Fired to fame

Madonna was fired from Dunkin’ Donuts a day after joining it for squirting jelly at customers

They might be top celebrities with pay packets going in millions, but at the start of their careers the likes of Madonna, David Letterman, Sarah Silverman and Russell Simmons had their own share of canning and rejection to face. Madonna worked at Dunkin’ Donuts in Times Square after moving to New York, but was fired after just one day for squirting jelly at customers.

"I had a lot of jobs that lasted one day," the New York Daily News quoted her, as saying.

After being canned in college, chat show host David Letterman has put his skills to good use and is making loads of cash.

Comic Sarah Silverman got her first big break in 1993 as a writer and performer on Saturday Night Live, but suffered the indignity of being axed by fax in 1994 after none of the sketches she’d written made it on to the show.

Def Jam records mogul Russell Simmons scored a high school job at an Orange Julius store in Greenwich Village, but admits he "got fired pretty quickly" for not working hard enough. Late rocker Elvis Presley also had his share of initial struggle. His daily grind at The Precision Tool Co. in Memphis came to an abrupt end when they discovered he was too young to be working there.

Before becoming a 1980s-style icon, singer Boy George was fired from his local supermarket for "choosing to wear" the store’s grocery bags. — ANI