Kelly Clarkson Asks Jake Gyllenhaal If He’s Had a “Real Job”

Kelly Clarkson almost found herself in the hot seat.

When interviewing Jake Gyllenhaal on her talk show, the singer drew laughter from the actor when she asked about his former day jobs before backtracking her words.

"Did you ever have any real jobs? Like, regular jobs?" she asked, before clarifying, "I mean, in life—a normal, average—I've had a lot of, like, normal jobs."

In response, Jake teased Kelly by saying she was "digging" herself into a bigger hole.

"Being an actor is not—you play, it's fun," Kelly said. "Being a musician, same thing. Not ‘fake,' but—"

Despite poking fun at her, Jake, who recently portrayed a sergeant in 2023 action movie Guy Ritchie's The Covenant, said he understood what she was trying to say.

"I'm not in the military. I'm not police," Jake shared. "I'm not actually doing that thing; I'm playing it. So, it's a little not real."

And to answer her question, he revealed that he once had a stint as a lifeguard. However, the job came with some unexpected duties.

"It wasn't like Baywatch, necessarily," Jake said in the April 21 appearance. "It was more like I guarded the beach, meaning there was a public beach and a private beach, and I had to tell people to not come onto the private beach."

Referring to the position as more of a "boundary marker," Jake noted that not many people were happy with being told to move.

"Most of the times I had to get up and be like, 'sorry,'" he recalled, "and then people were just pissed."

But he also used some first aid skills, and his heroics one day came with a surprising twist when a beach-goer got stung by a Portuguese man o' war jellyfish. Kelly also chimed in with her own experience of getting stung by a jellyfish, noting that she had to pee on herself to relieve the pain, to which Jake added, "That's what I did."

"You peed on yourself or someone?" Kelly asked back, with the Nightcrawler actor explaining, "They told me that was what you had to do, and a person was in pain."

But he set the record straight on what exactly went down.

"Well, I didn't really pee on them," he clarified. "I took some pee and … it was their choice. You do what you need to sometimes."

(E! and The Kelly Clarkson Show are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)