9 Surprising Ways Celebrities Made Money

played into the White House. How weird is that? So there used to actually be like elevator music just pumping through the White House walls. And weirdly that wasn't the only incidents of music and politics. Yeah, when Nixon was sworn in as president, and this is according to the American Conservative magazine, music was blared across the Washington Mall. And to me, it is literally the weirdest thing that the one thing that both sides of the political aisle

can agree on is music. But back to LBJ. He loved music so much that he hung speakers from his trees outside of his ranch just so he could listen while he worked. And he actually made some good money off the ventuare of course, when he actually became president, he sold a franchise so that he didn't have any entanglements while in office. But hearing about lbj's love of music made us wonder, what are some other ways that famous people have made money? And that's what we're covering

in today's Nine Things. Let's dig in h a their podcast. Listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend man Guesh Ticketer and sitting behind the soundproof glass looking up pyramids schemes. And here's the weird thing, my go we weren't talking about like Ponzi schemes. Tristan is actually looking up ways he can put money into actual pyramids. He wants to bring them back into vogue. Is like I guess townhouses

and strip mall restaurants. Anyway, that's our friend than producer Tristan McNeil, and he has such a shrewd business mind, he really does. I didn't realize that until more recently. So we kick this off with the story about l VJ, because it's stunning to me that you could be a politician and super active like LVJ had this reputation for being this operator this line of the Senate, but to also have time to play with the business on the side and help it thrive is just so baffling to me.

But one of the things I was thinking about, and this is such a weird story, but it's that time we met Victoria Jackson from SNL. Everything about that story was weird, but this was almost two decades ago. But she was telling us that her dad had told her she needed a backup job because her dad didn't think she could make it as a comedian, so she decided that to pay the bills, she'd become a poet as well.

Just makes the world. I mean, it's funny, but it is also interesting to see when actors have backup plans like that. You know. I always think about Nick Offerman from Parks and rec He's a carpenter, as many people know, and has this shop on the side and actually takes missions for things like canoes and mustache combes and other stuff like that. But I was listening to this interview with him on Fresh Air. Did you happen to hear this interview? But he was talking about what a relief

it was like, not just financially but also spiritually. You know, he'd go to this audition for a pilot or something like that, and you have all this nervous energy after the opera, But instead of drinking, he could actually go and make something and channel that energy into sanding or planing wood. And there's just something wonderful about all Right, Well, you kick this off with a story about lb J. But how about we talk a little bit about a president who lost all his money and then needed to

figure out how to make it back. So I'm curious which president this is, because I know there are a few that have gone to this, like, are you talking about Truman? No, I'm talking about Ulysses S. Grant in this case. So you know, it wasn't like Grant was broke actually, but he left office. He settled down in New York and he put a bunch of his cash

into Wall Street. Now specifically, he'd put money into a firm where his on Buck was one of the grant Buck Grant and but Grant was not somebody that should have been trusted because, as it turns out, it was just a Ponzi scheme. This was something I looked up and found in Smithsonian. But they solicited investments from Grant's wealthy friends. Then they speculated with funds, cooked the books to cover the losses, and like so many of these cases,

before long they went bussed with Grant's money. So what did Grant do after this? He wrote a book, which is something that you expect every former president to do now, but didn't exactly expect that then. But this was with the help of another author, and his name was Mark Twain. That idea, yeah, And so the dying Grant actually wrote a super readable memoir and his wife actually earned over half a million dollars in royalties after he passed away.

And that's amazing. I mean, I I guess the lesson there is that if you're going broke, just get your friend Mark Twain. Help me out. Mark. So I'm gonna take it from here. I have an idea that should have made a celebrity a ton of money but hasn't because she refused a license for patent. And that's Jamie Lee Curtis. Is an amazing story. Apparently, in seven, Jamie Lee Curtis designed a diaper with a moisture proof pocket

that would hold baby wipes in it. And the idea was that when you're on the go, you could just pull a wipe from the diaper with one hand as you're changing your baby. Like that, your baby becomes like a white dispenser as well. It's a great idea, made a killing on it. The patent was US zero seven zero one six eight three too, in case you want to look at always preferred, But she refused the license her idea unless a diaper company made this biodegradable version.

But you know, now the idea is in the public domain, which is kind of amazing, so anyone can use it. But I love that she both had and protected this incredible idea, and also that she turned away money to maintain her ideals. It really is remarkably Also, this is aside, But as I was looking up Jamie Lee, I I learned that he's also a massive, massive World of Warcraft fan, Jamie Lee Curtill, and she'll often wear these elaborate disguises just so she can attend things like comic con or

gaming conventions and go incognita. Oh that's pretty cool. Well, here's somebody who's made money in a more approachable way, and that's Jeremy Renner. Jeremy loves to flip houses. And I'm not sure if this was inspired by Trading Spaces or any of those home improvement shows, But back in two thousand and two, he was just a struggling actor in Hollywood and he was getting a few guest spots on TV shows, landed in a few indie films, but

actually was just scraping by. So he and his friend bought this tiny fixer upper, and the whole idea was really just to have a place to live, and they realized that to make it livable and not to be fighting all the time, they really needed to do a lot of work to the house, so they would do things like at another bathroom. But you know, as they fixed it up, somebody actually came along and offered them way more money than they had put into it, and

they decided to go for it. But they actually enjoyed the process so much and putting the work in that they did it again and again, and since then they've actually made millions of dollars on flipping houses, and that's pretty incredible. I do feel like I keep hearing people talk about flipping houses, and it's been going on since

the two thousands. We should probably get into it. Well, I mean that's the thing, is right, Like everyone does this and tends to lose money, but I like he gets so much joy out of working on the houses. It also, to me, it just sounds like such a romantic idea, like farming or something. It's this idea like that you can work with your hands, you get to make all these repairs and like see the fruits of

your labor. But I remember when one of our friends, who was an architect, decided to try to flip a house with his wife, and she was saying how awful it was that like every day after work that she'd go home and instead of being able to relax and watch TV, they always have like a big counter in their living room where they'd have to work on something. And just how draining that could be. I can imagine.

It just sounds awful. But you know, speaking of hard workers, one celebrity who was a millionaire before he was a famous actor was Arnold Schwarzenegger. And this is when he

was in his early twenties. He moved to the US to get deeper into bodybuilding, and he really didn't have much money at the time, but he and his friend decided to go into business as bricklayers, and basically they figured that in between their gym sessions, which were basically all day, they could do this active labor and keep working on their bodies. And initially they thought they'd win people over by undercutting the competition with these super cheap prices,

but the business did not take off. So then they decided to go the opposite way, and Arnold had this brilliant idea to rebrand themselves as as European bricklayers and Mason re experts European. Yeah, it's bricklaying with an accent, and the whole idea was that you pay more for the European expertise. Anyway, they put this at in the l A Times, and between their own salesmanship and this devastation that happened around the same time from an earthquake,

their business quickly quickly took off. And from there, I guess Schwarzenerger just diversified it into real estate and other ventures, and so he was like actually a millionaire before he was on the silver screen. I had never heard that story. That's pretty cool, all right, Well, I think we've all heard about fifty cent and his fortune that he made from being an early investor in vitamin water. But he's actually also made some money in surprising ways on the

side by taking a chance on a new currency. And of course i'm talking about bitcoin. We're going back to two thousand fourteen. Fifty was one of the first artists to allow people to pay for his album in bitcoin. I mean, if you're fifty cent and you're trying to sell an album in two thousand fourteen, I'm guessing you'll take any sort of money for that record you can get, right, Like, what was the album even called Hey Mago You don't

remember two thousand and fourteen's Animal Ambition. Shame well, he raked in about seven hundred bitcoin and sales in addition to the traditional sales, which really wasn't bad. I mean, I think it was something like four fifty thousand dollars at the time. But then he just left the money there and accidentally let it grow, and that same amount

of money is currently worth over eight million dollars. Now, I love how for someone like eight million dollars probably isn't that much, but how that would obviously be life changing for any of so many pyramids. So, speaking of cryptocurrencies and hip hop artists that I don't think much about today. Quite quite the transition. I'm curious where this sentence goes. It ends with a con. I mean, have you thought about a con because I don't think about him.

But The Independent had this article on him, and our researcher Eves found it for me. Um. But apparently he used to be a part owner in a diamond mind and according to the article, he said, when I went to South Africa, I ran to some guys who owned minds and they were like, Yo, we need a face, we need someone that we can partner with. I became an equal partner and so I guess he's been wholesaling

diamonds to the US ever since. But it's crazy to me because obviously there are all sorts of labor complications with diamonds. But I do believe he's trying to figure out how to make the practice better. And apparently this isn't just like a fad firm. He's always looking at ways to give back to Africa while also make money. So he's of Senegalese descent and he was surprised that he couldn't tour parts of the country because of electricity issues.

So he invested in this company that installs solar street lamps and also creates these solar micro grids. It's called Acon Lighting Africa, and it's been so successful and created so many new jobs that they've actually moved from Senegal into all these other nations. That's super interesting. But you said something about cryptocurrency, right, Yeah, so that's another one of his initiatives. He's launching his own crypto in Africa and working with the Senegalese government to create a coin.

And as you put it, quote, I think that blockchain and crypto could be the savior for Africa in many ways because it brings the power back to the people and does not allow government to do those things that are keeping them down. So he's obviously got a lot of faith in this. He's also working with the President of Senegal to develop two thousand acres of land. It's supposed to be the first crypto based city with a

coins being used as the transactional currency. So it's really interesting experiment and it'll be interesting to see how it develops as well. Definitely. All right, Well, now we've got two facts to go, but before we get to those, let's take a quick break, So we're talking about the unusual ways some famous people made their money. We got one fact left each, So what's your last fact of

the day. So one thing I think is really fun to look at is how entrepreneurs are in their youth because they always seem to be entrepreneurs right, Like, they're always looking for opportunities, they're always just starting different things. And as I was looking for stories, I found this one in Fortune about Mark Cuban. I guess you know, he was absolutely the same as a kid, he wanted a new pair of sneakers, so to make money for that, he, uh, he started selling garbage bags door to door and he

made the money for it. You know, he always had these side businesses. But my favorite one that I read about was that in college used to teach disco dancing in home to people. Like he'd go to people's homes just to teach them. So stiff, but apparently he's very loose on the dance floor. And here's his quote from the story. If you get asked by a bunch of stority girls to come to a sorority house to teach girls how to dance for twenty an hour, you do it.

That is such a Mark Cuban quote if I've ever heard one, and I'm not sure how lucrative it really was for him, but I do like that he was

in demand for his disco skills. All right, Well, my last fact of the day is going to be about Venus Williams, and you know, one of the many things I like about her now and obviously she's made a ton of money playing tennis, but actually if you read about her and Serena growing up on the courts and playing in Compton, it's pretty remarkable, like they used to have to dive on the pavement as drive byes happened. In fact, the courts had been paid for by Freeway.

Rick Ross, you know, the cocaine kingpin, who also happened to be a tennis enthusiast. Was not the traditional country club way to grow up, of course, but Venis obviously grew up to be this insanely successful tennis star. And one of the things she's done with that is to launch an interior design company. It's called v Star. Now, the firm has this insane client list. They do everything from NFL and NBA players, homes, the tennis clubs, residential properties,

but Williams comes by it all honestly. In fact, she has a degree and fashion design from the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, so it isn't just a place to park our money, but something she actually has this very real interest in. Oh, I really love that, and I you know, when you go for Venus Williams Sacks, you know you're going for my heart. I also love that you brought that Freeway Rick Ross story in because that's the story I really want to tell on the show,

because it's so great. Is I do think I'm gonna have to give you the trophy this week? All right, Well, thank you and thank you guys for listening. Also thanks to Eve Jeff Code for coming up with so much of today's research. We'll be back with a full length episode tomorrow