The life of the rich and famous looks easy and carefree from the outside, but we never know just how our favorite rappers, singers, and actors are faring financially year over year. Someone who might be on top one season is suddenly grabbing every endorsement deal possible the next month, just to make ends meet. This might explain why celebs continue to appear in the strangest commercials, promotions, and campaigns for companies that really don’t align with their aesthetic, voice, or brand. But hey, we have to respect the hustle sometimes.
Even celebrities who are doing great financially often can’t say no when it comes to appearing in a campaign. When the fee is high enough, even A-listers will hawk a lame soda or acne cream when it comes down to it. We have the marketing teams (and the enormous budgets) of brands like Proactiv, Pringles, Brisk, and more to thank for some of the most random celebrity endorsements ever created.
Combing through YouTube, it’s possible to spot some of the biggest celebrities of our time in commercials that are poorly produced and even more poorly written, just because they agreed to appear early in their careers. Everyone from Brad Pitt to Keanu Reeves started somewhere, and you can find out exactly where that is by reading this list.
While these endorsements are surely bizarre and nonsensical, they also are often entertaining and sometimes even work in their utter hilarity. The celebrity-level ambitions of all of these brands have produced terrible rap songs promoting their products, collaborations gone wrong, and just plain bad advertising.
But even the worst of these pairings are entertaining when you look back on them. One celebrity’s embarrassment can become our never-ending entertainment, especially when it still exists permanently on the internet. So here’s to brands like Charmin, who made Kim Kardashian be the face of their public restroom, and Hot Pockets, who adapted Snoop Dogg’s most famous song into a terrible music video. Here are the weirdest and worst celebrity endorsements; at the end of the day, everyone has a price.
Let’s block ads! (Why?)
