As Katy Perry prepares for take-off in Jeff Bezos’s New Shephard rocket this Spring, one has to wonder which other A-listers would blindly clamber into a space rocket if the offer was there.
Many celebrities have a well-documented interest in space, making the line between rocket science and rock stars increasingly blurred.
From Leonardo DiCaprio to Pete Davidson, here are some of the space-loving astronauts-in-waiting that you may have forgotten about.
Pete Davidson
While dating Kim Kardashian, Pete Davidson lobbied Jeff Bezos to allow him on a Blue Origin rocket into space. Bezos apparently agreed, and for a while, it became entirely possible that Davidson would be going into space.
However, in 2022, Davidson announced that had to back out of the trip due to a “scheduling conflict” that he never explained, which is kind of like missing your mate’s wedding because you had to do the washing up. I.e maybe you just didn’t want to go.
Lana Del Rey
Lana Del Rey has never expressed a desire to travel to outer space but did once infamously say that she was more interested in space travel than she was in feminism.
“Whenever people bring up feminism, I'm like, god, I'm just not really that interested. I'm more interested in, you know, SpaceX and Tesla, what's going to happen with our intergalactic possibilities,” the singer told The Fader in 2014.
William Shatner
So much for Katy Perry going to space on Jeff Bezos’s rocket, William Shatner has already BEEN to space on Jeff Bezos’s rocket, way back in 2021.
The trip to space gave Shatner a David Attenborough-esque crisis of confidence in the world, with the actor telling Variety: “Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna… things that took five billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind.
“It filled me with dread. My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral.” Uhhhh, does anybody wanna switch seats?
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie
Before Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s mega messy divorce, they were very much your normal, run-of-the-mill, happy married couple. Buying vineyards, planning to go to space. You know, the day-to-day stuff.
Brad bought himself and Angelina each a $250,000 ticket to travel on Richard Branson’s SpaceShipTwo in 2014 after Pitt was rumoured to have been inspired by his role in AdAstra. However, the couple divorced in 2016, before they could board the rocket.
Branson eventually flew to space on a different rocket, Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity, in 2021.
Rihanna
Another celebrity who has expressed interest in Branson’s space mission is Rihanna, who reportedly purchased three seats aboard the Virgin Galactic spaceship in 2013 for the small price of $500,000.
She allegedly planned to take her brother Rorrey and a bodyguard on the trip. However, RiRi is now a mother of two and committed partner to A$AP Rocky here on Earth, so her plans may have changed a little since then.
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio also purchased a ticket to fly on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo back in 2013, and successfully raised $1.5 million for charity by auctioning off the seat next to him.
However, DiCaprio never boarded this spaceship and has become increasingly close with another space-obsessed billionaire, Jeff Bezos, so it’s more likely that he’ll be heading to space in a Blue Origin rocket than any Virgin Galactic vessel.
