If we had a dollar for every second a celeb “retired” we’d be on the Forbes list.
Yesterday Chris Brown—our favorite king of dramatics—announced his upcoming album would be his last. Brown follows a list of entertainers that chucked the deuces to their careers several times, but it’s hard to believe any celeb would completely abandon their craft. Check out our list of artists who’ve retired but never left the game.
After the Carter V, Wayne’s bowing down on his career. This isn’t the first time he’s said he’ll quit, so we’re just waiting on the next hot track after the albums release.
Selena Gomez
Justin Bieber’s ex is retiring from her music to focus on her career. But in reality that’s not retirement, but rather a career change.
The G-Unit rapper vowed to quit if Kanye West sold more albums than him. Kanye sold more albums and he’s still in the studio making music. What an idle threat.
When you aren’t getting the respect you deserve what better way to receive it when you threaten to stop. The femcee announced retiring, but with all her ventures—Myx and perfume—Nicki won’t be leaving the radio waves anytime soon.
Jay Z
Jay Z retired way before Blue was a discussion in the tabloids, but this month he’s dropped the Picasso video from his new album and performed on stage with Beyonce. In the words of Jay “we don’t believe you, you need more people.”
Jean Grae
This femcee has been in the game for years but she’s still only received underground success. We’re happy her retirement talk was only talk because we’re big fans of the rapper.
Photo Credit: Okay Player
Lupe Fiasco has hinted at quitting ever since the Chief Keef incident. We would believe him if he didn’t do the same thing in 2007 before Lasers became his first no. 1 album
Brangelina
Angelina Jolie stated in 2010, she won’t be acting for much longer and in 2011 Brad Pitt said in 3 years he’s retiring. We’ll see what happens in 2014, but we aren’t expecting any movie absence from the couple.
The greatest ended his career in 1979. Stepped back out in 1980 and 1981 to loss twice before officially calling it quits.
Photo Credit: Mirror
Joaquin Pheonix
The phenom actor was dead serious on his retirement announcement from film in 2008. He wanted to focus on his hip hop music. Luckily for us, he’s still acting and left hip-hop dreams for fellow actress Amanda Bynes.
Photo Credit: Dallas Observer
Cudi quit before he started. The kid wrote a blog on his retiring before his debut LP Man on the Moon was released. two albums later he says he’s retiring after four additional albums. We’ll see…
Michael Jordan went from basketball to baseball, then to coaching to playing basketball and later he moved to golfing. The basketball great loves sports we just wish he made up his mind.
Diddy
Considering he can’t stay committed to his own name—Sean Combs, Puff Daddy, P-Diddy, Puffy—we never took his music retirement talk seriously.
Soulja Boy made it big from his “Superman” track but after little success he took to Twitter (as they all do) to hang up his cape. Since then he’s dropped his third album.
Photo Credit: Brad Barket/Getty Images
Waka Flacka Flame
“I rather work in Walmart than rap,” Waka said before dropping “Round of Applause”.
Pastor Mase Bethem left Harlem world after two albums to practice his ministry. He later returned with Welcome Back and teamed with G-unit.
Amanda Bynes
Before her recent antics, Amanda Bynes announced her retirement. We kinda wish she stuck with it.