Before They Were Famous

BEFORE CRIS CAWLEY would forge an impressive career for herself as the mastermind behind Game Changer Publishing. BEFORE CRIS CAWLEY would extend her brand by offering her clients a suite of professional programs designed to help them become their very best. BEFORE CRIS CAWLEY would have nearly 1K Subscribers on YouTube and 108K followers on Instagram at the time of this recording. One sure fire way to make an impact on the world is to write a best-selling book. Unfortunately, the process of getting that book published can be a dauting experience for darn near anyone, especially if you don’t happen to have the necessary connections in the industry. But that’s where entrepreneur Cris Cawley comes in. Over the past two decades, she’s devoted the bulk of her time to starting her own company known as Game Changer Publishing and along the way she’s helped a whole host of people accomplish the dream of publishing a successful selling book in 90 days or less. Not only that, but she’s also an award-winning coach and consultant who offers her clients guaranteed ways to succeed in growing their brands. But sometimes it can be hard to believe the hype when you don’t know anything about the person promising to change your life around for the better. So, today, we’re going to introduce you to Cris’s story and give you a taste of how she accomplished her remarkable achievements on our newest episode of Before They Were Famous!

Before almost single-handedly winning France the World Cup with a rare hat-trick in the Final match of the tournament, Kylian Mbappe was born on December 20th, 1998 in the city of Paris -- and as the athlete himself once suggested in a children’s book made about his life, from the very beginning, Kylian Mbappe was born into football. In a lot of ways, you could also say that Kylian was born in the right place at the right time. His local football club, AS Bondy, was where his Cameroon-born father, Wilfried, used to coach under-15s and would go on to train more than a dozen top professionals -- but it was his son that Wilfried always had the greatest designs for. Of course, it wasn’t just Kylian’s parents who wanted greatness for him – he wanted it for himself, and from a young age too. At just six years old he learned every line to France’s national anthem while explaining to his teachers at school that he was doing so in preparation for playing in the World Cup. At that same age, he’d also watch interviews of his many heroes, studying how a talent like Cristiano Ronaldo would handle the media and then pretend to hold his own press conferences by posing questions to himself in what would eventually become three languages – his native French, as well as English and Spanish -- the foreign languages he studied at a private Catholic school.

Another year, another list of celebs who passed away, 2022 saw its fair share of celebrity deaths with many of those we grew up with passing away of natural causes but also some young stars like Takeoff and PnB Rock who lost their lives at young age needlessly. As we have become accustomed to, its been another challenging year for the world of rap and hip hop but also for other stars to Gen Z like Aaron Carter, Coolio, and Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins. We are going to go through a ton of bios here today, off the top we have The Queen who was 96. A personal fav of mine, Ray Liotta from Goodfellas fame. One of the strangest deaths of the year was Anne Heche age 53. As well as Ivana Trump who is said to have fallen down her stairs. From the world of comedy, we have Bob Saget, Gilbert Godfried, and Louie Anderson are three comics who passed around the same time. We also have 4 actors who all portrayed Italian mobsters. Other big names like Meatloaf and the White Power Ranger Jason David Frank. Some stars we had time to cover over the past year, others we didn’t have time to produce a full biography video on like TV DJ Stephen ‘tWitch’ Boss who took his own life just before the holidays. In today's video, we will pay a quick tribute to all those we lost over the year 2022. If I missed anyone please let me know and feel free to leave your condolences in the comments below. Now, let’s get into this video.

Aubrey Drake Graham, the everyman of hip-hop, is a man who can dominate an entire year musically without even releasing his own album, it's happened before. However, this was not one of those years, at least with being prolific because Drake did still dominate but he did so by releasing a ton of new music including two new albums, one of which was an experimental house album, the other a collaboration with great 21 Savage.However, all of the new music and collaborations did not come without controversy or spicy headlines for the media tabloids to run with. Drake is also just one of the most popular celebrities on the planet, people constantly come up off his name so it isn’t surprising to see the things people do just to gain clout off the Canadian rapper's name. Drake also does some pretty extravagant things like getting a necklace made out of 42 wedding rings or throwing confetti championship celebrations for his friend’s pick-up basketball league. As he said himself, Drake is a presence that is almost its own character in movies, and the man has had quite the year so here are the 5 craziest Drake moments of 2022.

Genius, tyrannical, revolutionary, and dangerously egotistical, those are four descriptions that contrast in their own unique way, however, they are also 4 ways that one could describe the artist Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, and even then that's a very surface level way to put it. In the year 2022 Ye had probably one of the most unique years of his career from his creative endeavors to controversy and the wild statements he makes, now Ye really isn't a stranger to any of those things I mean you could make a list of the crazy things he's done every year but what this man has done in 2022 ladies and gentlemen is a different beast altogether. As I said Ye has always been controversial and polarising however this year we saw Ye shift from being someone who transcends, delivers nuance, and is divisive to someone who is just objectively wrong and some might even say harmful or dangerous. From disastrous album roll-outs to public disputes with his wife and Pete Davidson to embarking on a campaign of anti-Semitism that even made Alex Jones ayo bruh chill. Many dubs this as the year we lost Ye, obviously not in a literal sense the man is still here and well, but more in a cultural and social sense, Ye meant and did a lot for a lot of people so it was tough but many had to put their foot down and say they are done with Ye. So here are the 5 craziest things that Mr. West has done in the year 2022 right here on Before They Were Famous.

There were plenty of crazy moments in Hollywood and the world of Social Media. MrBeast passes PewDiePie, The return of Brenda Fraiser, Heidi Klum dressed as a worm for Halloween, Rihanna had a baby, Julia Fox & Kanye West, Ben Affleck back with J Lo & off the Jamesons, Pete Davidson dating everybody, every school teacher on earth quitting to get on Only Fans, Elon Musk taking over Twitter, The Try Guys cheating scandal, Harry Styles Spitting on Chris Pine, Billie Eilish Deep Fakes, Tom Brady splits from Giselle and half of Hollywood is exposed for Crypto scams. That’s just a short recap of some of the Hollywood headlines from this year and none of those made it into our list of the Top 5. For my full recap be sure to stay tuned. We also had a huge number of celebrity deaths which I will cover in a follow-up video titled 2023 In Memorium, few names on there include Bob Saget, Takeoff, of course, The Queen, Aaron Carter & more. That stuff is a little glummer so let’s get on with the show and talk about the biggest moments of 2022. Also, be sure to let me know who you think is the biggest star of the year in the comments down below – based on our analytics it’s Ice Spice quickly followed by Glorilla. Aright, enough intro. Let’s get into this video.

After turning himself into the biggest childhood actor of all time with the holiday classic “Home Alone”, Macaulay Culkin would see his acting career dry-up by the time he turned 14. And yet -- he still somehow managed to wind up a perfectly happy 42-year-old with a fiancée and baby, living the type of life few childhood stars ever get the chance to experience. Before all of that, Macaulay Culkin was born on August 26th, 1980 in New York City to his father, Christopher Culkin, a former child actor turned lackluster Broadway star, and his mother Patricia Brentrup. The two were never married but still produced a brood of seven children, including five sons and two daughters – all of whom lived in a cramped New York City apartment where the kids shared a series of bunk beds jammed into one room. Unfortunately, Macaulay never had much control over his own career and wound up at the mercy of his father in particular, who often chose his son’s roles for him. After early roles in television series like ‘The Equalizer” and the hit comedy film “Uncle Buck”, Macaulay’s big break came when he was just eight-years-old on the set of John Hughes’ masterpiece, “Home Alone”.

The actor, former child star and teen heartthrob that captivated a generation, Jonathan Taylor Thomas also known as JTT has had quite the career. Once a pop culture mainstay that you'd find a photo of on the inside of a teenage girl’s locker in the late 90s, now the man is something of an enigmatic presence that is able to go 8 years without anybody taking his photograph. But before his rise and fall from fame, JTT was born on September 8, 1981, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He grew up in a household with his parents, Stephen and Claudine, and his older brother, Joel. As you know JTT got his feet wet with acting from a very early age, having made appearances in various commercials, his first official gig came as a voice role for the titular character of Spot in the US version of 'The Adventures of Spot'. In 1990, he made his acting debut playing the role of Kevin Brady on the TV series 'The Bradys', which itself was a spin-off of the 1970s show 'The Brady Bunch'.

American YouTube star, TikToker and Instagram personality Lofe has been steadily building a reputation for himself as one of the internet’s most promising new voices in comedy over a period of almost four years now. After a particularly tumultuous youth which would see him battling with depression, loneliness, and fixating on failure resulting in suicidal thoughts, Lofe would finally find his calling at the age of 18 when he first began uploading a series of promising sketches displaying a range of comedic abilities that have since become undeniable. In fact, Lofe might very well now be one of the best pranksters in the history of the art form. And if you don’t think pranking is an art form, well after listening to this dude’s story your opinion on that might change a little bit. So, if you’ve ever wanted to learn about the many obstacles Lofe had to overcome to see himself blow up over the course of the past year, then stay tuned to our newest episode of Before They Were Famous to find out!

BEFORE a just barely thirty-year-old man with a mop of brown hair would earn himself enough crypto-currency clout to be known simply by his initials -- SBF -- Sam Bankman-Fried was born on March 6th, 1992 on the campus of Stanford University. As the son of two Jewish Stanford Law professors, Barbara Fried and Joseph Bankman, Sam spent a large percentage of his childhood playing games like chess, bridge, “Magic the Gathering” and the video game series “League of Legends” when he wasn’t busy attending class at an elite prep-school known as Crystal Springs Uplands where he excelled academically in almost every subject. By the time he was ready to move onto a post-secondary institution, Sam set his sights on studying physics at Massachusetts’ Institute of Technology where he wound up juggling several extracurriculars alongside his regular academic schedule while living in a co-ed group home called Epsilon Theta – a place that likes to promote itself as an alcohol-free zone for activities like playing board games, square dancing, and debating logic problems.

BEFORE becoming one of the most promising female Emcee’s to emerge out of New York City in a hot minute, Murda B was actually born in late October in the city of Boston, Massachusetts, which means there’s a pretty good chance that that “B” in her name – well, it might stand for Boston. So, how did Murda B become the next big thing out of Sev-Side if she’s really from Bean-town? Well, to hear her tell it, Murda B had herself a boyfriend from that area of New York City and after meeting his crew, she formed connections and relationships that would last her a lifetime. These hook-ups would pay off in the long run because back when she was younger, Murda B spent most of her free-time expanding her horizons by learning new things. She not only taught herself how to a play wide-range of instruments, she also developed a passion for make-up and singing as well. As for how Murda B went from singing to getting involved in drill-rap? Well, according to her, she did it to prove a point to an ex-boyfriend, someone who liked to fancy himself a pretty spectacular rapper but then got showed up by his partner when she decided to spit-fire in his face. He might not have been embarrassed badly enough to quit his own aspirations all together, but Murda B still left her ex behind in the dust as her career eventually took off and his continued to stall. Prior to that, Murda B was often encouraged by her friends to pursue the artform in a meaningful way because they believed that as talented a female rapper as she was, she could have a chance to go all the way.

BEFORE being detained in Russia and eventually being exchanged in a prisoner swap for the notorious criminal known as “The Merchant of Death”, women’s basketball star Brittney Yevette Griner was born on October 18th, 1990 in the city of Houston, Texas. For the most part, Britney’s upbringing was relatively ordinary as the youngest of four children being raised by a homemaker and a police officer. But sooner rather than later it became clear to Griner, as well as everyone else, that she was far from what most people would consider to be ordinary. In the pages of her memoir, “In My Skin”. Brittney knew from an early age that she was attracted to girls -- and because that didn’t fit in with the preconceived notion that many people had back then for girls attending middle-school, she was often taunted and referred to as a boy. The worst times came in Seventh Grade and at the end of far too many school days, Brittney would retire to her room to cry and question why she was even alive in the first place.

BEFORE being used as a bargaining chip in a one-for-one prisoner swap that freed women’s basketball star Brittney Griner, convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout otherwise known as the “Merchant of Dеаth” -- was born on what’s believed to have been January 13th, 1967. Douglas Farah, a senior agent at the International Assessment and Strategy Center who once co-authored a book on Bout told CNN in 2010 that Viktor’s early days are still largely a mystery, even to high-up government officials. That being said, according to multiple passports, Bout was likely raised in Dushanbe, Tajikstan as the son of a bookkeeper and an auto-mechanic. At the age of 18, he was conscripted into the Soviet Army after having spent much of his youth playing competitive volleyball according to a New Yorker profile. After being forced into military service, Viktor served two years in an infantry brigade in western Ukraine, before graduating from the Military Institute on Foreign Languages, which has a reputation for being a well-established feeder school for Russian military intelligence. In other words – the likelihood is that Viktor was a Soviet officer, ranking as highly as perhaps even a Lieutenant. During his time in the Russian forces, Bout worked in war-torn areas like Mozambique and Angola, where Russia had large military presences at the time. He first landed on the radar of the wider world at large when the United Nations began to investigate him in the early-to-mid 1990s. That’s also right around the time the United States began to get involved as well.

BEFORE becoming one of the most successful and prolific underground rappers of recent memory, Lucki was born Lucki Camel Jr. on May 30th, 1996 in Chicago, Illinois at Masonic Medical Center on the city’s North Side. While he might have entered this world on the city’s North-side, Lucki was primarily raised on the West End where he attended school in the suburb of Maywood. During his earliest years, Lucki used to harbor aspirations of becoming a football player while playing wide receiver for his school team. The only problem is that he wasn’t very good at it. Like, at all. Thankfully, there was something he was much better at -- rapping. Lucki wrote his first lyrics while in the 7th Grade. He wasn’t confident enough in his ability at the time to actually perform those early songs, but his fascination with the rapper Lil Wayne meant he was writing one song after another in an attempt to improve his talent. The first beat Lucki ever wrote to was for Ron Browz’s “Jumping Out the Window.” This young kid would continue to refine his skillset over the next few years and by the time he entered adolescence he was determined to take the artform more seriously. That’s when he started heading downtown to the Chicago library and discovered the music of Chance the Rapper – more specifically, the little-known duo Chance was a part of at the offset of his career known as “Instrumentality”.

After becoming one of the hottest reality television stars of an entire generation, Tila Tequila has gone on to live one of the strangest and most troubling lives of recent celebrity memory. Make a fortune off her love life? She’s done that too. But those moments of glory feel like a million years ago compared to her more recent ventures into anti-Semitism, self-harm, and some truly bizarre religious beliefs. Long before she’d become a train wreck, Tila Tequila was born to Vietnamese parents in the country of Singapore on October 24th, 1981. Her parents fled to that sovereign island nation by boat from Vietnam when Tila was still in her mother’s womb. Alongside the rest of her family which includes her two older siblings, Daniel and Terri, Tila left Singapore when she was a year old and immigrated to the United States where she settled in Houston, Texas. When asked to reflect upon her childhood in America, Tila has often described her upbringing in Texas as challenging, to say the least

BEFORE becoming the latest twist in the ongoing Megan thee Stallion and Tory Lanez courtroom drama, Kelsey Nicole was born on August 28th, 1995 in Victoria, Texas. That’s where she grew up in what she’s described as a relatively lower-class family, which inspired her to work as hard as possible to develop her own financial freedom. Kelsey’s ties to the music industry go as far back as the day she was born. Her father was Emmitt Harris, a local rapper known as 50 Pak. Prior to the birth of Kelsey and her sister Ciara, Harris had made a name for himself as an underground artist performing at venues like the El Campo Club in Texas. Unfortunately, his relationship with both of his daughters would deteriorate over time until it got to the point where they really weren’t speaking at all. A few years ago, Kelsey and her sister decided to smooth things over and searched their father out, discovering him at an extended family members’ birthday party. But rather than approach, they wound up watching him from a distance. Sadly, it would become the last time they ever saw him alive.

AFTER making waves in the adult entertainment industry that are still reverberating to this day, Mia Khalifa is now earning nearly as much money in 24-hours as she once made throughout the entirety of her adult entertainment career while continuing to hold the medium accountable. Long before all of that, Mia Khalifa was born Sarah Joe Chamoun on February 19th, 1993 in the city of Beirut and was raised in what she’s referred to in the past as a very conservative Catholic family. After attending a French language private school in her native country, Mia would immigrate to the United States alongside her parents in 2001 to escape the dangers of the South Lebanon conflict. Once in America, Mia would settle in Montgomery County, Maryland where hers was the only family of Lebanese descent in the area. As such, she struggled to fit in.

Before becoming the first openly transgender solo artist to earn the top spot in the Billboard Hot 100 Chart, singer Kim Petras was born on August 27th, 1992 in the small German town known as Hennef. Located about 40 minutes from Cologne, Petras’ hometown was very heavy on what she likes to call “farm vibes” and boasted a ton of livestock including cows and horses. In fact, her family’s nearest neighbors were located more than ten minutes away while she was growing up. Born to an architect for a father and a dance teacher for a mom, you could say that music was always an integral part of her life and household. In the late 90s and early 2000s, Kim became obsessed with the Spice Girls and fell in love with lip-syncing to Disney songs alongside her two older sisters. More than just sing-along with her siblings, Kim would also occasionally steal clothes from their closet. Even though she was assigned the male gender at birth, Kim just wanted to look like her sisters.

BEFORE becoming “SteveWillDoIt’s” on and off again girlfriend, Celina Smith was born on February 22nd, 1999 and grew up an only child in a single-parent household in Orlando, Florida. Now, I’m not going to lie to you – a whole bunch of the “finer” details about Celina’s life have yet to be revealed. In fact, outside of her relationship with Steve -- which goes back considerably farther than you might think – we don’t know a whole lot about Celina’s past. But here’s what I was able to uncover. According to Celina’s Instagram page – she and Steve first met while still in high-school and started dating when she was 14 and he was 15. Soon afterwards they kick-started their relationship which would go onto last a number of years ... even if there have been some bumps along the way which we’ll get into further in a moment or two. Now, only a few months ago, SteveWillDoIt’s YouTube channel was taken down as a result of him having posted clips of himself gambling on his secondary channel without taking the necessary steps to protect himself from the platforms’ rigorous protocols when it comes to that sort of thing.

Ever since Georgian fashion designer Demna became the artistic director of the European fashion-house Balenciaga in 2015, the once lauded brand has become far more infamous for its controversy than its clothing. But the surprising thing to discover is how often that’s been by design – like that time they remade IKEAS’s 99-cent shopping bag as a $2,000 luxury good. Hell, they even dressed one of the sexiest women in the world in a head-to-toe black body stocking and then sent her up a flight of stairs to the Met Gala. Poor Kim. But something tells me we probably really should have started paying closer attention when Balenciaga created a campaign that would see models walking up and down the runway while carrying garbage bags made out of expensive leather. In almost every one of these moments, Balenciaga was counting on outrage to fuel their brand, but now, they’ve finally gone too far after releasing two new campaigns that has taken public outcry to levels they never dreamed of reaching. It all started in the middle of November when Balenciaga published a campaign called, innocently enough, Balenciaga Gift Shop. But the name is where all forms of innocence came to a stop.