8 People Who Missed Out On Fame And Fortune 

People who just missed out on the big time

From being fired to quitting to not living up to early promise, here are some salutary tales of people from the business, entertainment and sporting worlds who missed out on fame and fortune. Read on to discover how their journeys to stardom came to early ends.

Joe Green: Facebook

Before he launched Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg created FaceMash with his friend Joe Green. The prank website pitched two pictures of women from their Harvard University campus against one another for users to decide which one was more attractive, and got Zuckerberg and Green in trouble. So when Zuckerberg asked Green to work on Facebook with him, Green's father told him to stay away and he did, according to an interview Green gave to ABC News in 2012.

Joe Green: Facebook

Little was Green to know that Facebook would become a global social media phenomenon, and that the 4-6% of shares he estimates that he would have had would have been worth around $3 billion today. Green went on to advise the company as well as found two other companies: Causes and Nationbuilder.

Eric Stefani: No Doubt

Eric Stefani (pictured second from left) was a founding member of rock band No Doubt, forming it with friends and asking his sister Gwen to join on vocals. But Eric bowed out after helping to write No Doubt's breakthrough album Tragic Kingdom in 1995. 

Eric Stefani: No Doubt

This meant that Stefani missed out on the limelight and riches that his sister and other band members experienced. Instead, he focused on his career as an animator for The Simpsons.

Kim Hill: Black Eyed Peas

Before the Black Eyed Peas hit the big time, the line-up was a little different. The only woman in the group for their first two albums was singer and songwriter Kim Hill. However, as the band changed direction and Hill started to feel pressure from the band's label to be more sexual, she left in 2000 to pursue other projects.

Kim Hill: Black Eyed Peas

Hill was eventually replaced by Stacy 'Fergie' Ferguson in 2002. The band started to see global success off the back of this reinvention. Hill is still in the music business, but has not seen the same levels of success as her former bandmates.

Glen Matlock: Sex Pistols

Glen Matlock (pictured second right) joined the Sex Pistols in 1974 when the band was looking for a bass player. However, he didn't last long. When John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) joined in 1975 there was tension with Glen, who ended up leaving in 1977. Although folklore says he was forced out for liking The Beatles...

Glen Matlock: Sex Pistols

Matlock didn't completely fade into obscurity, but he didn't quite hit the big time either. He formed Rich Kids with Steve New and Midge Ure but this disbanded after one album. He then drifted between bands, before releasing a book called I Was A Teenage Sex Pistol in 1990. While he still plays (he's pictured here with Ronnie Wood and Mick Hucknall in the Faces) and performed again with the Sex Pistols, Matlock didn't find the levels of fame and notoriety enjoyed by John Lydon, or his bass replacement Sid Vicious. He told The Telegraph newspaper in 2014 that his decision to quit the Sex Pistols had cost him "millions".

Richard Evans: U2

When Irish rock band U2 first came together under their original name The Hype in 1976, there were five band members and not four. The Edge's older brother Richard 'Dik' Evans (pictured left) played guitar with the group for 18 months. But it was not to last and Richard left the band, later saying that "I just didn't fit in".

Richard Evans: U2

Evans received money from the Irish government to study computer science at Trinity College Dublin and chose to focus on his studies instead. He did spend some time with another band, but soon left music behind, going to Imperial College London to complete an engineering doctorate and pursuing a full-time career in science while his brother's band went on to become global megastars.

Ronald Wayne: Apple

Apple was the first US company to reach a $1 trillion market cap in 2018, and $2 trillion in August 2020. While a fantastic success for existing shareholders, for one man in particular it would have hurt. Ronald Wayne was the third founder of Apple, acting as an older presence for the two inventors Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, but he left the company before it found success.

Ronald Wayne: Apple

Wayne had 10% shares in the company but after only 12 days he sold them for a mere $800. The reason? He was concerned that as the older, more financially secure shareholder Apple's growing debts could come back to haunt him. Little did he know that he was giving away a potential fortune worth around $195 billion today.

Freddy Adu: soccer

Ghana-born Freddy Adu was once heralded as a soccer superstar in the making, and at just 14 years old was being compared to Brazilian legend Pele. His family moved to America in 1998, and in 2004 he was the youngest-ever American to sign a major league professional contract in any team sport when he joined DC United. Unsurprisingly, Adu had a trial with Manchester United aged 16, with manager Sir Alex Ferguson admitting that they would be keeping tabs on him in the future.

Freddy Adu: soccer

However, after transferring to Portuguese club Benfica for $2 million, Adu's career lost direction. While there, the club saw three changes in manager in the first six months, and Adu failed to get many appearances on the pitch. He was loaned to four different clubs, and later returned to the US with Philadelphia Union in 2011. However, Adu never fulfilled the potential and hype of his early career and most recently played for the Las Vegas Lights in the United Soccer League.

Pete Best: The Beatles

Pete Best was the original drummer for The Beatles. Having met John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison in the club that his mother Mona ran from the basement of the Best family home, he became the drummer in 1960 while they were honing their craft in Hamburg, Germany and the now legendary Cavern Club in Liverpool.

Pete Best: The Beatles

However, after meeting Ringo Starr, who was the drummer in another Liverpudlian band, the other members got their manager Brian Epstein to fire Best in 1962 just before they went on to achieve international fame. Best (pictured left) initially struggled, and did at one point attempt to kill himself as he saw his former band succeed without him. However, he found happiness as a civil servant and with his wife Kathy. He says has never spoken to the other Beatles again, but does now play in his own band, and they do cover several Lennon-McCartney songs.

These stars are even richer than their famous parents