The Celebs You Didn't Realize Once Worked At Hooters

The first role for many actors is as a server in a restaurant (via The New York Times). According to entertainment industry trade publication Backstage, the demands of the job mimic those placed on actors, including memorization, improvisation, and growing a "thick skin." Chris Pratt, for example, was toiling at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. when he hit it big, according to US Magazine. That points to another perk of working in the restaurant business: Exposure to entertainment executives seeking sustenance of one kind or another, and that includes Hooters. 

In fact, if you look at the Hooters Careers page, you'll notice the tagline in big bold all-caps: IT'S NOT A JOB. IT'S AN OPPORTUNITY. But it's an opportunity open to only a select cohort of people who are not only glamorous and goal-oriented, but charismatic and entertaining, the Hooters Careers page goes on to say. Setting aside the fact that Hooters has long been plagued by issues relating to its hiring practices (via Bononi Law Group), the fact is it shouldn't be surprising to realize that all of these celebs once worked at Hooters.

There's a bit of irony in the fact that six-time Academy Award nominee, Amy Adams, was nominated for a 2019 Primetime Emmy for her starring role in the HBO suspense series, Sharp Objects, based on a novel by Gillian Flynn (via IMDb). In her role as crime-solving journalist Camille Preaker, Adams showed virtually no skin whatsoever because of the character's history with scars. But right out of high school, Adams took a job working at Hooters, where baring one's skin is part of the job (via ET Online, Vox). 

"I was a hostess at first, and then I waited tables for a while, and it was great. It was a great way for me to earn money for college," she told Entertainment Tonight's Nancy O'Dell during an interview on the 2015 Golden Globes red carpet. Had Adams been hoping to parlay the Hooters job into stardom? Yes and no. "I never dreamed this big, I really thought... I wanted to be a dancer on stage, and it has just lead to this so I'm just very fortunate," she admitted to O'Dell.

Jerri Manthey rose to fame on the second season of the reality television show Survivor, in which she became the show's first "villainess," according to Screen Rant. In fact, after Manthey appeared in two more seasons of the show, including being booed off the stage during the All-Stars season Reunion Show, Screen Rant referred to the curly-haired reality star as "one of the most infamous contestants in Survivor's long-running history."

Manthey has never won the title of Sole Survivor, but she does happen to be a member of the Hooters Girl Hall of Fame. "This bombshell began her starlet career as a Hooters Girl in the early 90s," according to the Hall of Fame blurb about Manthey. In fact, she was one of the first Hooters Girls at the Huntsville, Alabama location. She also "donned the Orange Shorts" in Oklahoma City before she got her big break in Hollywood.

Naya Rivera was an actress best known for her role as mean-girl, lesbian cheerleader Santana Lopez in the hit musical TV series Glee, according to Legacy.com. Rivera died in 2020 in a swimming accident at age 33. The multi-talented actress-singer-dancer had been in showbiz for most of her life, having appeared in Kmart commercials as a baby and scoring her first television role on the sitcom, The Royal Family, when she was just four years old. She went on to win small roles in other television series, including The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The Bernie Mac Show, and Family Matters, and while Rivera's obituary does refer to a role the actress had on Baywatch, what it neglects to mention that Rivera also spent some time working at Hooters.

This may be because Rivera was truly uncomfortable in her role as a Hooters Girl. "I have nightmares about that job," she told Allure in 2013. "When I was working there, I was really skinny — a lot skinnier than I am now. But I was always self-conscious." Apparently, she got over her self-consciousness eventually and was in a very different mental space by the time she got her role on Glee. 

Despite spending five seasons on the E! television reality show, The Girls Next Door, and two on her spin-off, Holly's World, Holly Madison considers herself, first, a New York Times bestselling memoir author and only second, a television personality, according to the bio that appears on her website. Although the former girlfriend of the late Hugh Hefner addresses her role as a Las Vegas showgirl in her memoir (she appeared in the storybook-themed Peepshow from 2009 to 2012 as adult-themed versions of Little Bo Peep and Goldilocks), there is no mention whatsoever of Madison's time as a Hooters Girl.

But work at Hooters she did, according to the Hooters Girl Hall of Fame, of which she is a member. The "Alaska native spent several years at the Santa Monica, California" Hooters restaurant, the Hall of Fame blurb about Madison states. According to BuzzFeed, Holly Madison loved the position because it kept her in contact with the outside world while she pursued an acting career.