Some celebrities have dabbled in tech with interesting effect.
Celebrities have captured our hearts and minds, so it was probably inevitable they’d come for our wallets too. Branching out into product design and marketing is a logical next step for the most popular people in our capitalist society, but while most are content with owning a liquor company, others have reached further. Those ventures have brought varying degrees of success, even leading some celebs to billionaire status. Some celebrity products have gone down as all-time greats — think Air Jordans — while others were so wildly out of touch and useless that they were mercilessly mocked before being entirely forgotten.
As tech products have come to define our lives, more celebrities have tried their hands at being the next Steve Jobs. We’re going to take a look at some of the most interesting celebrity tech, but first, some clarification. Oftentimes, celebrities license their names or likenesses to brands, which then slap them on a product. That’s how you wind up with Olivia Rodrigo-branded Sony earbuds. We will instead be looking at products designed or at least owned by the celebrities behind them. From glasses that make you go gaga to gorgeous kitchen gadgets and glamorous glitterati, here are seven celebrity tech products that may or may not be worth your money but are nonetheless novel enough to gawk over.Kanye West’s bizarre DONDA Stem Player
Kanye West has had many ideas over the course of his career, some winners, some not. Among the misguided conceptions was his foray into the tech industry with the DONDA Stem Player, a device that purported to let users remix their favorite songs on the go. Shaped like a space ship and made of rubber, the device was meant to separate a song into its variable tracks, allowing users to play each instrumental layer back at will.
Though a tech product from the « Jesus Walks » rapper had been rumored as early as 2012, West launched the Stem Player with his 2021 album, « Donda », in collaboration with the British technology firm Kano Computing. He had originally planned for the follow-up album, « Donda 2 », to launch exclusively through the Stem Player, but that album failed to materialize.
The player itself cost $200 upon release, and it wasn’t quite what West promised. The actual splitting of musical stems had to be performed within a web app on the user’s computer, then synced over to the Stem Player. Once there, they could be manipulated during playback by using the touch capacitive sliders on the Player’s dome-like surface. The device was housed in a case that resembled a large ring box. Reviews of the device from the usual tech outlets ranged from puzzled to semi-satisfied, with reviewers puzzled by its small storage capacity, lack of a display, and according to PC Mag, its « unpleasant fleshy texture. » Engadget summed things up nicely by writing, « It looks kinda like a sex toy. »Dr. Dre’s bass-pumping Beats
The product that turned hip-hop legend Dr. Dre into a near billionaire wasn’t his music, but his personal line of headphones. There was a period during the mid-2000s to 2010s when the candy-coated cans were an inescapable sight, worn by everyone from chart-topping musicians to all-star sports players due to a ceaseless spending spree on sponsorships. It turns out that Dre identified a massive gap in the audio market, as aesthetics were an afterthought for headphones manufacturers. The flashy designs of Beats headphones spoke to people who cared more about look than sound, which turned out to be the vast majority of consumers.
Shortly into the company’s lifespan, HTC bought a controlling share in Beats, but that was small potatoes compared to what was in store. Eventually, Apple came calling, turning Dre into « the first billionaire in hip hop » when it scooped his company up for a jaw-dropping $3.2 billion. It was the largest acquisition in history for the Cupertino tech giant. In fact, it was partially in response to Apple’s plain, white earbuds that Dre and record executive Jimmy Iovine conceived of Beats.
