The Wonderful World of Celebrity Candy

It is not uncommon for celebrities to endorse a wide range of goods and services. It seems sometimes as though the rich and famous will put their name and face to just about anything if it promises to boost their bank balances a little more.

These days it is uncommon for sports athletes to get behind candy. But one of the celebs on our list would have been more regularly found in the betting markets at the Las Vegas online sportsbooks than in supermarkets doing her grocery shopping. There may not be many current athletes endorsing candy, but that hasn’t stopped film stars, musicians, and supermodels from getting in on the act.

Here are some of our favorite celeb-candy crossovers – where the stars made a dream come true by having their own confectionary produced and sold to their adoring fans.

Maria Sharapova

For a while in the 2000s, Maria Sharapova was the darling of the international tennis circuit. The most successful Russian female player of all time, she won all four Grand Slam events in her career and was known almost as much for her many endorsements and off-court activities than for her sporting achievements.

One of those moneymaking deals was for her own line of gummy candies, imaginatively called Sugarpova. Most athletes shy away from promoting candy but Sugarpova reported sales of $20 million in 2019 and Sharapova’s cut of that will definitely have seemed worth it after her retirement from tennis in 2020.

The Spice Girls

For a while, there didn’t seem to be anything without the faces of The Spice Girls plastered all over it to help it sell. This UK girl group was a global phenomenon that sold over 105 million records and was a major part of the Cool Britannia movement that was so successful in the 1990s.

The Spice Girls made even more money from their endorsements than they did from their music, reportedly earning $500 million from deals in 1997 alone. At the height of their fame they even came up with Spice Girls Fantasy Ball Chupa Chups. Fans were able to collect stickers along with enjoying the candy. It is not known which Spice Girl Chupa Chup was the highest seller.

Audrey Hepburn

Just to show you that even the death of a celebrity doesn’t stop the marketing world from turning, we give you the wonderful Audrey Hepburn. A movie screen legend, Hepburn was best known for her roles in classics such as Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Roman Holiday, for which she won an Academy Award.

With a reputation as a style icon, it is not surprising that Audrey Hepburn was also able to make some good money from endorsing a range of goods. But it was her posthumous appearance in an ad for Galaxy chocolates that earned her a place on this list. A combination of CGI and archive footage saw her grace the screen 30 years after her death in 1993 and introduced her to a whole new audience.

Chaka Khan

We can see exactly what was running through the minds of the marketing people for this one. Using the singer’s immense popularity and her name as a part of a pun on “chocolate”, Chakalates was launched in 2013 in an attempt to cash in on the gourmet confectionary market.

At that time, Chaka Khan was celebrating an incredible 40 years in the business and was able to look back on a life of smash hits and awards covering just about all of those decades. That wasn’t the only item that was marketed using her name though – her Khana Sutra candles (do you see what she did there?) were also launched to help her fans make the most of the Valentine’s Day celebrations.

Ben Affleck

In an incredibly successful movie career that has won Affleck not one, but two Academy Awards, it has sometimes seemed unfair that he is known more for his on-off relationship with Jennifer Lopez and the myriad of memes that his resting bored face has inspired.

A little less well known happens to be his long history of charitable work and philanthropy. One of the more high profile of these is the Eastern Congo Initiative. After travelling extensively in the region, Affleck set up a non-profit organization that helped people in Congo set up their own businesses. One of these was a confectionary business, alongside Theo Chocolate, with the aim of enabling locals to manufacture and sell the product themselves.

Heidi Klum

One of a group of elite supermodels that burst onto the scene in the 1990s, Heidi Klum has been able to make a lot of money from endorsements and business ventures away from the catwalk for years. Many of these have been fashion-related, as well as hugely successful perfume ranges.

But in the early 2000s, Heidi also dipped her toes into the cutthroat world of candy. Bemoaning the lack of authentic German-style gummies in her adopted USA, she launched Heidi’s Fruit Flirtations to her adoring fans. It is not clear how successful this particular venture was but we are sure that the millions in the bank earned from a long and fruitful career will more than have made up for any shortfall.