Famous people do some pretty weird stuff. Michael Bublé eats his corn on the cob like a hot dog, and Chrissy Teigen famously licks the seasoning off Doritos before sticking them back in the bag. Tim Tebow is known to put butter in his coffee.
But some celebrities take eating to a whole new level of strange. From Mariah Carey’s all-purple diet to Karl Lagerfeld’s separate house for dining (yes, you read that correctly), here are some of the most bizarre eating habits of the stars.
Tom Brady doesn’t eat nightshades.
Love him or hate him, there’s no denying Tom Brady’s athletic prowess on the field. Patriots fans can thank his wife, supermodel Gisele Bündchen, who put their family on a strict diet that Brady follows religiously.
The Brady–Bündchen clan famously eats an 80 percent vegetable diet. But Brady, in particular, does not eat nightshades.
Unlike medieval Europeans, who believed tomatoes and other nightshades to be poisonous, Brady doesn’t consume members of the Solanaceae family because there is some evidence they can cause inflammation.
In an interview with GQ magazine, Brady says of his strict diet, “I learned so many different things…because I was kind of—and still am—an aspiring athlete in a lot of ways. I still want to reach my maximum potential, I still love doing what I do, and I want to do it as well as I can for as long as I can.”
With five Super Bowl wins under his belt and no signs of slowing down, Tom Brady might just be onto something.
Karl Lagerfeld has a separate house for eating.
Lagerfeld drinks copious amounts of Diet Coke during the day, preferring only cold beverages.
Lagerfeld has a lot of bizarre habits, including an obsession with the color white, cleanliness, and exclusively wearing 17th-century-style custom-made nightshirts to bed.
As one does when one uses the main house to sketch and daydream, Lagerfeld has a second home for eating and entertaining. Lagerfeld explains: “I never have lunch, but when I do, I ask them to bring it to me in the house. I actually have two houses.
“This house here, it’s only for sleeping and sketching, and I have another house two-and-a-half meters away for lunch and dinner and to see people, and where the cook is and all that.”
Kourtney Kardashian eats her placenta.
Yes, you read that correctly. Kardashian made headlines a couple of years ago for taking placenta pills. Placenta is an organ that develops during pregnancy to nourish a fetus in utero. When a baby is born, the placenta is delivered soon after. While nearly all mammals eat their placenta postpartum, the practice of consuming placenta is pretty rare for human women.
Kardashian said her placenta pills were “yummy” and may have influenced her sister Kim’s decision to also take placenta pills postpartum. Kim Kardashian West decided to consume her placenta because she struggled with postpartum depression after her first pregnancy.
Some anecdotal evidence suggests that consuming placenta may help combat postpartum depression, so Kardashian West thought, “why not try it? What do I have to lose?”
The Kardashian sisters may have made headlines for consuming their placenta, but having it ground into pills is one of the tamer ways to consume one’s own internal organ. Instead of eating hospital food, one woman had her placenta stewed into a tasty broth for her first post-birth meal.
Usain Bolt has a McNugget addiction.
If you want to train like the fastest man on Earth, head straight for the golden arches. During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Bolt consumed 100 chicken McNuggets a day.
“At first I ate a box of 20 for lunch, then another for dinner. The next day I had two boxes for breakfast, one for lunch and then another couple in the evening.”
That’s just under 5,000 calories in nuggets alone, not even counting dipping sauce! Of his nugget addiction Bolt says, “Man, I should have gotten a gold medal for all that chowing down.”
For the most recent Olympics in Rio, Bolt gave up his McDonald’s addiction. Instead, he opted for yams, lean protein, and his least favorite veggie, broccoli, to get in shape.
Mariah Carey eats purple foods three days a week.
Most women work out in sneakers, shorts, and a tank top, but Mariah Carey is not most women. She opts to get her sweat on in stilettos and fishnets instead. When it comes to her diet, Carey is just as over the top.
After the birth of her children in 2013, Mariah Carey turned to the purple diet to get back in shape.
The purple diet is exactly what it sounds like: You may eat as many naturally purple foods as you like. Carey reportedly chowed down on purple carrots, cauliflower, and eggplant three days a week. Purple foods have anthocyanins, a powerful antioxidant, which may aid in weight loss.
While Mariah Carey looks phenomenal no matter what color food her food is, she has evidently moved on from the purple diet. According to Carey, on her new food plan, “All you eat is Norwegian salmon and capers every day. That’s it.”
Sounds tasty.
Stephen King eats cheesecake every day.
Like the Golden Girls, Stephen King loves cheesecake. Evidently, the king of suspense eats a piece of cheesecake every day before writing.
In an interview with Bon Appétit magazine, King said, “I have a son who swears by creme brulee and always eats it before he writes. For me, it’s cheesecake.”
Cheesecake is a decadent treat to have every day, but King might be onto something by eating it daily. Cheesecake does actually offer some nutritional benefits.
Cheesecake is Stephen King’s brain food, but there is one dish he won’t touch. “I don’t eat oysters. It’s horrible, the way they slither down your throat alive.”
Nicolas Cage only eats “dignified” meat.
Back in 2010, Nicolas Cage made headlines when he revealed the weird way he eats: “I actually choose the way I eat according to the way animals have sex. I think fish are very dignified with sex. So are birds. But pigs, not so much. So I don’t eat pig meat or things like that. I eat fish and fowl.”
While we’re not sure if fish and fowl are more dignified than other animals, Cage’s dignified diet is pretty healthy. Fish and poultry are lean proteins, and most nutritionists recommend pork and red meat in moderation.
Scott Foley eats peanut butter on scrambled eggs.
Peanut butter tastes delicious in some pretty unlikely combinations.
Elvis Presley famously had his staff fly with him to Colorado to satisfy a late-night craving for a peanut butter, jelly, and bacon sandwich. Hollywood hunk Channing Tatum likes PBJ&Cs (peanut butter, jelly, and Cheetos sandwiches).
Scott Foley, who stars on the ABC drama Scandal, recently revealed that his family eats peanut butter slathered on scrambled eggs for breakfast. Says Foley, “It’s so good. Don’t knock it till you try it. …Peanut butter eggs. Dig it.”
There’s no denying that both peanut butter and eggs are a great source of protein, but we’ll just take Foley’s word for it on his unusual breakfast combination.