These 17 Celebrities Knew They Would Become Famous Before Anyone Else Did

*These celebs after becoming famous, knowing all along it was their fate.*

In January 2019, Lil Nas X manifested his fame while eating a slice of pizza. A video of this moment posted on Twitter shows him eating and discussing his hit, “Old Town Road,” which had just debuted at the time. The artist then had 3,000 Instagram followers, 2,000 YouTube subscribers, and less than 1,000 listeners on Spotify, but Lil Nas X announced that he would have some big updates to share in a year’s time.

“It’s doing pretty fucking good,” he said of “Old Town Road.” ” … Let me hit y’all back a year from now, and we’re going to see where I’m at.”

Exactly one year after filming the video, on January 8, 2020, Lil Nas X updated his followers with another video of himself eating pizza and expressing gratitude for his career progress.

“I’m at 5 million on Instagram, 8 million on YouTube, and around 30 million Spotify listeners,” he said. “It’s been a year, and I just want to give a big thank you to everybody who’s helped me get to where I am. And I’ll be back with you guys 10 years from now, and we’ll see where I’m at.”

In the past, Jennifer has revealed that her intuition told her she would be well-known since she was a child. The Don’t Look Up star initially wasn’t sure how her fame would materialize, but when she realized her career path would be acting, she dropped out of middle school at 14 years old.

“I always knew that I was going to be famous. I honest to God don’t know how else to describe it,” Jennifer said in a 2013 interview with Vogue, per Business Insider. “I used to lie in bed and wonder, ‘Am I going to be a local TV person? Am I going to a motivational speaker?’ It wasn’t a vision. But as it’s kind of happening, you have this buried understanding: Of course.”

Jim was interviewed about his career in the early ’80s, when he was performing in comedy clubs but hadn’t yet achieved mainstream fame. He conveyed his hopes for the future and hinted at his forthcoming global popularity.

“You’re the crowd’s man after a while. It’s not Jim Carrey who can walk down the street just doing anything he wants to and get away with it because nobody knows you,” Jim said.

“After a while, hopefully it’ll be to the point where I can’t walk out in the street. Won’t that be fun? Where it’ll be impossible to walk anywhere without being recognized,” he added. 

In 1988, Oprah sat down for an interview with Barbara Walters to discuss her life and career success. The talk show host and media mogul stated that since she was a young child growing up in Kosciusko, Mississippi, she had a feeling her destiny was one of prominence.

“Somewhere I have always known that I was born for greatness in my life,” Oprah said. “Somewhere I’ve always felt it. I remember being on my grandmother’s farm and knowing at four years old. I just always knew.”

In 2018, Noah visited The Late Late Show with James Corden to promote To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. He recalled meeting James in New York a year prior, when he was still an up-and-coming actor. He approached the late night host and introduced himself, then explained that he would one day be a celebrity guest on James’ show.

“I said, ‘I’m going to be on your show.’ And [James] said, ‘When?'” Noah said. “And I said, ‘Eventually.'”

James then asked Noah about his career and said it was “going to be one hell of a story” if Noah ever did appear on The Late Late Show. The actor has since been on the show a second time, in 2021, when To All The Boys: Always and Forever was set to debut.

Before she became one of the most well-known actors of all time, Marilyn envisioned herself as a famous Hollywood performer. As she dedicated effort to perfecting her acting skills, Marilyn knew deep down that this dream would become a reality. 

“I used to think as I looked out on the Hollywood night — there must be thousands of girls sitting alone like me, dreaming of becoming a movie star,” Marilyn said. “But I’m not going to worry about them. I’m dreaming the hardest.”

In 2009, Whitney Houston met with Oprah Winfrey for an interview at the Town Hall theater in New York City. The artist chose this setting for the interview because at 13 years old, she performed there during a show of her mother’s, singer Cissy Houston. While singing “Tomorrow” from the musical Annie, the young Whitney became aware of her powerful vocal talent. Cissy then shared that Whitney’s gift would lead her to great success.

“I will never forget … I walked out to the front [of the stage], and I began to sing, and the whole audience rushed to the stage,” Whitney said. “It was that moment that my mother said, ‘God has smiled on you, and this is what you’re supposed to do.’ … I just remember that feeling of … ‘Wow, okay,’ and my mom said, ‘See, I told you.’ She said, ‘You’re going to be doing big things.'”

A young Eddie was interviewed for The Best of The Big Laff Off, a show documenting a comedy competition in the early ’80s. At the time, he was a stand-up comic working to make a name for himself in the entertainment industry. The Beverly Hills Cop star was determined to succeed and predicted he would become recognized for his work within a couple years.

“I want to get … famous by the time I’m 21. I’m 19 now. I give myself two years,” Eddie said.

Although he came in last place in the competition, Eddie earned a spot as a cast member on Saturday Night Live shortly after the contest. In the two years following this, he created legendary SNL characters, starred in the successful film Trading Places, and co-hosted the 35th Annual Emmy Awards with Joan Rivers.

Nicki and her family moved from Trinidad and Tobago to the United States when she was 5 years old. Upon their arrival, the rapper asked for wealth as a result of her desire to provide for her relatives.

“When I first came to America, I would go in my room and and kneel down at the foot of my bed and pray that God would make me rich so that I could take care of my mother,” she said to Rolling Stone in 2010.

In addition, Nicki prayed that she would become a celebrity in order to earn enough money to secure a luxury home for her mom.

“I would pray to God to make me famous so that I could buy my mother a huge house,” Nicki told Cosmopolitan in 2011, per MTV News. Prior to the release of her first studio album, Pink Friday, Nicki purchased a home for her mom.

In a 2015 interview on Oprah: Where Are They Now?, Belinda Carlisle of the Go-Go’s revisited how the legendary group was formed. In 1978, Belinda and the four other original members of the band, Jane Wiedlin, Charlotte Caffey, Margot Olavarria, and Elissa Bello, decided to create a music group, although she said the majority of them had no previous exposure to playing instruments.

“We were sitting on a curb, five girls one night at a party in Venice,” Belinda said. “Everybody was in a band except for us, and you could be terrible. You didn’t really have to know how to play an instrument. So it was like, ‘I’ll play bass!’ ‘I’ll play guitar!’ That’s how the band was formed. Nobody knew how to do anything.”

Despite their inexperience with performing, the group remained driven and quickly moved up the music industry ladder. They’re now considered to be the most accomplished all-female rock group in music history.

“Behind all that, there was some serious ambition, and I remember running down the stairs with Jane going, ‘We’re going to be rich and famous one day!'” Belinda added. “And looking back on it, it was, like, total manifestation.”

In 2014, Entertainment Tonight showed a 1994 home video of a 13-year-old Kim Kardashian celebrating her eighth grade graduation. The reality star and businessperson was surrounded by friends and family in the recording, and she alluded to her future international fame as she spoke to the camera.

“Does everyone get a tape of this? Because I hope you do, so you can see me when I’m famous and … you’ll remember me as this beautiful little girl,” Kim said.

In March 2008, Gaga discussed the inspiration behind her debut studio album, The Fame. The singer-songwriter said she told her father she wanted to be a rock star when she was a kid, and he encouraged her to go after her dream. Not only did Gaga manifest her fame, but this is something that is possible for everyone, she explained, based on how you choose to conduct yourself.

“You have the ability to self-proclaim your own fame,” Gaga said. “You have the ability to experience and feel a certain amount of self-worth that comes from a very vain place by simply your choices. … The way that you walk down the street, the way that you carry yourself at parties. I mean, you can literally choose to have fame, and that’s what this whole album is about.”

Chris proclaimed he would become a wealthy public figure when he was a high school student, although he didn’t yet foresee his career as a major Hollywood star.

“My high school wrestling coach reminds me about this time I came into his office, and he said, ‘Chris, what do you want to do with yourself?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know, but I know I’ll be famous, and I know I’ll make a shit ton of money,'” Chris said to Entertainment Weekly in 2014.

“I had no idea how. I’d done nothing proactive. It was as dumb as someone saying, ‘I’ll probably be an astronaut. I’m sure I’ll stumble into an astronaut suit and end up in space one day,'” he added. 

His acting career has earned him a reported $80 million net worth as of 2022, so it’s safe to say he was onto something.

Before Kanye released his debut studio album, The College Dropout, and achieved worldwide fame, he predicted his success to Oprah Winfrey. In 2005, on The Oprah Winfrey Show, he and Oprah remembered encountering each other in New York City in 2002. Kanye was driving the same car Oprah owned at the time, a Mercedes-Benz G-Class, so she decided to pull up alongside the artist and compare notes on the vehicle. 

“[Oprah] started just asking me regular questions about the car, and I’m like, ‘Okay, it drives cool. I just got it. But I want to be on your show one day,'” Kanye said. 

Oprah recalled being skeptical about Kanye’s forecast since she’d been told the same thing many times over the course of her show’s 25-year run. When he appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Kanye became the first hopeful to fulfill that promise.

“You go, ‘I’m going to be on your show one day,'” Oprah said to Kanye. “And I’m like, ‘Yeah, okay,’ because people say that to me all the time. … But you’re the first person who ever made that true.”

When she was asked during a 2013 Bethenny interview what it was like to become well-known following the 2009 premiere of Jersey Shore, Snooki said she “didn’t make it a big deal.” One reason for this is because she anticipated she might become a celebrity one day.

“I don’t know why, I just feel like I always thought I was going to be famous for being a dumbass, and it happened,” Snooki said. “I’m very blessed, and the fact that people like me for being me is cool.”

George formed the music group Wham! with his childhood classmate Andrew Ridgeley in 1981, when the two were in their late teens. They soon gained popularity with their early hit, “Young Guns (Go For It),” and their fame exploded as they released chart-toppers like “Freedom,” “I’m Your Man,” and “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.” In 1998, George was interviewed on the talk series Parkinson, and during the conversation, he explained his early desire for fame. 

“I didn’t want to be rich, I just wanted to be filthily famous,” George said. “It was like most singers — it was feeling not listened to, it was lots of feelings of low self-worth. All…the screwed up things that go together to make someone who becomes well-known.”

The late singer-songwriter also detailed how most of the public figures he encountered similarly had feelings of poor self-esteem.

“I have never met a star who didn’t come from the same kind of insecurity,” he said. “It’s the things that are missing that make you a star. It’s not the things that you have.”

In May 2014, two years prior to dropping her debut single “Like a Stallion,” Megan predicted her rap career would prosper in the future to the point where she’d need a group to manage her flourishing work.

“I need a team bc I promise this rap shit gone take off for me,” Megan wrote on Twitter.

Since then, Megan has earned three Grammys, including the award for Best New Artist, which she won in 2020. With this accomplishment, she became the first female rapper to score the title in more than 20 years. She also became the first-ever female rapper to perform at the Oscars in 2022 when she contributed to a live rendition of “We Don’t Talk About Bruno.”

TINA SNOW @theestallion I need a team bc I promise this rap shit gone take off for me

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