood.
She then shifted her career to focus on helping nurse injured animals back to health. American singer and actress Doris Day, circa 1955.
LARK VOORHIES
Remember Lisa Turtle from Saved by the Bell? After the show ended its run on television, Lark Voorhies decided to shift gears and start writing.
She has written numerous books over the years and has found her passion outside of Hollywood’s spotlight.
DANICA MCKELLAR
Once Winnie Cooper on the ‘The Wonder Years’, Danica McKellar has made a major shift since her days on screen. McKellar studied mathematics and focused her efforts on encouraging young women to learn similar subjects.
AMANDA BYNES
Amanda Bynes was a Nickelodeon sensation back in the day.
Sadly, the child star fell out of the spotlight and she began to age. After struggling with the law and substance abuse, Bynes claims to be working a career in fashion.
OMRI KATZ
Omri Katz rose to fame as the good looking teenager on Hocus Pocus. After the film wrapped, Katz’s career in Hollywood was basically over.
Today, Omri lives in Los Angeles and works as a hairdresser.
PETER BILLINGSLEY
At a very young age, Peter Billingsley won over audiences when he starred as Ralphie in A Christmas Story. After getting off the big screen, Billingsley found a career behind the cameras.
He has recently been involved in the production of several films, including Iron Man.
