Celebrities Facts

John Cena has granted more Make-A-Wish requests than any person in the foundation's history - 650 wishes, a Guinness World Record. No other celebrity has ever reached 400. He started in 2002, hit 500 in 2015, and his total is more than three times higher than anyone else who has ever tried. 'There is no more humbling experience,' he said, 'than a child who could ask for anything in the world asking to meet me.'

Taylor Swift's first six albums' masters sold to Scooter Braun's company for $330 million - and she couldn't buy them back. So she re-recorded them from scratch, and every 'Taylor's Version' hit number one. In 2025 she bought the originals back anyway for $360 million. She owns everything now.

Tyler Perry bought a former US Army base in Atlanta for $30 million and turned it into Tyler Perry Studios - bigger than Disney, Warner Bros., and Paramount combined. He built an 80%-scale White House replica for his BET series "The Oval." In 2023, the Secret Service used it for training because they lacked their own facility.

Geena Davis picked up a bow at 41 after watching the 1996 Olympics. She had no background in competitive sports. She practiced up to six hours a day. Two years later, she made the semifinals of the U.S. Olympic trials for Sydney 2000. About 300 women competed for a team spot.

Brian May, lead guitarist of Queen, spent more than 30 years finishing his PhD in astrophysics - then NASA put him on the OSIRIS-REx team. He used his 3D imaging skills to pick the landing spot on asteroid Bennu. The probe touched down in 2020, grabbed a sample, and that piece of Bennu reached Earth in 2023.

Serena Williams was booed throughout her 2001 Indian Wells final. Her father said the crowd directed racial slurs at him from the stands. She refused to return for 14 years. When she finally returned in 2015, the crowd gave her a standing ovation. She cried.

George Michael spent decades secretly giving away millions - and almost nobody knew until he died in 2016. He paid a stranger's £15,000 IVF bill after seeing her cry on Deal or No Deal, and donated £100,000 every Easter to charity via anonymous phone-ins. The woman he helped named her son Seth George in his honour.

Tom Cruise spotted a burning yacht off Capri, Italy while vacationing with Nicole Kidman in 1996. He ordered his yacht's skiff out and his crew pulled five people to safety - including a seven-year-old girl - minutes before the boat sank. The world's biggest action star had just performed a real rescue.

Shaggy's growling singing voice wasn't natural - he built it mocking his Marine Corps drill instructors to make his platoon laugh. Sergeants started calling him forward to lead cadences. The growl stuck. He served four years as a cannon crewman and deployed to the Gulf War in 1991. "I got this voice by mocking drill instructors in the military."

Ed O'Neill, TV's Al Bundy and Jay Pritchett, holds a real Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt. He started training with Rorion Gracie in 1991, at age 45. Gracie promoted him himself after sixteen years of quiet, weekly sessions. O'Neill was 61 years old. He is reportedly the only non-family black belt Rorion has ever awarded.

Sylvester Stallone painted Rocky before he wrote him. In 1975, broke and typecast as a movie villain, he painted a self-portrait called "Finding Rocky." He carved the eyes with a screwdriver to get the sadness right. The script came later. Stallone never stopped painting after that. In 2021, Germany's Osthaus Museum Hagen gave him his full museum retrospective. Nearly 50 canvases, timed to his 75th birthday.

Gordon Ramsay finished the 2013 Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii. The world's angriest chef swam 2.4 miles in the open ocean, biked 112 miles, then ran a full marathon, all in one day. He crossed the finish line in 14 hours and 4 minutes. And it was no stunt. He had already run 10 London Marathons in a row.

Alice Cooper got sober in 1983 by trading one addiction for another. In rehab, he took up golf. He played 36 holes a day, every single day, for a year, always with club pros. The new habit replaced the drinking for good. He still tees off six days a week at 5:30am. He once seriously considered playing a pro tournament in full stage makeup.

Manny Pacquiao was boxing's reigning WBO welterweight champion. He was also a sitting congressman in the Philippines. Then he became head coach of a pro basketball team, Kia Sorento. He used the job to draft himself 11th overall, at age 35. His debut drew a record crowd of 52,612 fans. He played seven minutes and scored zero points.

Phil Collins fell in love with the Alamo at age 5, watching Disney's Davy Crockett on TV in London. The Genesis drummer spent decades secretly building the world's largest private collection of Alamo artifacts, more than 430 pieces worth tens of millions. In 2014 he gave every single one to Texas, for free.

Steve Martin has won more Grammy Awards for playing the banjo than for being funny. The comedy legend picked up two Grammys for his 1970s stand-up albums, including "A Wild and Crazy Guy." His music has earned him three more Grammys. That includes a recording with Earl Scruggs and his solo album "The Crow." Steve Martin has won more Grammys for music than for comedy, three to two.

Frankie Muniz became famous playing Malcolm on Malcolm in the Middle. When the show ended, he left Hollywood to chase a different dream. Today he races full-time in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, driving the No. 33 truck for Team Reaume. He finished top 10 at Daytona in his rookie season. He just re-signed for a full-time 2026 season.

Jessica Alba co-founded The Honest Company in 2011 after struggling to find safe, non-toxic products for her first child. The company went public on Nasdaq in May 2021 at a $1.44 billion valuation - and at closing that day, her founder stake was worth roughly $130 million.