This is an older story that picked up some steam on Reddit earlier this year, but it’s new to me and I wanted to talk about it. Weird Al Yankovic, 59, once turned down a $5 million beer endorsement deal, I believe in 1990 when that was even more than it is now, because he thought it would be the wrong choice for his young fans. I learned about this because I follow his wife, photographer Suzanne Yankovic, on Instagram and she reposted a story about it. Here’s the post.

View this post on Instagram

?? #tbt

A post shared by suzanneyankovicphoto (@suzanneyankovicphoto) on Dec 6, 2018 at 7:22am PST

I couldn’t find the original source for this, but there are quotes online from the interview:

“I don’t have a whole lot of regrets. A number of years ago a beer company offered me five million dollars, back when that was a lot of money, to be their commercial spokesperson”.

He said he turned it down because, “a lot of my fans were young and impressionable, so ethically I believe I did the right thing, but not a day goes by when I don’t think, ‘Hmm, an extra five million dollars would really come in handy’.”

[From undercover.fm]

A commenter on reddit also mentioned that Weird Al was friends with actor Trinidad Silva, who was killed by a drunk driver in 1988. Another commenter puts the year Weird Al turned down the deal at 1990, although I can’t confirm that.

Years ago I was talking with a company that wanted to buy Celebitchy and have us still work here. The deal was close to seven figures, it was incredible and I could have bought a house, retired from this and gone on to something else. However I didn’t trust them, I thought they weren’t genuine about not changing our voice, and subsequent meetings with their editorial team confirmed this. I backed out of the deal. (Reading about the way The Superficial, Pink is The New Blog and IDLYITW were handled after they were acquired has made me feel better about this decision.) The last couple of years have been a little leaner than usual and we’re trying to supplement that by doing affiliate posts. We’re also considering doing a podcast like Dlisted and Lainey Gossip. Reading stories like this makes me feel pretty good about everything.

Here’s Weird Al and his family at the Halloween premiere. His wife, Suzanne, is best friends with Jamie Lee Curtis. I’m putting it on my bucket list now to have dinner with both of them.

Also Weird Al is friends with Lin Manuel Miranda and was at his star ceremony at the Walk of Fame!

Photos credit: WENN