The concept of fame is nothing new for The Sims — you’ve been able to be a celebrity ever since the Superstar expansion for the very first game. In it, whether you made your Sim a household name or simply spent your time in Studio Town fawning and collecting autographs, celebs are something of a staple in the series.
And while a lot of that has trended toward fictional in-game Sims becoming famous, there have indeed been crossovers from real life, too. IRL celebrities have long been included in the various versions of the game, so I wanted to take a look back at some of my favorites from the last few decades.
10 Freddie Prinze Jr.
My exposure to Freddie Prinze Jr. was from the Scooby-Doo live action movies that came out just before he cropped up in The Sims: Superstar, but he was also a staple in 90s flicks like She’s All That and I Know What You Did Last Summer. Either way, I spent a good amount of time in Studio Town thinking about Fred Jones as I pestered his actor for autographs.
Prinze Jr. is an actor, producer, and screenwriter, and most recently, he’s begun a WWE podcast after several appearances and producer stints for the brand. He was made available for download from the official Sims website back in the day if you wanted to bring him into your Superstar game.
9 Multiple Members Of Bon Jovi
Though Bon Jovi, the band, takes its name from Jon Bon Jovi, its singer, he’s not the only member of the group to appear in The Sims: Superstar. Guitarist, songwriter, and producer Richie Sambora did leave the group after a three-decade run in 2013, but he appeared alongside Jon in The Sims expansion in 2003.
Both Jon and Richie can be found in Studio Town and asked for autographs, though they most often appear separately instead of as a band unit, like the other celebrities. If you tried to catch them both at the same time, you’d have to have been Livin’ on a Prayer.
8 Millie Bobby Brown
Though she’s the youngest and most recent celebrity on this list, Millie Bobby Brown showed up for an extremely different, much more wholesome reason. She wasn’t a star-powered celebrity in her appearance — in fact, she wasn't even famous: the teen appeared in-game as the event coordinator for the Positivity Challenge.
Challenge events have been in The Sims 4 for quite a while, and Brown’s was in the game for almost a month between November and December 2018. She showed up when you called the event coordinator, gifted you a Box of Kindness, and set you off on a mission to gain more decorative rewards for being nice to the Sims in your neighborhood.
7 Andy Warhol
Warhol made a posthumous appearance in The Sims as one of the celebrity NPCs in The Sims: Superstar, but he’s been mentioned several times throughout the series as well. If you don’t recognize him himself, then you definitely recognize his infamous Campbell’s Soup Cans piece, which has been parodied as many art pieces throughout the Sims series.
But in Superstar, he was different from the rest of the NPC celebs in that he had an actual job past signing autographs. As a real-life artist and filmmaker, the in-game Warhol was the photographer who operated the photo shoot set if your Sim was pursuing a Supermodel fame career.
6 Katy Perry
While Katy Perry is most well-known for her illustrious, best-selling music career, she ventured into other businesses for the first time in 2010. She’d originally been brought into The Sims world in some capacity in 2008 with a Simlish cover of her song, “Hot n Cold” in The Sims 2: Apartment Life, but she appeared again in a collector’s edition of The Sims 3: Showtime, too, this time as an actual Sim.
But Perry wasn’t done with The Sims even after that — she ended up releasing Katy Perry’s Sweet Treats, her own confections-based stuff pack for The Sims 3 in 2012. The pack raised concerns with fans for being more expensive than regular stuff packs, but it did include a lot for a stuff pack — 33 clothing pieces, 55 objects, three venues, and even an exclusive poster if you bought it through Origin.
5 Marilyn Monroe
One of the most iconic and well-known celebrities arguably of all time, though Monroe herself passed away in 1962, she was brought into The Sims: Superstar four decades later in 2003. In the game, she spent most of her time in Studio Town giving out autographs and hanging out in her trailer, but she’d also stop by your house, paparazzi in tow, if your famous Sim won an award.
Her outfit is based on a real-life costume she wore in Gentleman Prefer Blondes. It’s a strapless, bold pink gown with coordinating gloves and heels, complete with a bevy of sparkly jewelry pieces to boot.
4 Christina Aguilera
Very early on in a celebrity career that started young, Christina Aguilera, popular singer and TV personality, appeared in The Sims: Superstar. Like the other celebrities included in the pack, she could most often be found milling about in Studio Town, typically ready to hand out autographs.
Interestingly, though, The Sims: Superstar wasn’t Aguilera’s only video game appearance, either, which seems odd for a celebrity in a career outside gaming. Over a decade after she made a splash as a celebrity NPC Sim, Aguilera appeared as a download in Tomodachi Life for the Nintendo 3DS as well.
3 Avril Lavigne
There was absolutely nothing “Complicated” about Avril Lavigne’s appearance in The Sims: Superstar. Like the other celebrities of the day, Lavigne could be found hanging around Studio Town lots, dishing out autographs and meandering aimlessly.
Although, unlike the other celebrities, Lavigne almost feels at home, loitering around public places. Her iconic video for “Sk8r Boi” (it feels so wild to type like that two decades and an English degree after I typed exclusively like that on AIM, to age myself a little) was all about her and her buddies being skaters, wreaking havoc on a local mall. It’s all very quintessential 2003 angst.
2 Drew Carey
I’ve mentioned a lot of celebrities that came with The Sims: Superstar, but there, famous folks are to be expected. When you got House Party, however, and threw a particularly noteworthy one, actor and funnyman Drew Carey would show up to your house out of the blue, arriving in a limo and amusing your guests with his presence.
Requirements to get him to show up were tough, though, and him dropping by was considered one hell of an achievement. Your party had to have been going for over 135 minutes, and you’d need to have been doing well throwing it, with a score of at least 55. But once he showed up, your friends would be buzzing about him all night — you know it was a cool party when a Hollywood star just needed to be present.
1 Everyone In The Black Eyed Peas
I’ve played just about every Sims release since I got into the series in the early 2000s as a kid, and one of the most iconic games in my opinion remains The Urbz: Sims in the City. I mean, why the hell did The Black-Eyed Peas team up with Maxis to bring Sims to various districts of an inner city after Will.i.am tasks you with making friends and becoming well-known? Who knows, but I’m glad they did, because it was great.
Releases for The Sims outside the main series were always different from the mainline games, and they got mixed reviews. They were usually more goal-based than the open-ended sandbox games on PC, and The Urbz saw you leave that familiarity to progress from district to district, building “Rep,” working jobs, and making friends. I always targeted The Black Eyed Peas members first when I got to a new district, anyway — be my friend, Fergie.