So You Really Want to Be Famous?

We’ve all fantasised about living a 24X7 Louboutin lifestyle, but what is life really like on the other side of the flashbulbs?

Charlie Sheen’s very public meltdown has once again proved that celebrities are not like normal people. Private jets to whisk you and your ‘inner circle’ on weekend retreats to Aspen...free designer outfits complete with a chiseled piece of the latest man candy...and how about adulation from the public and the ability to earn more in a month than the average Cosmo reader takes home in a year...? Who wouldn’t want an A-list lifestyle? Anyone, it seems with any sense. But, everything in this world has a price and A-listers pay with their freedom.

“Celebrities have almost no autonomy anymore,” explains Hollywood publicist Amanda*. “Every facet of their being is controlled to convey a certain image. These people can’t be themselves, even in their down time, and ultimately that can lead to a pretty miserable existence.”

According to Amanda, who’s worked with two major Hollywood agencies, celebrities’ fawning entourages aren’t just there to remind their feted charges of their ‘specialness’. They’re there to arrange convenient ‘fauxmances’ to generate tabloid headlines; to hide sexualities and bury stories that could negatively affect their earning potential; and to leak information to keep tabloid interest alive ( oh, and to stir their Fair Trade, fat-free latte anticlockwise). With competition for film roles at an all-time high, a celebrity ‘being themselves’ is rarely an option that appeals to directors, producers, studio bosses, advertisers, and audiences, and as a result, the cabal of celebrity lackeys spend the vast majorityj y of their time wadding through the murky waters of image manipulatioon.