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Stars Who Retired But Didn't Really Mean It
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00:00Which celebrity claimed to no longer be famous after a plagiarism scandal? Who gave up acting
00:06for rap, only for it all to be revealed as a joke? Keep watching for those weird stories and more.
00:13In 2000, Barbra Streisand announced a farewell tour, and tickets sold like hotcakes. According
00:19to ABC News, she told the audience at her sold-out final Madison Square Garden show,
00:24"...it feels like time to say goodbye to this part of my life."
00:27Instead, Streisand planned on building a barn house, spending more time with her husband,
00:32James Brolin, and focusing, quote, on acting, directing, and recording albums.
00:37But as it later turned out, the singer was not yet done with live entertainment.
00:41When Streisand went back on tour in 2006, Daily News columnists Rush and Malloy reported that
00:48angry fans who paid top dollar for Babs' 2000 shows were considering, quote,
00:53a class-action suit against the legend for tricking them into thinking they were seeing
00:57her for the final time. It's unclear if any such lawsuit arose, but since then,
01:03Streisand hasn't advertised any of her concerts as her swan songs, and the legendary icon continued
01:09selling out her concerts in a heartbeat. After all, her fans can't be sure which one of her tours
01:15will truly be the last before she retires for good, considering the fact that her compilation,
01:20Release Me Too hit shelves and streaming services in 2021, it's safe to say Streisand isn't actually
01:27retiring anytime soon. Early on Christmas Day in 2013, Beliebers around the world lost their
01:34holiday spirit when they read Justin Bieber's tweet,
01:37"'My beloved Beliebers, I'm officially retiring.'"
01:40According to E!, the baby singer hinted at quitting the music industry a few weeks before as well.
01:45It could be that his sudden decision to retire at the young age of 19 had something to do with the
01:51rough patch he was going through in his private life. His on-and-off relationship with Selena Gomez,
01:57which was speculated to be an elaborate publicity stunt too, was especially turbulent around the time
02:02he made his shocking holiday announcement. Just a few short weeks later, he also got a DUI in Miami.
02:09Of course, it soon became clear that the Biebs never intended to actually retire on that fateful
02:14Christmas morning. And as years went by, the Let Me Love You singer started using a much more
02:20thoughtful voice on social media. JB's lifestyle doesn't lend itself to publicity stunts. Instead,
02:27he cleaned up his bad boy act and appears focused on music. He released two albums, Changes and Justice,
02:34and the EP Freedom in the span of 13 months and planned a 2022 world tour for the latter.
02:40In 2002, Stephen King told the Los Angeles Times that he was done writing books as soon as he
02:46finished his then-in-progress projects, five books and an ABC miniseries. You can either continue to go
02:53on, or say I left when I was still on top of my game. Since he's one of the most prolific authors of
02:59our time, he also pointed out the danger of ending up repeating himself and recycling his old material.
03:05The sudden decision to retire came three years after King's nearly fatal accident when he was
03:10hit by a van while taking a walk. He once recollected the experience on Twitter,
03:15"...as I lay unconscious in the hospital, the docs debated amputating my right leg
03:20and decided it could stay, on a trial basis. I got better."
03:23Fans of the legendary Scribe know that he continued churning out literature for decades.
03:29"...I can't figure it out. I mean, it's kind of masochistic,
03:32but hey, it pays the bills, you know what I'm saying?"
03:34And his entire outlook on when he'll put away the pen for good seems to have changed.
03:39He told Stephen Colbert in The Late Show in 2019,
03:42"...God'll tell me when to retire."
03:44He added,
03:45"...but until then, I mean, this is the best job in the world,
03:48because nobody can make you retire at a mandatory age."
03:52In 2008, Joaquin Phoenix and other A-listers attended a charity event in San Francisco,
03:58where he told an extra reporter he was retiring from acting to pursue a career in rap music.
04:03He said,
04:04"...I want to take this opportunity, also to give you the exclusive
04:07and just talk a little bit about the fact that this will be my last performance as an actor."
04:12Little did the world know that he was actually in character for a role in I'm Still Here,
04:17a mockumentary directed by his celebrity friend, Casey Affleck.
04:21Not only was it a genius publicity stunt that ultimately served to promote the mockumentary,
04:27it was also an elaborate, Borat-like prank that didn't stop there.
04:31In 2009, he visited The Late Show with David Letterman,
04:34wearing sunglasses and mumbling incomprehensibly. And while Phoenix is no
04:38stranger to making controversial TV appearances, even Letterman bought the act.
04:43You're not going to act anymore?
04:46No.
04:46Huh. Why is that?
04:50Mmm, I don't know.
04:53In 2010, Affleck cleared the air when he explained to The New York Times that he, quote,
04:58"...never intended to trick anybody," and that his former brother-in-law gave the performance
05:03of his career.
05:05Miley Cyrus rose to fame as a child star, most notably on Hannah Montana,
05:09portraying a teenage superstar. But as the show crept to its end,
05:13the Wrecking Ball singer started transforming her public image.
05:17After releasing two studio albums with her own music, Breakout in 2008 and Can't Be Tamed in 2010,
05:24the multi-hyphenate boldly told E! that she was done after the latter, adding,
05:28"...I just want to work in movies. That's what I like and that's what I want to be doing."
05:32Cyrus took the Hollywood plunge with a leading role in The Last Song.
05:36Although the film was a critical flop, Cyrus did meet her ex-husband Liam Hemsworth on the set.
05:42She starred in Two More Bombs, LOL and So Undercover,
05:46before deciding to go back to singing and performing.
05:49"...I'll never be who I was yesterday in a way. Every night before I go to sleep,
05:55I say goodbye to myself in a way."
05:57She said in Miley the Movement, a documentary about her return to the music industry,
06:02"...I thought after my show I was going to act. I went and I did one movie and I came back and
06:07said I'm never doing that again. I'm going to do music for the rest of my life."
06:11Never say never, Miley!
06:12Her second retirement claim turned out to be premature, too. In 2019,
06:17the Malibu singer starred in a Black Mirror episode titled Rachel Jack and Ashley Too.
06:23When asked about his decision to retire in 2013, director Steven Soderbergh told Vulture,
06:29"...I won't be directing cinema, for lack of a better word, but I still plan to direct,
06:34theater stuff, and I'd do a TV series if something great were to come along."
06:38As noted by the Los Angeles Times, the Oscar winner casually mentioned calling cut on his
06:43film-directing career in 2008. But rumors about his retirement really picked up steam in 2010,
06:49when Matt Damon said the director was, at the time, kind of exhausted with everything that
06:54interested him in terms of form. Damon's foreshadowing came true when Soderbergh retired from
06:59directing movies after 2013's Behind the Candelabra. He told EW that after his retirement,
07:06he focused on painting. He also picked up a TV project, The Nick, a period drama that ran for
07:12two seasons. But four years later, the director made a spectacular return to the big screen with
07:18Logan Lucky, another heist movie.
07:21Country music star Garth Brooks decided to retire at the height of his career. In 2000,
07:26he announced he was hanging up his guitar until his three daughters graduated high school,
07:31a time frame of approximately 14 years. The retirement announcement also took attention
07:36away from the fact that he was divorcing his first wife, Sandy Maul. In 2014, when his youngest
07:42child decided to go to college in Nashville, he got the band back together and started touring again.
07:48But it wasn't his first time back on stage. Not only did Brooks continue playing charity shows
07:53throughout his near-retirement, but he also recorded a project for Walmart in 2005, The Tennessean reported.
08:00He also performed 187 shows as part of his residency at Wynn Las Vegas from 2009 to 2014.
08:08The ever-so-shady Shia LaBeouf's fake retirement came following accusations of plagiarism in late 2013.
08:16I just feel judged and like I'm an outsider."
08:19According to The Guardian, it all started when he was accused of plagiarism by comic artist
08:24Daniel Klaus. In 2012, LaBeouf directed and starred in his very own short movie,
08:30called HowardCantor.com, but it turned out to be awfully similar to Klaus' comic Justin M. Damiano.
08:37Rather than making peace with the author, LaBeouf escalated the conflict by tweeting a series of
08:42apologies that were originally written by other celebrities. The whole thing seemingly culminated
08:48with his January 10, 2014 tweet,
08:51"'In light of the recent attacks against my artistic integrity, I am retiring from all public life.'"
08:56Days later, LaBeouf returned to public life to attack Jim Carrey for his joke about the
09:02plagiarism scandal at that year's Golden Globes. EW reported that series of tweets and apologies
09:08ended with another odd tweet, "'I am not famous anymore.'"
09:11Of course, LaBeouf was also gearing up to promote the scandalous indie flick Nymphomaniac at the time.
09:19Nicki Minaj wrote in a since-deleted tweet in 2019,
09:22"'I've decided to retire and have my family. I know you guys are happy now.'"
09:26Fans and haters alike instantly started wondering whether she meant what she wrote or if it was a
09:31publicity stunt. The Chun-Li rapper wasn't at her most popular at the time, and was on the heels
09:37of postponing the North American dates of her 2018 tour. Critics claimed Minaj delayed the tour due to
09:44low ticket sales, but Minaj explained on Twitter that with the delay of the album, so came the delay
09:50of the tour to perform it. Whether the explanation about her 2018 tour was true or not, Minaj headed
09:56back to Twitter the next day with an apology, saying,
09:59"'I'm still right here.'" She called the retirement tweet, quote,
10:02"'abrupt and insensitive,' and promised a bigger explanation at some point.
10:06That explanation came a month later in a chat with The Shade Room, when she admitted she was
10:11only musing about whether or not she would record a fifth album. While the star has yet to release
10:16said album, tentatively titled NM5, the family part of her retirement tweet was true. She got married
10:23to husband Kenneth Petty in October 2019. Minaj gave birth to their baby boy in September
10:292020. Jay-Z released his first studio album, Reasonable Doubt, in 1996, and kept releasing
10:36one record per year until 2003. But then, with eight studio albums under his belt, Jay-Z announced
10:42he was retiring from making hip-hop studio albums. Asked by The New York Times if it was all a marketing
10:48ploy, the rapper got defensive, saying,
10:50"'Give me a little more credit than that. I could think of other ways to get attention.'"
10:54And so, he went out with a bang, putting together an outstanding farewell show at Madison Square Garden.
11:00Throughout the night, fellow superstars including Missy Elliott and Beyoncé joined him on stage.
11:05Still, Jay-Z remained busy after his alleged retirement from making albums. He became the
11:11CEO of Def Jam Recordings and partial owner of the New Jersey, now Brooklyn Nets. But a few years later,
11:18he got the bug again and headed back into the studio. In 2006, he released his comeback album,
11:24Kingdom Come, and in hindsight, is well aware of how ridiculous his initial decision to retire looked.
11:30He told Entertainment Weekly,
11:32"'It was the worst retirement in history.'"
11:34Emma Watson has been a movie star since she was 11 years old, so it's no wonder that she claimed she
11:40was ready to leave acting behind by the time 2009 rolled by. She told Teen Vogue,
11:45"'Until something comes along that I feel as strongly about as I did Hermione. Like,
11:49I felt that it was life or death. I don't want to act again.'"
11:53It turned out that it didn't take long for the Harry Potter star to be called to her craft again.
11:58In 2012, she starred in The Perks of Being a Wallflower. While she never completely abandoned
12:03her acting career, she did put it on the back burner. Instead, she focused on humanitarian
12:08activism. In 2014, she was named a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador. Following Watson's own
12:14retirement stunt, the media seems to have picked up the ball for her,
12:18with speculation of her exiting the industry repeatedly circulating, even as she headlined
12:23huge projects, including Beauty and the Beast in 2017 and the award-winning Little Women in 2019.
12:30In May 2021, Watson tweeted,
12:32"'Dear fans, rumors about whether I'm engaged or not, or whether my career is dormant or not,
12:37are ways to create clicks each time they are revealed to be true or untrue.'"
12:42In a follow-up tweet, she reassured her followers that no news doesn't automatically mean that she's
12:47retiring.
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