Pharrell Shares Relatable Reason He Was Fired From McDonald’s Three Times

Snacking on the job makes Pharrell Williams happy.

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.”

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.

“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--t 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.”