Originally appeared on E! Online
Snacking on the job makes Pharrell Williams happy.
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In fact, the music producer recently shared that, before he made it big in music, his love for Mickey D’s led him toward — and also away from — a job.
“McDonald’s was my first and only job,” Pharrell said during a Nov. 5 interview with BBC Radio 2. “I got fired three times. I was eating the chicken nuggets.”
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But it wasn’t just his love for Ronald McDonald’s chicken that impacted his work performance.
“The first two times it was just because I was lazy,” Pharrell continued. “The third was like, ‘What are you doing? You’re just sitting there eating nuggets?'”
And although the “Blurred Lines” singer — who shares kids Rocket Ayer, 16, and 7-year-old triplets with wife Helen Lasichanh — didn’t thrive in the fast food space, he was obviously able to find success in other ways.
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“When I was 40 and I had three No. 1 records in a year, all of them were commissions,” Pharrell told The Hollywood Reporter in September. “With ‘Get Lucky,’... I’m thinking I’m writing a song for somebody else to sing, and if I would’ve written it for me, it probably wouldn’t have been as big, because I would’ve written for my ego. When that s--- blew up, I was like, ‘Whoa! OK, hold on.’ And that humbled me.”
Later, when his song “Happy” — which he originally wrote for CeeLo Green before it was rejected by the label — soared to No. 1 for ten straight weeks, he was floored.
“When that record exploded, it was like, ‘OK, I didn’t wake up one day deciding that I wanted to make a song about an emotion,’” Pharrell explained. “At that point, I’m crying, because I’m like, ‘OK, God, what’s going on?’”
And it was in that moment that the multi-hyphenate — who was also named men’s creative director for Louis Vuitton in February 2023 — realized how much collaborating with others benefits his work.
“My reality was always, ‘I wrote this song. I produced this song. I sold this many records. I sold this. I sold that,’” Pharrell said. “It was me, me, me, me. Those three No. 1 songs [written for and in collaboration with others] enlightened me that it’s so many other factors.”
