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- Several celebrity couples have teamed up to start businesses together, but not all of them are successful.
- We compiled four celebrity couples involved in successful businesses together, and three others who weren’t so lucky.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Couples who go into business together give new meaning to the word partnership.
But not every couple that enters the business world manages to find success, judging by the example of certain celebrity couples. For every successful enterprise, there is a failed business or bankruptcy with famous names attached that no amount of celebrity power and money could save.
We compiled seven businesses backed by celebrity couples — four that succeeded, and three others that weren’t so lucky.
Read on to see which couples were able to take their partnerships to another level.
Spike and Tonya Lewis Lee have co-authored multiple children’s books
AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth
Business runs in the Lee family: Spike has been making movies for over 35 years, and wife Tonya Lewis Lee has been producing TV shows and movies for almost 20 years.
The couple met in 1992 and married a year later, and have collaborated on a number of industry jobs, including "Miracle Boys," which Tonya produced and Spike directed several episodes for, as well as a Netflix series based on Spike’s film "She’s Gotta Have It."
The two have pivoted into more child-friendly territory over the years in the form of children’s books. The first book, titled "Please, Baby, Please," is about a parent begging for their child to behave. The book has sold well enough to warrant a sequel, "Please, Puppy, Please," and to give the couple a new stand-alone, "Giant Steps To Change The World."
Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore founded an organization to fight human trafficking
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The guy who rose to fame playing a goofy stoner doesn’t seem like the guy who would know to make smart investments. Yet Ashton Kutcher has taken his money and invested it in a number of smart startups. Kutcher has seen a number of his investments grow into highly lucrative companies, including Skype, Airbnb, and Foursquare.
After Kutcher married Demi Moore, she helped turn his investing energy toward humanitarian efforts. She worked with Kutcher to found the DNA Foundation, an organization that worked to fight human trafficking worldwide, in 2012.
The company has grown to partner with a number of other organizations, such as the Polaris Project, and has attracted further celebrity endorsement, including the likes of Jamie Foxx, Jessica Biel, and Sean Penn.
In 2012, DNA was renamed Thorn: Digital Defenders of Children. Although Kutcher and Moore split up in 2013, the group is still active, and is currently working with search engines and service providers to build a database that will track and target sources of child abuse images.
Chip and Joanna Gaines give back to their hometown with Magnolia Market
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Known for fixing homes on HGTV’s "Fixer Upper," Chip and Joanna Gaines turned their sustainable love and home-making skills toward their community.
Before starting a family and rising to fame, the couple owned a store in Waco, Texas, called Magnolia Market, which featured home goods and country-chic products. With two kids on the way, though, the couple closed up shop and focused on their own home for a bit.
After some time focusing on their company Magnolia Homes, the couple were able to reopen the market and start expanding. They bought up the Silos, a local town landmark, and fixed it up for new business. In 2015, the complex opened, covering two city blocks and hosting a number of retail stores, including a food truck park, a garden store, bakery, and lawn area. In the first year, the complex saw nearly 2 million visitors.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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Source: Business Insider – feedback@businessinsider.com (Peter Aitken)