People Whose Lives Were Messed Up By Their Celeb Names
While sharing a name with a celebrity can get you a table at that exclusive restaurant and lead to a lot of fun stories, it can also be annoying, or worse, actually negatively affect your life. Here are eight people who don't think the free drinks are worth it.
Michael Jackson
There are probably lots of Michael Jacksons out there, but this one is a 68-year-old white guy who spent his life designing kitchens. According to an interview he gave Westchester Magazine, while he has suffered through the same old jokes over the years, he says the worst thing is the kind of press he had to hear about. It's not fun to turn on the news and listen to the anchor talk about how you might be a child molester. It was even less fun when one of his coworkers ran into the office and announced that Michael Jackson had died. He said hearing everyone talk about "him" being dead and watching a memorial for someone with the same name was "very disconcerting."
Taylor Swift
It's one thing when you share a gender-specific name with a celebrity. But for 30-year-old Taylor Swift of Seattle, the thing that surprises people most is probably the beard. He told Newsweek and the Daily Mail that he first discovered he shared his name with a celebrity when he started receiving fan mail addressed to her way back in 2008. After the 2009 VMAs, when Kanye West interrupted her speech and she became a household name, it really started to affect his life. Since he had snagged the taylorswift@gmail.com email address before her, his inbox is constantly flooded with messages from fans and stalkers. Taylor kept getting a Facetime request and finally accepted it, only to see a topless man reclining on a bed, all ready to try and seduce a superstar. It has also affected his side business, since if you Google "Taylor Swift photography" his work doesn't show up for dozens of pages.
Paul McCartney
You know how awkward it is when someone remembers your name but you have totally forgotten theirs? According to Forbes, that happens all the time to lawyer Paul McCartney, since absolutely no one he meets ever forgets his name. He's also suffered through years of waking up to drunken prank calls in the middle of the night.
Corey Feldman
While some parents might still have nostalgia for the child actor they loved when they were young, they might also think twice about buying a children's book by an ex-drug addict who was sexually abused as a kid. That is a serious concern for budding author Corey Feldman, whose Egret the Elephant stories came out in 2012. According to that Feldman, in an interview in the Huffington Post, he is afraid having his name on the cover could hurt sales, since the actor "doesn't really come across as the sensitive children's author type."
Ella Fitzgerald
This 70-year-old at least knew what she was getting into when it came to her name since she wasn't born a Fitzgerald, but took her husband's name when they got married. It used to cause her serious problems, as she told Westchester Magazine. Back when everyone wrote checks, many of hers wouldn't end up getting to the bank. She doesn't know if it's because the people who saw her signature actually thought she was the real Ella Fitzgerald (the non-famous Fitzgerald is also a black woman) or just wanted to pretend it was a real celebrity signature, but either way, they kept the checks and some of her bills didn't get paid.
Katie Perry
While their first names are at least spelled differently, meaning she isn't as unlucky as a lot of the other people on this list, Katie Perry has still had her life affected by her almost-celebrity name, as she told NPR. She was graduating from college right when the singer Katy Perry hit #1 with "I Kissed a Girl." This made for some awkward interview moments, perhaps none more so than when one interviewer actually asked Perry if she, too, kissed girls and liked it. Still, at least her name uncovered a sexually harassing creep she definitely didn't want to work for.
Sarah Palin
According to an interview with the Daily Mail, at one point in 2011, while she was a student at the University of Texas, Sarah Palin was getting more than 200 Facebook friend requests a day. But her bigger problem is that same year the former Alaska Governor successfully trademarked her name for use in certain business ventures. That means if the other Sarah Palin ever wants to make money from "information about political elections" or "providing motivational speaking services in the field of politics, culture, business and values," she won't legally be allowed to use her own name.
Howard Stern
If you ever get sued and want to freak out the prosecution a little, why not hire lawyer Howard Stern? Just don't make a joke about his name yourself, because he is sick and tired of hearing them, he told Westchester Magazine. He says when meeting a new person there is about a ninety percent chance they will comment on it and it drives him nuts. Stern, Esq. is so over it that he no longer even considers it his name, but a disease he's cursed with. Still, it's not all bad. While he does get annoying prank calls in the middle of the night, he also get messages from famous people who think he's the radio host (since even more oddly, they live near each other.) Axl Rose calls on a semi-regular basis. And women (and some men) send him revealing pictures of themselves, so it could be worse.