CURIOSITYYou’d Never Guess Which Famous Faces Were Also Brilliant Inventors4 min read

Jamie Lee Curtis and the Diaper Problem

Jamie Lee Curtis won an Oscar and screamed her way through some of the best horror films ever made. She also, in 1987, got thoroughly sick of diaper changes.

Her solution: a disposable diaper with a waterproof pocket built into the waistband, pre-loaded with clean-up wipes. Everything needed for a change, in one self-contained package. She patented it that year but never brought it to market. Her reason? Environmental guilt. “At the time, it felt a little landfill-y,” she told Jimmy Kimmel in 2018. She’s since noted the design could work with modern eco-friendly materials. The patent sits in a drawer somewhere.

Prince Built His Own Instrument

In 1994, Prince received a patent for a portable electronic keyboard musical instrument. The official language is dry. The actual object was not: a curved, swooping keytar with arrow-shaped design elements echoing the unpronounceable symbol he had adopted as his name the previous year.

He called it the Purpleaxxe. His keyboardist Tommy Barbarella wielded it during live performances, and on stage it looked like something teleported in from a different, more interesting dimension. No mass production, no commercial release — just a one-of-a-kind instrument built for a one-of-a-kind show.