So Pharrell Williams once held a job at McDonald’s. Okay. What’s the big deal?
In a BBC Radio 2 interview on Tuesday, Nov. 5, the 51-year-old “Happy” singer opened up about his brief time in fast food. “McDonald’s was my first and only job,” Pharrell shared. “I got fired three times. I was eating the chicken nuggets.”
Pharrell went on to share the reasons behind his repeated dismissals. “The first two times it was just because I was lazy,” he admitted. “The third was like, ‘What are you doing? You’re just sitting there eating nuggets?’”
This is funny. Maybe he’ll do a lego movie about working at McDonalds, with a whole soundtrack.
Since his McDonald’s days, Pharrell’s career has skyrocketed. He began his musical journey in 1992 with The Neptunes, a production duo he formed with Chad Hugo, whom he met in seventh grade. Together, they produced major hits for the 2000s, including Snoop Dogg’s “Drop It Like It’s Hot,” Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl,” Nelly’s “Hot in Herre,” and Justin Timberlake’s “Rock Your Body.”
In 1999, Pharrell, Hugo, and drummer Shay Hale formed the band N.E.R.D, releasing their debut album, In Search Of…, three years later.
As a solo artist, Pharrell also achieved incredible success with collaborations like “Blurred Lines” with Robin Thicke and T.I., and “Get Lucky” with Daft Punk. His song “Happy” became one of the best-selling singles in history, selling over 13.9 million copies.
According to Forbes and CNN, “Happy” was the most-played song on British radio in the 2010s. It even held the record for the longest music video at 24 hours, until Twenty One Pilots surpassed it in 2020 with a video that lasted 177 days.
“When I was about 40, that’s when ‘Get Lucky,’ ‘Blurred Lines,’ ‘Happy,’ all of that was the same year,” Pharrell recalled in an interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music 1. “And these were all songs that were more commissions than they were just like, I woke up one day and decided I’m going to write about X, Y, and Z.”
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