These Celebrities Are Running Multi-Million Dollar Businesses On The Side, And We Don’t Even Know It

The definition of a celebrity is a person who is extremely famous and commands a significant influence due to his or her work in the media, regardless of the medium. These days, even bloggers have become celebrities thanks to the growing popularity of social media platforms like Instagram.

However, many of our favorite celebrities are entrepreneurs as well. In fact, you’d be surprised at the kind of success some of the following celebrities have experienced with their business ventures.

The Honest Company

You would not imagine someone like Jessica Alba, the actress who has given us remarkable performances in super-hit films such as Fantastic Four as well as Sin City, to be the owner of a successful business venture which goes by the name of The Honest Company. According to reports, Alba was inspired to start up this business after suffering from a reaction caused by the use of laundry detergent.

In an effort to provide high-quality products which were free of any hidden ingredients, Alba launched the Honest Company back in the year 2011, and as of today, the company sells over 100 products that are free of any toxic material in various categories including diapers as well as household cleaners.

Of course, Alba’s company is not free from controversy as well. The company has been hit with lawsuits that have questioned the effectiveness and the ingredients of some of its products. However, they have clearly not impacted business as The Honest Company is valued at around $1.7 billion with a revenue of $300 million back in 2016.

Jessica Alba’s business The Honest Company has been doing very well ever since its launch

Casamigos

You might have heard of Casamigos, but did you know that this tequila brand was co-created and owned by the extremely successful Hollywood actor George Clooney before being sold to Diageo. Apparently, the deal struck by Clooney with Diageo earned him an amazing $700 million at the time of sale, with another $300 million contingent upon the brand crossing its pre-set sales targets for the next ten years.

Casamigos tequila was developed by Clooney in collaboration with Rande Gerber, who is an entrepreneur, and the two launched the company after partnering up with Mile Meldman, who is a mogul in the real estate industry. The brand has performed very well, with reported sales figures of 120,000 cases in 2016 and the same growing up to approximately 170,000 in 2017.

Apart from his amazingly successful career in the entertainment industry, George Clooney has shown he has what it takes to build a billion-dollar brand as well

Pacific Standard, Draper James, and Hello Sunshine

Reese Witherspoon is considered to be one of the A-list Hollywood celebrities, but that is not all she does. The Legally Blonde actress has a raging entrepreneurial spirit within her as well and has been starting up businesses on the side of her acting career. Back in 2012, Witherspoon co-started a production company by the name of Pacific Standard. You can gauge its success by the fact that this production house went on to develop amazing films including Wild as well as Gone Girl, to name a couple.

Another business she started is called Draper James, clothing as well as a lifestyle brand which captured the interest of Forerunner Ventures, a capital market company, which agreed to invest a sizeable $10 million into the startup. Although we don’t have the company’s sales figures to assess its profitability, the fact that it got Nordstrom to agree to sell its variety on its stores is success enough.

Reese Witherspoon has embraced her entrepreneurial side quite flawlessly

But Witherspoon’s entrepreneurial goals were apparently still not satisfied and so she went on to launch Hello Sunshine, a firm focusing on multimedia and aiming to promote women-centric works on visual mediums such as film and TV. Last we checked, Hello Sunshine was converting the novels Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine as well as Something in the Water, both of which have been written by female authors.

Latin World Entertainment and Raze

You may know Sofia Vergara from her epic performance in Modern Family, but she is a very successful businesswoman as well. Back in 1994, Vergara launched Latin World Entertainment with Luis Balaguer as marketing, licensing, as well as a production company.

Afterward, Vergara recognized the need to promote content which was Latin-centered on multiple platforms, and hence, together with Balaguer and Emiliano Calemzuk (former president, Fox TV studios), she launched Raze, a media company through which multiple shows have already been made.