Life after Hairspray hasn’t been kind to supersized star Nikki Blonsky. We hear employment prospects have taken a nosedive for the new age Tracy Turnblad. Just how bleak are things? Bad enough, apparently, that Nikki’s latest starring role involves peddling shoes and odor eaters to soccer moms and their broods in suburban New York.
We suppose it could be worse: The kid who played “Jonathan” on Who’s the Boss sells Tupperware now!
Nikki first burst onto our radar when she joined Zac Efron, Amanda Bynes, John Travolta, and Queen Latifah in Adam Shankman’s 2007 movie musical Hairspray. She wasted no time channeling her inner diva by getting into a racial-charged catfight with former America’s Next Top Model hopeful Bianca Golden in the middle of a Caribbean airport. Then Poof!, she was gone. Blonsky mysteriously disappeared from the Tinseltown Scene, almost immediately after her shortlived ABC Family comedy, Huge, was abruptly ripped from the airwaves last summer.
Now we know why: Nikki’s been busy working behind the register at Steven Dann, a high-end shoe boutique in her hometown of Great Neck, NY.
“…When Huge failed to make a splash, work slowed to a crawl for the actress and she needed some extra moola,” says Gossip Guy Ted Casablanca, who blew the lid off the scoop on Friday.
“Steven says she’s one of the best employees he’s ever had! Nikki had known Steven for a long time,” says an informant, who dropped dime about Nikki’s latest career endeavour to E! News. “When she started her career she got shoes, bags and accessories from the store for red carpets but recently approached him about working at the store. So it was done. Customers come in and see her and ask, ‘Oh my God! What are you doing here? Are you shopping?’, and she laughs and says, ‘No, I’m working!’ It’s a little uncomfortable for [Nikki] obviously, but the customer will ask her to sign her autograph on the receipt and she does. She’s really sweet to the little kids that come in the store. She even sings and dances for the customers, busting out the tunes from Hairspray!”
As legend has it, Nikki’s hard at work “on a project that will catapult her career, something bigger than Hairspray.”