From Kanye West To Blake Lively: 10 Celebrity Business Ventures That Never Quite Took Off

It’s easy for us civilians to assume that celebs have had an easy rise to the top, but more often than not, they’ve actually had to work through their fair share of failures before latching onto a winning concept. 
 
Proving that the key to triumph is going from failure to failure without any loss of enthusiasm, A-Lister's including Jay Z, Kanye West, and Britney Spears have invested serious dollars in business ventures that can only be described as a flop.

Let's get checking out a bunch of the most shocking secrets celebs have ever revealed about themselves...

Kanye West's fashion line

The best thing about Kanye West is that he has enough self-confidence to take over the entire world, galaxy, and solar system all at the same time. While he’s definitely a major player in the fashion world today, Ye’s 2009 Pastelle clothing collection was cancelled just two days after images of the products were released online. Not exactly the smoothest launch week in history.

Jennifer Lopez’s restaurant and fashion line 

Jenny From The Block proved that she’s literally unstoppable after bouncing back from not one, but two failed side-projects. First up, her Latin restaurant in California closed after a pretty solid six years in business, while her Sweetface fashion line was discontinued in 2008 after a period of disappointing sales. Boo.

Pharrell Williams’s liqueur

Assuming that the ageless singer is actually a vampire who’s been knocking around for about 500 years (evidence: here) it makes sense that Pharrell would be familiar with backing a dud idea every now and then. 

In 2011, he launched a liqueur called Qream with a Q that was aimed at “independent and successful women.” Sales weren’t particularly fantastic, and the whole thing crashed to a halt when Pharrell sued drinks company Diageo for failing to market the product properly.

Jay Z’s hotel

That's right, even Jay Z can't turn everything into gold. He lost millions (which, in fairness, is probably only about 0.0000001% of his total earnings) on a luxury hotel investment in the Big Apple that failed to materialise. The whole siutation can be best described by this GIF. 

Blake Lively’s website

Following the success of Gwnyeth Paltrow’s lifestyle website Goop, Blake decided to follow suit with her own digital magazine and e-commerce website, Preserve. The site launched in 2014 and lasted little over a year before she admitted it wasn't quite working out. Blake still has plans to relaunch the brand in the future, so watch this space.

Britney Spears’s restaurant

What is it about A-Listers' opening doomed restaurants? Britney was only 21-years-old when she decided to open an eatery in Manhatten called Nyla. After a few health code violations and some pretty bad publicity, the business closed down just six months after its star-studded launch day. 

The Kardashian Kard

Kim, Khloe and Kourtney might be rolling in their combined multi-millions these days, but back in 2010 they were forced to ditch a prepaid debit card that was widely slammed by financial experts. Breaking some kind of record, the Kardashian Kard vanished into the abyss three weeks after it first launched. The less said about that, the better. 

Steven Spielberg’s submarine

Well technically, it's another restaurant. To give credit to Spielberg, he put that incredible imagination to good use by launching an eatery shaped in the form of a giant yellow submarine. Go figure. Despite opening braches in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, Dive! officially closed down in 1999 after a period of poor sales.

Eva Longoria’s restaurant

Everyone’s favourite Desperate Housewife attempted to launch a sister branch for her Hollywood restaurant, Beso. The Las Vegas premises even boasted an upstairs nightclub, but it wasn’t long before the numbers took a nosedive. Another attempt to open a steakhouse in Sin City went in the same direction when SHe Restaurant shut up shop in 2014.

The Fashion Café

Claudia Schiffer, Christy Turlington, Elle MacPherson, and Naomi Campbell put their heads together in the 90s to launch a themed restaurant centred around, you guessed it, fashion. The concept didn’t translate into $$$ and The Fashion Cafe was ditched three years after its debut.

Ce'st la vie. Failure is not fatal.