Yahoo Lifestyle 13 Most Interesting Celeb Facts I Learned This Month
As someone who researches a bunch of wild celeb facts as part of my job, I know a lot of super random pop culture facts. However, some tend to stick in my mind more than others, so I want to share the most interesting ones with you!
Here are the 13 wildest celeb facts I learned in January 2025:
1.When Keanu Reeves was little, his mom, Patricia Taylor, was a costume designer who "did a lot of sewing for" Dolly Parton, including her famous Playboy bunny suit. On The Drew Barrymore Show, Dolly said, "She would bring him over to my house when we were fitting or when I would go to the shop where she worked."
They reconnected years later.
2.In 2024, Kevin Bacon told Vanity Fair that he once "went to a special effects makeup artist, had consultations, and asked him to make [him] a prosthetic disguise." Wearing glasses, a fake nose, and fake teeth, he went to The Grove, a mall in Los Angeles, where no one recognized him.
He said, "People were kind of pushing past me, not being nice. Nobody said, 'I love you.' I had to wait in line to, I don't know, buy a fucking coffee or whatever. I was like, 'This sucks. I want to go back to being famous.'"
3.Writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson asked Warren Beatty to play Jack Horner in Boogie Nights, but Paul "realized a couple weeks into it there was a bit of confusion that he thought that [Paul] was asking him to play Dirk Diggler."
In 2018, Paul told Jimmy Kimmel Live, "I sort of realized. 'But you know you're 60?' He's like, 'No, I know, but I think I could do it.'"
Burt Reynolds played Jack Horner, and Mark Wahlberg played Dirk Diggler.
4.In the early stages of her relationship with Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce, Taylor Swift reportedly attended games "privately" without the public knowing.
In 2024, Coach Dave Merritt told the podcast The Best of Sports Shop, "When she started to come around, it was privately. She was coming into the stadiums without people really knowing until the camera put a big spotlight on her."
He also highlighted the positive impact Taylor had on the team.
He continued, "But upon meeting her, I felt like she actually added to what it was that we were trying to do. 'Cause there were so many people that hated the fact she was being shown on TV that, you know what, you're part of our family because you're now with Travis, so therefore, you're our little sister, or you're whatever it may be. You're part of the family. So, what happened was she actually affected the team in a positive way. It wasn't a negative way. Everybody was excited that Travis was happy."
5.Harry Styles and former Little Mix member JADE "went on like one date" when they were about 16. It was around the time he was put in One Direction on The X Factor. They "kept in touch" until he ghosted her.
Dimitrios Kambouris / Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue, Jeff Spicer / Jeff Spicer/Getty Images
In 2025, Jade told The Louis Theroux Podcast, "Then the minute they went on live shows, he didn't message me back, and I thought, 'That's it now, he's gone, he's made it.' And then I made it [on The X Factor] the next year, and then I saw him in the room after, and he was like, 'I'm really sorry that I ignored you.'..I was so young, it didn't really matter. But he was always very, very lovely."
6.Taskmaster host Greg Davies is 6'8".
Here he is next to his Taskmaster costar, Alex Horne, who's 6'2'".
7.Jada Pinkett Smith is 4'11".
Here she is next to her daughter, Willow Smith, who's 5'7".
8.In 2024, Glen Powell decided to take Matthew McConaughey's advice and move home to Austin, Texas to be close to his family and finish college after dropping out more than 15 years ago.
He told The Hollywood Reporter, "He's like, 'Hollywood is the Matrix, man. You plug in, and it's all fake world.' He's like, 'Then I go to Austin, and I unplug. It's all real. Those are my friends, that's my family, my actions matter there.' And he's right. If you're here, you live in the Matrix all the time, there's no separation of those worlds. And for me, especially as my parents get older and my niece and nephew are growing up, I want a separation of those worlds."
9.In 2022, Amy Schumer revealed that her Life & Beth costar Michael Cera and his wife Nadine had welcomed a baby, telling Entertainment Tonight, "Michael has a baby, too. Is that public knowledge?...I just outed him, I just outed his baby."
A few days later, Michael told Extra, "He's just a little 6-month-old baby."
10.Michael Sheen moved back to Port Talbot, Wales in 2018. He first began considering relocation seven years prior when he played Jesus in a local three-day-long performance of the Passion alongside residents who were dealing with the increasing cost of living and job losses.
He told the Sunday Times, "Once you become aware of difficulties in the area you come from, you don't have to do anything. You can live somewhere else, visit family at Christmas, and turn a blind eye to injustice. It doesn't make you a bad person, but I'd seen something I couldn't unsee. I had to apply myself, and I might not have the impact I'd like, but the one thing that I can say is that I'm doing stuff. I know I am — I'm paying for it!"
11.When they were 17, Brandy and Kobe Bryant met at the 1996 Essence Awards. Soon after, he asked her to prom.
In 1996, Brandy told the New York Daily News, "He asked me to go to the prom with him, and since he was a nice guy…I asked my mom, and she said yes."
In 2020, Ashley Pietropaolo, Kobe's high school classmate, told the Philadelphia Inquirer, "We were in English class together, and he had one of those teen magazines, and it had a picture of Brandy because she was on that show, Moesha. He showed me, and he said, 'I'm gonna bring this girl to prom.' And I was like, 'Whatever, you're crazy.' Every day, he would be like, 'I'm bringing this girl to prom.'"
12.Jenny Slate shut down longstanding rumors that she was fired from Saturday Night Live a decade prior after accidentally swearing during a live broadcast. She told InStyle, "By the way, everyone always thinks I got fired for saying fuck: I didn't, that's not why I got fired. I just didn't belong there. I didn't do a good job, I didn't click. I have no idea how Lorne felt about me. All I know is, it didn't work for me, and I got fired."
She continued, "I am a woman who has made so much of her own work, and I've had a variety of successes — some small, some personal, some public. I'm a New York Times best-selling children's author, all of this stuff that is so intentional and worthy, but people often want to frame my success as an ascent from one failure that was the decision of some man who didn't understand me 10 years ago. I just wonder, if I were a man, would people be so obsessed with the fact that I said a swear?"
Here's the clip she was referring to:
13.And finally, Christopher Lee's step-cousin, James Bond author Ian Fleming, reportedly said the actor's days as a WWII spy inspired him to create the iconic super spy.
During WWII, Christopher served as part of the Special Air Service in the British Army. He reportedly declined to talk about his experiences in the war because he'd agreed to never publicly discuss the SAS's classified operations. He was reportedly extremely skilled at decoding German ciphers, returned to duty after six bouts of malaria, conducted espionage missions, etc. Most of his service records reportedly remain classified.
What's the most interesting pop culture fact you've learned recently? Let me know in the comments!
