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Celebrities Who Regret Their Stage Names
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00:00Choosing the name the world will know you by is a big decision. It's hard to change again.
00:06Which actor had her name changed without her consent? And what band
00:10changed its name because of race implications? Keep watching to find out.
00:15When all is said and done, Nicki Minaj's name will probably go down in history,
00:19mainly because she was one of the first female rappers to be successful after
00:23there was a long drought of women not being in the hip-hop spotlight.
00:27But if Minaj had it her way, her real name, Onika Tanya Mirage, would go down in history,
00:32not her rap moniker. That's because, during a 2010 interview with Trinidad and Tobago Newsday,
00:38the rapper said she didn't care for the name Minaj, while also explaining its origin. She said,
00:44"'I was always called Nicki at home, so I was known as Nicki Minaj, but my first
00:49producer did not like Minaj and thought Minaj sounded better. I still hate the name and I
00:54was going to go back to Mirage on the album, but people told me no because my fans like it.'"
00:58Minaj also spoke to The Guardian in 2017 about her stage name and gave a bit more detail about the
01:04disagreement that she had with her producer about it. During that interview, she said they
01:09argued at the same time she was about to sign a production deal and fought tooth and nail to
01:14keep her real name, but gave in. However, the New York-raised artist also said that Nicki Minaj is
01:19far different from who she really is, and she uses that reasoning to justify the name switch.
01:24She explained,
01:26"'I feel it's like one big theater piece.'"
01:33Since George Floyd's tragic death, many in the United States began re-examining their
01:38position on race to make sure they weren't unintentionally doing anything that would
01:42be considered insensitive or flat-out racist. The country group Lady Antebellum was among the
01:48people who said the national conversation on race had an impact on them, and they changed
01:52their band name to Lady A. Why? Well, the dictionary definition of the word antebellum is
01:58existing before a war, and in the U.S., it's usually associated with the pre-Civil War South,
02:04where slavery was still legal. That's an association the band's members wanted nothing to do with,
02:09which they confirmed in a statement. The band wrote on Instagram on June 11, 2020,
02:15"'We are regretful and embarrassed to say that we did not take into account the associations
02:20that weigh down this word referring to the period of history before the Civil War,
02:24which includes slavery.'"
02:26In that same statement, the group said they got their name from the southern antebellum-style
02:31home where they took their first photos. And since the name change, many have praised Lady A,
02:36which probably makes its members feel better about the band and possibly themselves.
02:41Anne Hathaway may have a name that's associated with successful films such as The Princess Diaries
02:47movies, The Devil Wears Prada, and Les Miserables, which got her an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
02:53But Hathaway would rather have those movies associated with another name because she doesn't
02:57like her own, which she admitted in January of 2021 on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon.
03:03According to Hathaway, when she was a teenage actor, she gave someone her birth name,
03:08not believing it would be the official stage name she'd be using for the rest of her career.
03:13She explained,
03:14"'When I was 14 years old, I did a commercial and I had to get my SAG card. And they asked me,
03:19"'What do you want your name to be?' And I was like,
03:21"'Well, it should be my name. My name's Anne Hathaway.' So that seemed like the right choice,
03:26but it never occurred to me that for the rest of my life, people will call me Anne."
03:30"'The only person who ever calls me Anne is my mother,
03:32and she only does it when she's really mad at me. Like, really mad."
03:35So that makes the actor feel like she's in big trouble whenever someone uses that name in public.
03:41"'What? What did I do?'
03:43Hathaway said most everyone in her personal life called her Annie,
03:47and she wished others would either call her that or something else. Just not Anne."
03:52Here's the thing about being a child entertainer. Often, that person doesn't want to do the same
03:57thing anymore after outgrowing their cute image. But in Bow Wow's case, he outgrew his name,
04:03which he addressed on Instagram in 2014. He wrote in the caption,
04:07"'Announcement. After BET Awards, I will no longer go by Bow Wow. I'm going by my real name,
04:13Shad Moss. We made a lot of history as Bow Wow. Now it's time for the next chapter and challenge.
04:19Bow Wow does not fit who I am today. I'm a father, businessman, TV host, actor, and rapper. Time for
04:26Mr. Moss to take over."
04:28But despite the rapper wanting to use his real name in entertainment, it doesn't seem that people
04:33ever stopped using Bow Wow, whether it's journalists, radio people, or show promoters.
04:38Proof of the latter came in 2018 when Bow toured with his former SoSoDeaf labelmates,
04:43and 2014 wasn't the only time the rapper changed his name. He also made the switch from Lil Bow to
04:49Bow Wow in 2002 at 15 years old. He said at that time, according to MTV,
04:54"'I changed my name because I'm getting older now and it's too many Lils. All these Lil rappers.
05:00I'm just kind of getting real irritated by it. I'm Bow Wow. Besides, I'm growing up. I'm not little
05:05anymore.'"
05:06It took 20 years for Hoobastank's Doug Robb to realize that he regrets the band name that he chose.
05:12In January of 2021, he posted a video of himself mouthing the words to Hoobastank's 2004 hit single,
05:19The Reason, to explain why he went with the strange name. He lip-synced,
05:23I'm not a perfect person. And along with the video, Robb wrote,
05:27realizing 20 years later that you named your band Hoobastank. So where did the name come from?
05:33Germany, to be specific, and it all had to do with a mispronunciation.
05:37Hoobastank drummer Chris Hess said during a 2003 interview with The Post star,
05:42Doug's brother happens to be the vice president of BMW motorcycles in Germany.
05:47Outside of where he lives is the street, Hoobastreet. Before Doug could pronounce the name,
05:52he called it Hoobastank, and his brother still teases him about it.
05:56Martin Sheen, who was born Ramon Estevez, changed his real name of Hispanic origin to something more
06:02American-sounding to appease casting agents. It's something he talked about with James Lipton
06:08on Inside the Actor's Studio in 2003. He said,
06:11It's still Estevez, officially. I never changed it. I never will.
06:15It's on my driver's license and passport and everything. In fact,
06:19one of my great regrets is that I didn't keep my name as it was given to me."
06:23In 2019, Sheen's son Emilio Estevez, who chose to keep his birth name as an actor,
06:28said he did so with the advice of his father. Emilio explained to Talkstoop that his father told him,
06:34Don't make the same mistake I made. Marcus Mumford, lead singer of the English
06:39rock band Mumford & Sons, wasn't thinking about the future when he chose a band name,
06:44which is something he now regrets. He told NME in 2015,
06:48I definitely regret the band name. If I'd known it was going to go this way,
06:52I would've wanted to call it anything other than my last name. We thought about changing it,
06:56but it's a bit late now. Mumford also said something similar about a year later on Radio X,
07:02calling the band name Rubbish. He stated,
07:05I regret our band name. You never really think about it when you're in the pub. You've done your
07:09first rehearsal, you've written your first song, and someone's like, you need a band name now.
07:14Yosin Bey, the rapper known formerly as Most Def, burst onto the rap scene in 1998.
07:20The talented lyricist shot to global fame, and not only from music, but he also had a successful
07:26acting career. Along the way, however, Bey grew tired of the Most Def name and what he felt it
07:32represented, so he changed it. He told GQ in 2012,
07:36I began to fear that Most Def was being treated as a product, not a person,
07:40so I've been going by Yosin since 99. At first it was just for friends and family,
07:45but now I'm declaring it openly. And in 2021,
07:48Bey spoke on the People's Party podcast and talked about the specific moment that he decided to change
07:54his name. I was at the airport once that I was coming out of the terminal, coming out of the gate,
07:59and somebody was like,
08:00Most. There was an energy that they said it with that made me feel like,
08:03oh, I'm a thing to that person. They don't know me, they know Most. I almost felt like
08:08they were shouting out a mascot or something. I was like, I don't like that."
08:12Human beings are a lot more complex and dynamic than,
08:16this guy is this one thing, that girl is this one thing.
08:20Whenever having to make a quick decision, some might have been told to just go with whatever their
08:25heart says. But here's the thing, hearts don't talk, regardless of what love songs tell you.
08:30Back in 1994, the Arizona rock band Jimmy Eat World seemed to go with their heart when having
08:36to make a last-minute decision on a band name. But it's something the band's drummer,
08:40Zach Lind, seems to regret and advised others not to do. He tweeted in 2018,
08:46A little history on how we came up with the band name. We were rehearsing in my garage,
08:50and Jim Adkins told us we got asked to play a party in the storage room of Name Brand Exchange
08:55in Mesa on Southern and Val Vista in February of 94. So we took a break from the garage and huddled
09:01around our kitchen island and decided to play the show, but at that time, we hadn't yet sorted out a
09:07name. Lind then said they decided on Jimmy Eat World, one of the names members Tom Linton and Rick
09:12Birch used in their old band. About coming up with the name, Lind added,
09:16We discussed it for less than five minutes, so moral of the story? Even seemingly small
09:22and insignificant decisions can be much bigger than you can imagine. Slow down sometimes and
09:27make sure it's right. Great advice, wouldn't you say?
09:30What do you do when you've been working hard to make a name for yourself as an entertainer?
09:34You've finally accomplished it, only to have that name cause controversy once it became popular.
09:40That's exactly what happened to the Atlanta rapper known formerly as Mulatto. She found success
09:45after dropping a series of mixtapes and being on Lifetime's The Rap Game, which she won.
09:51Unfortunately, as her fame grew, so did the talk of how her name was offensive. The word mulatto
09:56refers to a person with one black and one white parent. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary also notes
10:02that the term is usually offensive, and Eleven Alive points out it derives from the Spanish word for a
10:08mule, which is a half donkey, half horse. Plus, it appeared that some thought the rapper was using the
10:14word as some sort of social status symbol — something that she didn't want people to think.
10:18So she changed her rap name to Lotto in March of 2021. Lotto said on Hot Freestyle,
10:24You might know your intentions, but these are strangers who don't know you,
10:28never even met you in person. So you gotta hear each other out. And if you know those aren't your
10:33intentions and that's how it's being perceived, it's like, why not make a change or alter it?
10:38Lotto celebrated the name change when she released her single, The Biggest, in May 2021,
10:43and doesn't seem to be worried about it slowing down her career. In the song, she raps,
10:48new money, new crib, new whip, new name.
10:52Tandiwe Newton did not consent to her name change. In fact, it wasn't even her idea. The actor spoke
10:58about it in May of 2021 during an interview with Vogue. She said that when she made her film debut in
11:041991's flirting, the spelling of her first name was changed to Tandi from the actual spelling,
11:10and she then decided to keep it like that, which she regretted. But as of the Vogue interview,
11:15Newton said that all of her films going forward will be credited under the real spelling of her name,
11:21and that her name shouldn't have been altered in the first place. Rightfully so, she said,
11:26That's my name. It's always been my name. I'm taking back what's mine.
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