23 Weird Celebrity Businesses - mental_floss on YouTube - List Show (311)

Hi, I'm John Green. Welcome to my salon. This is Mental Floss on YouTube

And did you know that Willie Nelson once owned a truck stop in Texas called Willie's Place

It went bankrupt in 2011, but for a few years it was a Nelson-themed stop with a concert venue and bar

And that's the first of many businesses owned or partially owned by celebrities that I'm going to share with you today

in a video where we shall learn all of the many ways that celebrities can lose money

Singer Akon owns a diamond mind in South Africa. He also signed Lady Gaga to his record label

within Interscope, which is all he needs financially. According to him, she pretty much retired

me. Marilyn Manson owns his own brand of absinthe, known as Man-Synth. It actually won a gold

medal though at the 2008 San Francisco World Spirits competition. In 2007, rapper Lil Romeo

bought the potato chip brand Rap Snacks. These are chips called the official snack of hip-hop

The band Kiss sells Kiss everything, including a line of Kiss-themed coffins known as Kiss

Caskets, with a K of course. When they were introduced in 2001, Gene Simmons announced

this is the ultimate Kiss collectible. I love livin' but this makes the alternative look

pretty damn good. In 2009, there were reports that Joe Jackson and Cristiano Ronaldo got together to shoot commercials for the Goalie Grill, which was

a grill in the shape of a soccer ball Jackson was a partial owner of Game On Products which produced the grill but the commercial never aired More like game off little smurf Bill Wyman the former Rolling Stones bassist has his own patented metal detector which

is extra light and adjustable. According to Wyman, metal detecting is not just for anoraks or eccentrics

It's probably the best and most enjoyable way of learning about our history

Specifically, our history of leaving bottle caps at the beach. What, has no one told Bill Wyman about Crash Course

Speaking of rock band members, Bon Jovi drummer Tico Torres has his own line of baby clothes

called Rock Star Baby. They also sell things like cribs and strollers

Ashton Kutcher owns one third of a venture capital firm called A-Grade Investments

They've made investments in apps and websites like Airbnb, which helps people rent out their

houses like hotels, and Y-Plan, which tells you about things going on in your city that night

But before you go calling him a genius, please rewatch The Butterfly Effect, or No Strings

attached, or What Happens in Vegas, or really most non-Dude-Wears-My-Car related Ashton

Kutcher films. Jeff Foxworthy has his own line of beef jerky named after himself

Of course, the product is technically owned by Monogram Food Solutions, but Foxworthy's

an investor. Former Van Halen singer Sammy Hagar owned a bicycle shop for a while

In fact, in the 90s, his second shop, Sausalito Cyclery, was the number one independent bicycle

store in California, but eventually he sold it. In 1989, Kim Basinger made headlines for buying the town of Brazelton, Georgia

It cost her and a couple business partners million for the 2 acre town She wanted to make it into a tourist town with film studios but then had to sell it for a tremendous loss within five years Not everybody can be as successful as Sammy Hagar Pro tennis player Venus Williams has her own interior decorating company based in Florida called V

It's a small company with only a few employees, and it takes on huge projects like luxury condos worth millions of dollars

In 2005, Steven Seagal released a line of energy drinks known as Lightning Bolt

They came in two flavors, Cherry Charge and Asian Experience. Really, Steven Seagal? Really

Sylvester Stallone once co-owned the company InStone, which sold nutritional supplements. They were best known for Stallone High-Protein Pudding

But the company was shut down after a decade-long legal fight surrounding stolen pudding recipes

Rush Limbaugh sells tea named Two If By Tea, a play on the line One If By Land and Two If

By Sea from the poem Paul Revere's Ride. The tagline, From Tea to Shining Tea

Oh my god, that makes me want some man synth. The size of this teapot demonstrates just how little I want Rush Limbaugh's tea

Oh, it's you again, soccer-playing Smurf. I thought I told you the game was off

In 2010, Kevin Costner sold his oil and water separation machines to BP for an estimated

16 million, but his overall investment in the technology was around 24 million, so it

didn't work out that well. It's like Waterworld. In 2011, MC Hammer launched a search engine, Wiredo

It was supposed to provide you with search results in addition to topics related to your search

The catchy tagline was search once and see what related Carlos Santana has his own line of women footwear that sold at Macy It called Carlos and Mariah Carey starred in advertisements for the brand in 2008

In 2006, former Melrose Place star Andrew Hsu co-created a social network for moms known

as Cafe Mom with another man, Michael Sanchez. They've since launched three other websites and claim to get a combined 30 million views monthly

Also in 2006, Danny DeVito made news for showing up drunk to his appearance on The View

It turned out that he had been drinking Limoncello with George Clooney the night before, so DeVito

did what anyone would do. He endorsed a new brand of Limoncello

Kevin Smith owns a comic book store in New Jersey called Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash

It used to be just Smith's favorite place to buy comics, Comicology, but then he bought

the store for $30,000 when he found out it was about to close

Then finally, I returned to my salon to tell you that in 2012, Shaquille O'Neal announced

that he would be releasing a vodka called Love Shack. Tragically, it has yet to be released, which may have something to do with the fact that

he also announced that his vodka would be special because it would be gluten-free

Like all vodka. Thanks for watching Menoplas here on YouTube, which is made with the help of all of these

nice people. And thanks for patronizing my celebrity restaurant, John's Place, which only serves pizza and

Diet Dr. Pepper. As we say in my hometown, don't forget to be awesome

And don't forget to eat pizza and Diet Dr. Pepper at a price of my choosing, because

It's about how much I like it, not about its actual value