You must have been living under a rock for the last eight years if you haven’t heard of Emily Ratajkowski. She burst onto Irish screens everywhere in Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines music video and has made several cameo performances in films and TV. shows since. Her most famous appearances have come in Gone Girl alongside Ben Affleck and the Entourage Movie opposite Adrian Grenier. She is also a model, activist and seems like a properly sound person.
Most people mightn’t know that Ratajkowski spent her childhood summers on holidays in Bantry, Co. Cork! She has spoken to several publications about her love for Ireland and Bantry in particular.
Her grá for the place has obviously stayed with her over the years. Emily agreed to sponsor the Bantry boys U-15/16 basketball team for the coming year! A seemingly innocuous tweet that looked like a joke turned out to be 100% true. Pat Curran, speaking to RTÉ, who coaches the team, said that he texted Emily’s parents and asked if she would sponsor the team. Apparently, the star responded ‘yes’ with in five minutes!
Now, given the facts and the context, this might not actually be that strange a sponsorship, but it got me thinking about other times we’ve seen a star endorse something that made us scratch our heads. Here’s my top 5 strangest celebrity endorsements!
- Cristiano Ronaldo, KFC Arabia
This is strange from the get go because we all know that not a morsel of Kentucky Fried Chicken has entered Ronaldo’s mouth. In 2013 he starred in an ad promoting the fast food brand in the Middle East. This was brought back into the public interest recently during Euro 2020 when Ronaldo snubbed two bottles of Coca-Cola, an official sponsor of the tournament, and said he preferred ‘agua’, whatever that is.
2. Everton Football Club, Angry Birds
Nothing too strange about a modern football club striking up a partnership with a global mobile phone game brand, but when you see the Angry Birds on the sleeve of a grown man celebrating a tap-in it makes it ten times stranger/funnier.
3. Ryan Reynolds & Rob McElhenny, Wrexham F.C.
OK, not an endorsement at all but still strange and hilarious. The Deadpool and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia stars bought the third oldest club in the world and promised to invest at least £2 million to turn the club into a ‘global force’, according to BBC Wales.
They have made some hilarious videos online to promote their takeover. Who knows? Maybe we will see Wrexham become the football heroes they were always meant to be!
4. John Michael Higgins, 123.ie Insurance
Leaning away from the sports endorsements, a brilliant comedic actor is appearing on our screens floggin car insurance! John Michael Higgins is one of the most recognisable character actors in Hollywood. You may not have even known his name before reading this post. I had to look up his actual name despite loving him as the patronising co-commentator in Pitch Perfect or Jim Carrey’s inspiration to say ‘yes’ to everything in Yes, Man.
I’m not quite sure how he landed his most recent role but it still startles me every time I see him talk about paper and strawberry jams!
5. Joey Tribbiani, Ichiban Lipstick for Men
The modelling and acting world of Manhattan was shocked to its core back in 2003 when Joey Tribbiani appeared in an ad modelling a Japanese company’s lipstick exclusively for men. Tribbian’s career never fully recovered from the commercial failure of this campaign and he eventually moved to L.A. in a shroud of anonymity.