Stars Who Have Worked in Fast Food: Chris Pratt, Megan Fox and More

Credit: Courtesy Chris Pratt/Instagram; Carlos Tischler/Shutterstock

Stars Who Have Worked in Fast Food: Chris Pratt, Megan Fox and More

From fast food to famous! Several of today’s biggest stars got their start working at McDonald’s, Burger King and the like before ultimately hitting it big. [ami-related id="1286129" url="https://www.usmagazine.com/food/pictures/savage-fast-food-tweets/" title="Savage Fast Food Tweets" target="" showsubt="false" thumb="false" imgsrc="https://www.usmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/savage-fast-food-tweets.jpg"] For many, however, their stints in the world of french fries, ice cream and more were short-lived, because they inherently knew they were meant to be going down a different path. Take Nicki Minaj for example. The rapper worked at multiple Red Lobster locations and was fired from each one before beginning a successful music career. “I walked up to this lady. Her and her boyfriend had walked out of the restaurant and they took my pen and they didn’t tip me,” the “Super Bass” rapper told Jimmy Fallon on his late-night talk show of why she got let go from one Reg Lobster gig. “I walked to the car, I banged on the car window and I said: ‘Gimmie my pen!’” As if that wasn’t bad enough, Minaj then gave the couple the middle finger and was fired “on the spot” by her angry manager. [jwplayer ZJNBMein-l3ahXupL] For Chris Pratt, working at Bubba Gump Shrimp Company was a way to earn money while trying to make it as an actor. The Parks and Rec alum opened up about his experience in a February 2019 Instagram post, recalling that he ate “thousands of shrimp” from customers’ plates. Despite making millions per movie now, Pratt concluded his post by encouraging his followers to be generous with those in the food service industry. “Please tip your server. Leave at least 20 percent,” he wrote. “Also leave some shrimp.” Scroll down to see more celebrities who worked in fast food before finding fame!

Credit: Courtesy Chris Pratt/Instagram; Carlos Tischler/Shutterstock

Stars Who Have Worked in Fast Food: Chris Pratt, Megan Fox and More

From fast food to famous! Several of today’s biggest stars got their start working at McDonald’s, Burger King and the like before ultimately hitting it big. [ami-related id="1286129" url="https://www.usmagazine.com/food/pictures/savage-fast-food-tweets/" title="Savage Fast Food Tweets" target="" showsubt="false" thumb="false" imgsrc="https://www.usmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/savage-fast-food-tweets.jpg"] For many, however, their stints in the world of french fries, ice cream and more were short-lived, because they inherently knew they were meant to be going down a different path. Take Nicki Minaj for example. The rapper worked at multiple Red Lobster locations and was fired from each one before beginning a successful music career. “I walked up to this lady. Her and her boyfriend had walked out of the restaurant and they took my pen and they didn’t tip me,” the “Super Bass” rapper told Jimmy Fallon on his late-night talk show of why she got let go from one Reg Lobster gig. “I walked to the car, I banged on the car window and I said: ‘Gimmie my pen!’” As if that wasn’t bad enough, Minaj then gave the couple the middle finger and was fired “on the spot” by her angry manager. [jwplayer ZJNBMein-l3ahXupL] For Chris Pratt, working at Bubba Gump Shrimp Company was a way to earn money while trying to make it as an actor. The Parks and Rec alum opened up about his experience in a February 2019 Instagram post, recalling that he ate “thousands of shrimp” from customers’ plates. Despite making millions per movie now, Pratt concluded his post by encouraging his followers to be generous with those in the food service industry. “Please tip your server. Leave at least 20 percent,” he wrote. “Also leave some shrimp.” Scroll down to see more celebrities who worked in fast food before finding fame!

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Kim Zolciak

The Real Housewives of Atlanta alum opened up about her fast food past during a visit to her hometown of Windsor Locks, Connecticut, in February 2020. During the trip, she stopped by the Subway restaurant where she worked and took a photo in front of it. "Stopped by the Subway I worked at!! My first job!!" she captioned the snap. “I got fired all the time for giving my friends free food.” The Don’t Be Tardy star then posed in front of a nearby McDonald’s and said via another Instagram post, “2nd job was right here at this McDonald’s!! I use to stand outside in this little ass booth the size of a telephone booth and take orders.”

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Margot Robbie

The Bombshell star worked as a sandwich artist at Subway before coming to Hollywood and, as she recalled, she had a knack for making a tasty meal. “I think I was really good at it though, because I, you know, would really spread everything out to the edges evenly — the right amount of everything," she said on an episode of Hot Ones that debuted in February 2020. The Oscar nominee added that her perfectionist tendencies have kept her from visiting the chain today. "It kills me," she admitted. "Like, I actually don't go that often anymore because I watch them make it badly — and I'm upset.”

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Busy Philipps

The Cougar Town alum started working at California Pizza Kitchen at 15, which she credits with giving her the strong work ethic that has allowed her to succeed in Hollywood. Still, the star was able to leave the fast-food biz behind after a few years once she landed a role in the pilot for Freaks and Geeks. “Even through my teen years, when I was going to raves in the ’90s and didn’t sleep for a long period of time, I would still roll on in to seat people and make sure they got their barbecue chicken pizzas on time,” she said at the Teen Vogue Summit in November 2019.

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Madonna

The Material Girl’s stint in the fast-food industry was ridiculously short-lived. After moving to New York City and nabbing a job at Dunkin’ Donuts (now just Dunkin’) the singer was fired in the middle of her first day for reportedly squirting jelly filling all over a customer.

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Chris Pratt

“Twenty years ago I was a waiter at Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. Every time I go back I’m reminded of the thousands of shrimp I ate off of people’s plates on the way back to the kitchen,” the Guardians of the Galaxy star captioned an Instagram photo of himself at his old stomping grounds in February 2019. “Please tip your server. Leave at least 20 percent,” he added. “Also leave some shrimp.”

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Nicki Minaj

The “Anaconda” rapper opened up about her fast-food past during a trip to her former employer, Red Lobster, with Jimmy Fallon in June 2019. “I have worked at a couple different Red Lobsters and I’ve gotten fired from all three or four of them,” she told the Saturday Night Live alum. When Fallon later pressed for more details, Minaj revealed she got the axe from one of her stints after chasing customers who had stolen her pen (and opted not to leave a tip) to their car. She also gave them the middle finger. “My manager fired me on the spot,” she recalled.

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Rachel McAdams

The Mean Girls alum worked at McDonald’s for three years before making it big, but she wasn’t exactly employee of the month. “I was not a great employee; I broke the orange juice machine one day,” she explained in 2012, adding that some of her OCD tendencies meant that she was often washing her hands instead of taking orders at the drive-through window. Despite her lackluster performance, McAdams called the Golden Arches "a great place to work."

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Andy Grammer

The “Don’t Give Up on Me” singer is another McDonald’s alum. During an appearance on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen in October 2017, the crooner revealed he once worked at McDonald’s in his hometown of Chester, New York. “I make a mean McFlurry,” he declared.

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Tamra Judge

Before she found fame on The Real Housewives of Orange County, the reality star earned some money in the fast-food biz. “I worked at Burger King for two years, from age 16 to 18,” she told Us Weekly.

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Barack Obama

The former Commander in Chief’s first job was working at Baskin-Robbins in Honolulu, Hawaii. ”[It] wasn't exactly glamorous, but it taught me some valuable lessons,” the future politician later said of the minimum-wage position. “Responsibility. Hard work. Balancing a job with friends, family and school.”

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Busy Philipps

During a guest-hosting gig on Live with Kelly and Ryan, the Cougartown alum recalled working as a hostess at California Pizza Kitchen in high school. “It was the golden era of CPK, really,” she said. “And I ate free every time I worked. The servers weirdly got a discount, but they would give the host/hostess a free meal every time they worked. Maybe because we weren’t getting paid much.”

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Piper Perabo

While seated next to Gordon Ramsay on The Late Late Show With James Corden in March 2019, the Angel Has Fallen star, who previously worked as a waitress, admitted she probably wouldn’t last a day at one of the celebrity chef’s restaurants. “Waitressing is very difficult,” she said. “I had to wear heels and I spilled a chocolate martini on somebody once … I had to pay for her dry cleaning.”

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Nick Cannon

When the America’s Got Talent judge was just 17, he got a job at Weinerschitzel to help his mom “make ends meet.” However, the gig didn’t last long because of Cannon’s natural comedic abilities. “I ended up getting fired because I was playing on the intercom system at the drive-thru, telling jokes,” he explained to MTV.

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James Franco

In 2015, the Pineapple Express star wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post about his experience working at McDonald’s as a teenager. “I started eating the cheeseburgers that were headed for the trash after being under the warming lamps for more than seven minutes," he dished. "I would also sneak frozen apple bars and eat them in the freezer, still frozen — great with coffee." Franco also used the job to hone his camera-ready skills, as he would often put on fake accents with customers to practice for scenes in his acting class.

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Russell Simmons

The entrepreneur spent a month working at Orange Julius when he was in high school. "I got $2.25 an hour, as I remember,” he told Forbes in 2006. “I was fired after a month, so I learned you need to be inspired about work.”

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Pharrell Williams

Like Simmons, the record producer also had trouble holding down a job in the fast-food industry. In fact, he managed to get the boot from three different McDonald’s locations before making it big in the music biz. "I was lazy. I was very lazy," he told Seth Meyers in 2015. According to the “Happy” singer, the only thing he was ever good at while working there "was eating Chicken McNuggets."

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Amy Adams

Before getting into showbiz, the future Oscar nominee worked at Hooters. "I was like, 18, so everybody has the body at 18," she dished on the red carpet prior to the 2015 Golden Globe Awards. “It was a great job out of high school. I was a hostess at first and then I waited tables for a while, and it was great. It was a great way for me to earn money for a car.”

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Jenna Fischer

The Office alum took to Instagram in January 2017 to open up about the importance of hard work. In the process, she shared a snapshot her teenage self behind a cash register and mentioned her fast-food past. “Me at one of my first jobs running the register at Long John Silver's. I got my first job sweeping out dog kennels at 15 and I've been working ever since. I've worked at a car wash, ice creamery, telemarketing, soda factory, data entry, and probably a billion receptionist jobs,” she wrote. “My parents taught me that if I wanted something I had to work for it and earn my own money. I'm so thankful for this lesson as it has served me well in my life.”

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Eva Mendes

“I was one of those kids who couldn't wait to get my work permit,” the 2 Fast 2 Furious star told The Wall Street Journal in 2011. She promptly began earning money at 15 with a series of food-related jobs. “I worked at this pizza/pasta place in the mall and it was great. It was called Ciao,” she recalled. “Then I got hired at Hot Dog on a Stick, another food place in the mall.”

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Megan Fox

During an appearance on The Ellen Show in 2012, the Transformers star admitted that the only “real” job she ever had was dressing up in a banana costume when she worked for a smoothie shop in Florida. "I mostly worked behind the register,” she said. “But once a week, usually on Fridays, someone had to dress up as a piece of fruit and go and stand out by the highway. I was a banana. A giant banana.”

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Eva Longoria

In a November 2016 interview, the Desperate Housewives alum talked about how getting a job at Wendy’s as a teenager was an empowering experience for her. “I wanted to have a Quinceañera when I was 15 and my family didn’t have the money, so I got a job at Wendy’s and paid for it myself,” she told Redbook. “I couldn’t wait to get to work and make my own money.”