Rare Photos that show the different side of the '90s

Looking back at the 1990s, it was a decade of relative peace and prosperity. This list of rare photos will give us a better way of understanding where we came from and gain new insights into recent historical events. Some of these historical events are so incredibly strange, beautiful, unnerving, or unusual, you’ll probably never read about them in the history books. Now, indulge in some 90s nostalgia. 

PAMELA ANDERSON WAS DISCOVERED AT A CANADIAN FOOTBALL LEAGUE GAME

From a regular Canadian sassy girl to one of the icons of the ‘90s. Pamela Anderson's fairytale-like switch in life started during a BC Lions game in 1989. She was wearing a cutoff Labatt’s Beer t-shirt and was caught by the camera. She attracted so much attention that day that Labatt eventually hired her as a spokesmodel. 

HER RISE TO STARDOM

From there, she made the boldest decision of her life. She moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting and modeling. It seems to be a good decision since she won the role of the original “Tool Time girl” on Home Improvement. She then became a starring part on Baywatch in 1992. She stayed on the Watch for five seasons. By then, she was no longer just an actress but a force of nature. Anderson became more popular than her show. 

THE CAST OF FRIENDS IN 1994 BEFORE THE SHOW PREMIERED

Can you imagine what it feels like to lose your anonymity even just for a while? Before their show started, their director took them on a trip so they could bond more. He told them, “This is your last shot at anonymity. Once the show comes on the air, you guys will never be able to go anywhere without being hounded." And that is what exactly happened to the cast of Friends when their show premiered on September 22, 1994, on NBC.

TRIP TO CALM THE NERVES?

It's the last hurrah before they face the scrutiny of the public eye. Series director Jimmy Burrows just didn't take them to the city of sin for an evening of pre-fame dinner and gambling. He also wanted to make sure they knew what they were in for. The Friends series is all about the six friends facing complex issues of life and love in New York City. The cast were all chosen out of inconspicuousness to star in the series. But now, they are some of the most famous faces on the planet.

MEGHAN MARKLE PICTURED AT 11 YEARS OLD

She led the life of an upper-crust youngster. Meghan Markle was just a girl growing up in the simple neighborhood of View Park, an area in Los Angeles known as “Black Beverly Hills,” before she became the Duchess of Sussex and one of the most famous people on the planet.

OH, HOW ROYALLY DIFFERENT HER LIFE IS TODAY!

When she was just 11, she wrote a letter to then-First Lady Hillary Clinton complaining about a tagline in a commercial for dish soap. The gendered claim that “Women all over America are fighting greasy pots and pans" was unpleasant for her. She was the key to changing the word “women” in the tagline to the more appropriate “people.” From that, she knew that with a small act, she could make a change. She understood how important her actions are. After that, she dedicated her life to “standing up for equality.” 

18-YEAR-OLD ELON MUSK WITH HIS ROOMMATE NAVAID FAROOQ AT QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY IN 1990

Teenage Elon Musk immigrated from Canada to South Africa. He worked a series of odd jobs before starting college at Queen’s University. Back then, he knew nothing of his surroundings, and yet he still managed to get close with Navaid Farooq, a Canadian who grew up in Geneva, as his advisor on all Canadian things.

A SIGN OF THINGS TO COME

Musk did a lot of extra jobs like selling computer parts and helping to fix the computers of his schoolmates. Essentially, he ventured into a business to support himself when he was still a teenager.  In an interview, he said, "I could build something to suit their needs like a tricked-out gaming machine or a simple word processor that cost less than what they could get in a store. Or if their computer didn't boot properly or had a virus, I'd fix it. I could pretty much solve any problem"

PRINCESS DIANA'S REVENGE DRESS

Stories about ways for women to get back at their cheating spouses are all over history. Princess Diana’s “revenge dress” may be the best and hottest version. On July 29, 1981, Diana and Charles were married but rumors of his infidelity were a constant talk in the British and American press.

ALL EYES ON HER

The two royals had been estranged since 1991. However, in 1994, on the night of the Vanity Fair Party, Diana made an appearance in this sexy, strappy dress. Charles then admitted on television that he cheated on her with Camilla Parker Bowels, his ex, while they were married. The dress was actually designed three years earlier but Diana never wore it because she thought it was “too daring.” It was not the dress she was supposed to wear during that night but she made a last-minute switch to that revenge dress. Her stylist said that Diana made the switch because she wanted to “look like a million dollars” that night.

RYAN GOSLING WAS RAISED VERY RELIGIOUS

In the 1990s, Ryan Gosling has been in and out of the spotlight. He was a member of different movies like The Mickey Mouse Club, The Goosebumps, and starred as the young Hercules. What we don't know is that he was raised with a strict Mormon upbringing. Talking about his early life, he told The Guardian, "We were brought up pretty religious. My mother admits it: She says, you were raised by a religious zealot. She's different now, but at the time, it was a part of everything - what they ate, how they thought…"

MOVING AWAY FOR HIS CAREER

However, when he was just 16, Gosling moved to Los Angeles to escape his iron-fisted religious rule mother. He wanted to be far away from the plasticine reality of Beverly Hills. He said that he found a place in Skid Row so he could be close to reality.

DREW BARRYMORE'S EMANCIPATION AT 14

No other young star struggled just like her. Drew Barrymore was in quite a hard life in the early ‘90s. Together with her mother, they partied at Studio 54. She barely went to school, and she just got over her issues. The only place she found comfort was in work. So, she dedicated herself to the age of 14 so she could get more roles. 

GROWING UP HER OWN WAY

She wrote, "I was never unprofessional, but I was on a hiatus from being employable. And when I turned 14 and wanted to start my life over, I wanted to do things on my own terms. On the day of my hearing, my mother was there in full support of my emancipation, which would mean me living on my own. I felt so sad, but too much had happened." She then moved out of her mother’s home, got an apartment in Westwood, and got a job at a coffeehouse. She admits that she is not great at her job and that then she felt like a loser.

MACAULAY CULKIN AND HOME ALONE

Macaulay Culkin is this generation’s Shirley Temple. After starring in one of the highest-grossing films of all time, audiences loved to watch him outwit home invaders while tossing out one-liners. He was the first child to be paid $1 million for his work. However, he was unsatisfied.

FAME TORE THEIR FAMILY APART

Kit, Macaulay’s manager and father, became one of Hollywood’s biggest players after the success of 1992’s Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. The talk at the time was that Kit was a pariah among Hollywood executives. He attempted to get creative control of his son’s films and used his power to promote the rest of his children to similar success. However, in 1994, Richie Rich bombed at the box office. Kit Culkin no longer had the power he longed for. It wasn’t that long before his hubris destroyed him.

WINONA AND JOHNNY, WHAT A TIME

A couple of the early ‘90s awards go to Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder. The couple seems to be a good match. He was a weirdo hunk and she was the cool alt girl that every guy wanted to hang out with. They were together between 1989 and 1993 after meeting on the set of Edward Scissorhands. Despite their eight years age gap, it wasn’t a big deal. Until they wanted to get married.

WAS IT FOR THE BEST?

Crybaby director John Waters was doomed when Depp asked him to marry them despite that Ryder’s father declined to give his blessing. Waters writes that while the couple was lovely he managed to get them to call off the wedding. He said, "Before we wrapped Depp’s lawyers did the paperwork to get me ordained as a minister in the Universal Life Church because [Depp and Ryder] wanted me to perform the marriage ceremony, but I gently talked them out of it because Winona was so young." And in 1993, the two lovebirds ended their relationship. 

JASON MOMOA PRE-KHAL DROGO

Jason Momoa is a hunk with a heart of gold of today. He is on Game of Thrones, he is Aquaman, the guy is everywhere. What we don't know is that his career almost stopped before it started. Good thing his time as a lifeguard on Baywatch Hawaii as Jason Ioane was a hit.

THAT HUNKY LIFEGUARD

Momoa described his first taste of acting as “crazy”. He was just a young kid in Colorado who was roaming around shirtless and hanging out with girls. Even so, he admits that the role nearly cost him his career. It is because the casting directors had a hard time seeing him as someone more than a hunky lifeguard. When the show ended, Momoa spent all the money he earned to go rock climbing and traveling the world.

JIM CARREY’S A-LIST IMPRESSIONS

There is a point in time that Jim Carrey wasn’t famous. Throughout the ‘80s, he was doing whatever he could to make it to Hollywood. But he was a standout on In Living Color. By 1994, the personal check for $10 million that he wrote himself for rendering service was finally available to be cashed.

SO MANY CHARACTERS

In ’94 Carrey changed comedy forever with his unique personal ways of rubber-faced, over the top act. That February, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective made $107.2 million, and later that year his films The Mask and Dumb and Dumber piled up a massive $706.1 million. Carrey says that he didn’t get famous because he was so funny or because he was working so hard, but because he was desperate. Desperation is a necessary ingredient to learning anything or creating anything. If you ain’t desperate at some point, you ain’t interesting.

BEFORE THE KARDASHIANS WERE WELL, THE KARDASHIANS

Kardashians were seriously one of the most ‘90s families that ever existed. Kim and Kourtney have been ruling even the ’90s styles. And this isn’t a surprise, at all. The family has been a group of fashionistas for their entire lives. Though their lives were not completely different, they weren't as famous.

A TOTALLY DIFFERENT FAMILY

The patriarch Robert Kardashian is most famous for being O.J. Simpson’s friend and a member of the football player’s defense team. Sadly, he passed away in 2003. His daughter Kim, however, doesn’t think he’s that far away from them. In fact, she said in a recent interview that she believes her son Psalm West is a reincarnation of her father.

A RISING ANGELINA JOLIE

Angelina Jolie has captured our hearts and imaginations throughout her career. Her work in the ‘90s, however, was beloved by most millennials. Two of her most important roles are her turn as Kate Libby in 1995’s Hackers. It is a movie that is an extremely cheesy but hilarious cult classic following rival Rocky Horror Picture Show, and as Lisa in Girl Interrupted.

JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG FOR HER FAME

Jolie successfully won an Oscar for the role that saw her acting out as a young woman confined to a sanitarium in 1967. That character is something she still holds close to her heart. She said that to the entire film, she genuinely thought she was the only character who was sane. If we watch it closely, that's exactly how she played it. 

A RETRO SUSAN SARANDON

Susan Sarandon is arguably one of the best actresses to have stepped in front of a camera. She's been a symbol, a critically acclaimed actress, and even a family woman. This shot of her is too cool to be ignored. In the ‘90s Sarandon starred in Thelma and Louise. It is a film that turned her third decade into a cascade of accolades in the film industry.

ONE OF THE ALL-TIME GREATS?

She later said, “It never had occurred to me that we were kind of inadvertently backing into an area that was so sensitive to so many white males of a certain age. Especially something about giving women the power of in some way determining their own destiny and not settling was really bothersome to a lot of people. I guess I gave men more credit than that. It never occurred to me… that it would upset people to have women in those parts.”

MATT DAMON AND MINNIE DRIVER WERE THE YOUNG 'IT' COUPLE

How would you feel when you are being denied by your partner? It could be very hurtful. That must be exactly what Minnie Driver felt when his then-boyfriend Matt Damon told Oprah he is single in an interview in the 90s. While others are ghosting someone, calling to break up, or just uttering the word straightforward, he made his own way of sending the message.

THE NOT SO CLASSY BREAK-UP

Matt Damon was just fresh from an Oscar win. It was 1998 when he was a guest by Oprah in a show and it also marked a solid year with her relationship with Driver. However, when Oprah asked, he just said he was single. The word immediately reached Driver and in an interview with the LA Times, she told them that it must be his way of announcing that they are no longer together but she found it inappropriate. And unfortunately, it was said in an interview with Oprah. 

THROWBACK PICTURE OF ADELE IN FRONT OF SPICE GIRLS POSTERS IN 1998

How amusing to see a star like Adele also became a fan when she was a kid. Time and technology have a big influence on the 90s kids. We can actually see some of the stars now grow up from childhood to adulthood and keep track of what they were really into.

SPICING UP HER LIFE

Adele was just like a lot of young women. She was really into the Spice Girls, as you can tell from her posters. She was a total superfan, so when she was all grown up and saw them in 2019, she totally freaked out. Such a fangirl!

BRAD AND JEN BEFORE BRANGELINA

Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston hanging out at a Sting concert in the 90s is everything. They were in New York to celebrate their engagement in November 1999. They even went on stage and sang along having one of the best moments of their lives.

BEFORE IT ALL FELL APART

Brad and Jen were dating for about a year before that. They had a hard time trying to keep their relationship lowkey. However, they were caught on cam multiple times while dating and even when they were hanging out together at the Tibetan Freedom Concert. They are one of the couples from the ‘90s who really captured the hearts of many fans. And their love story is a good one to reminisce. Missing them now?

A picture is worth a thousand words. But what exactly does it mean? Like every decade, the 90s had its fair share of moments. It's nice to reminisce sometimes, looking back at the old good days. We must look back at history and keep in mind the lessons we’ve gained from there. How about you, what is your most unforgettable moment of the 90s?