9 Celebs and Notables Who Slayed It After a Career Break
Whatever your reason for putting your career on hold, making your way back into the workforce can be intimidating and unnerving. Will you be able to perform at the level you did before? Will anyone give you a chance to make a comeback?
It may set your mind at ease to know you’re not alone. According to a recent LinkedIn survey, the majority of women (64 percent) have experienced a career break at some point in their career with top reasons including parental leave, medical leave, and mental health reasons.
Plus, there are now several examples of celebrities, heads of companies, and politicians who temporarily stepped out of the public eye and put their thriving careers on pause in order to provide care for children, family, self, or others.
For super successful individuals the risk is less financial and more about losing career momentum, while for the majority of us the stigma is real and it’s hard to return after a break and pick up a successful career again. Through returnships and other programs, Path Forward challenges this status quo so that everyone, no matter what their station, can take a break to focus on caregiving and easily return to work when life changes again.
Here we’ve gathered an abbreviated list of celebrities and luminaries as inspiration and proof that more often than not, returners come out the other side even stronger and more motivated than ever!
ADELE
Adele decided to take a break right after her album 21 became one of the top releases of all time.
In 2012, she said, “I am f#$$&@ off for four or five years. If I am constantly working, my relationships fail… So at least now I can have enough time to write a happy record. And be in love and be happy. And then I don’t know what I’ll do. Get married. Have some kids. Plant a nice vegetable patch.”
In the words of her biggest hits – Adele decided to “Set Fire to the Rain” and go “Easy On Me” after “Rolling in the Deep” with years of performing. She took three years off to take care of her son Angelo before returning to the music business in 2015 and releasing her record-breaking album, 25.
Adele’s comeback was one of epic proportions. She transcended her pre-hiatus career to achieve new heights, including an uber-successful Las Vegas residency and the release of yet another successful album, 30.
SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR
Most people are not aware that the first woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court took a break mid-career to raise her children.
After the birth of her second son, Sandra Day O’Connor left the law office she created to focus on raising her family. She also kept busy, involving herself in local politics and her Phoenix community.
Following a return to her career, O’Connor served in three branches of state government before being nominated to serve on the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan. She was appointed as its first female judge on Sept. 21, 1981.
O’Connor is a shining example of someone who took a career break to provide care and then returned to work later to make a mark – in her case, on U.S. history.
CAMERON DIAZ
After her marriage and before becoming a mom to daughter Raddix in 2019, actress Cameron Diaz decided to take a break from her lucrative career.
The star of “There’s Something About Mary,” “Charlie’s Angels,” “The Mask” and “Bad Teacher,” among other films, commented on this pause in a 2021 interview on SiriusXM. Regarding retiring from acting to focus on her family and child, Diaz said, “It’s such a blessing, it’s completely privileged, and I’m just really, really grateful.”
Almost a decade after her career break, Diaz was offered a role in a Netflix movie, “Back In Action,” that she couldn’t pass up, as the action/comedy movie would showcase her many talents.
It’s been reported that fellow actor Jamie Foxx pitched “Back In Action” to Diaz as a fun shoot. He also connected her with football quarterback legend Tom Brady, saying he was the perfect person to talk to about un-retiring.
FORMER PEPSICO CEO INDRA NOOYI
It’s no surprise that after 24 years at PepsiCo and 12 years as CEO (when the average tenure of a CEO is just five years), Indra Nooyi decided to step down. And it appears this was with some regrets for not having done so sooner.
“I’ve been blessed with an amazing career, but if I’m being honest, there have been moments I wish I’d spent more time with my children and family,” she said in a CNBC interview.
After leaving PepsiCo, Noovi focused her efforts on advocacy work, particularly on developing more female talent to ensure better representation of women in top leadership roles.
“My job is, in fact, just beginning because I can do things now that I was constrained to do when I was CEO of a company,” she said in an interview with Time magazine.
CAROLINE WOZNIACKI
After a successful 15-year professional tennis career that included a Grand Slam win, Caroline Wozniacki retired from tennis in 2020. The initial reason was her battle with rheumatoid arthritis, but she also started a family, having two children with husband David Lee, a former NBA player.
She said at the time, “Honestly, I’m leaving with no regrets at all because I’ve worked so hard my whole life, my whole career. I’ve given it literally everything that I have to reach where I got. At the end of the day, every single day I showed up, in practice and in matches, and I gave it my all.”
Three years later, however, and in a much better place health wise, Wozniacki decided she missed the game too much and planned a big return. This includes her first Grand Slam appearance at the U.S. Open, where she was awarded a wildcard.
SHANIA TWAIN
A driving force in the country music scene from the 1990s to the early 2000s, Shania Twain’s hit, “Man! I Feel Like A Woman!” became a women’s empowerment anthem that continues to reverberate many years after its release.
It was shortly after a very public breakup with her first husband, a second marriage, and the birth of son Eja in 2001 that Twain decided to take time off to be a mother. She revealed, “For a good 10 to 12 years, I was working non-stop, and I wasn’t really enjoying my success.”
At that time, Twain also suffered from dysphonia, which robbed her of her voice.
After extensive voice therapy, Twain ventured back into performing with a Las Vegas residency at Caesars Palace in 2012 and her Rock This Country Tour in 2015. In 2018, Twain released her first studio album in 15 years. She followed that up with another album in 2023, Queen of Me, proving that her reign as the Queen of Country Pop did not end after a career break but continues to grow.
DEANNA MULLIGAN
Former Guardian Life Insurance Co. of America president and CEO Deanna Mulligan credits a two-year career break with her success.
Prior to pushing the pause button on her work life, Mulligan questioned her life and its purpose while attending a relative’s funeral.
At the age of 41, after working as a consultant at McKinsey for almost nine years and then at insurance company AXA, Mulligan planned a six-month break to refuel which became a two-year hiatus.
“At the time, taking a break was considered a really strange thing to do. People said to me, ‘You can’t take time off. You’ll never get back on a career path,’” Mulligan said.
On the contrary, the career pause worked in her favor. Following her two-year break, Mulligan moved up the ranks to become Guardian’s president and CEO. After a long and successful career, she retired in 2020.
RICKY MARTIN
After starting his career in TV ads at only nine years old and making music at 12, Ricky Martin’s chart-topping hits, such as “She Bangs,” made him a household name in the early 2000s. However, the Grammy-Award-winning artist didn’t feel as if he was “Livin’ La Vida Loca” at the time.
In an interview with Variety, he states, “I wasn’t living to the fullest—I was sad; I was depressed. I would walk onstage to perform because that was the only way I could balance my emotion to snap out of this heavy sadness that I was moving in.”
In 2007, Martin took a three-year hiatus from the music business. Much of this time was spent focusing on his twin boys, born in 2008. He also was processing how to come out to the world as a gay man.
Fast forward through many trials and triumphs, Martin is married with four children and has kept his career on track since he took a break. This includes releasing new music and going on a world-wide tour with fellow Latin artists Pitbull and Enrique Iglesias.
UTAH’S LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR DEIDRE HENDERSON
It can be challenging to find support as a returning worker. Utah’s current Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson found this out first hand when she became a returner after more than a decade as a stay-at-home mom.
When she decided the time was right to re-enter the workforce, Henderson ran a successful campaign to become Utah’s Lieutenant Governor. “I was a stay-at-home mom for 13 years before I got back into the workforce… I know how hard it is to feel like you can’t apply for jobs or have the relevant experience to get hired… Just because you’ve been out of the workforce does not mean that you don’t have valuable skills to contribute.”
As a result of her experience, Henderson became the impetus for the creation of the first public return-to-work program in the country — Return Utah —in 2021. Through the Return Utah program, state agencies focus on job candidates with an extended absence on their resume instead of bypassing these high potential employees.
Lisa White is a writer with more than 30 years of experience. Her background includes serving as editor for four magazines. She is based out of the Chicago area.
Photos used under Creative Commons license (Adele, Ricky Martin, Indra Nooyi, Cameron Diaz) or in public domain (Sandra Day O’Connor).
