It wouldn’t be right to say celebrity “empathy” is the new black, for that would entail “normals” could actually put themselves in the (Louboutin) shoes of a famous person and understand how they truly felt… even if among a place of extreme privilege and insulation from riffraff (at the [sigh] much-talked about cost of having to spend a sizable part of their income on security). So instead, let us say celebrity “sympathy” is the new black. Where once it was chic to endlessly rib and roast the famous set—as popularized by tabloid culture in the 00s—it is now deemed a mark of extreme insensitivity. Of not being capable of “walking a mile in someone else’s shoes.” But, again, Louboutin shoes. So how can anyone really try to get in that headspace when so many of us are trapped in, at best, Asics?
Enter Billie Eilish to try to help us understand how much being a celebrity blows—even though Britney Spears already did that to much greater effect in her June 23rd testimony regarding her conservatorship. In any case, Eilish’s latest single, “NDA,” is a fame-shirking lament. One that finds her describing the many pratfalls of her illustriousness, including the fact that she can’t even have a “pretty boy” over without worrying if 1) he’ll tell the media something about her (particularly her body) and 2) what his ulterior motives for coming over really are. She regales, “Had a pretty boy over, but he couldn’t stay/On his way out I made him sign an NDA/Yeah, I made him sign an NDA/Once was good enough ’cause I don’t want him having shit to say.”
The transactional nature of this description is meant to make us feel the same hollowness and longing for a true connection as Eilish does in her state of celebrity. It also seems to prove that predatory men aren’t the only ones capable of getting a nondisclosure agreement signed to suit their nefarious purposes. In Eilish’s realm, however, securing that signature is about having some peace of mind regarding being able to do normal things that plebeians take for granted—like fucking… and saying “chink” without scrutiny.
But if she thinks trolls are merciless now, she ought to have been around during the height of paparazzi furor, when social media couldn’t help set the record straight direct from the horse’s mouth. And yet, Eilish isn’t the only one to experience a more lily-livered public when it comes to erstwhile harsh treatment of celebrities—particularly celebrity women. One of her sole peers, Olivia Rodrigo, has also been defended in the wake of Courtney Love lashing out at her for blatantly ripping off the Live Through This cover, with the defense being “she’s just a kid, cut her some slack.” And all that rot. None of said slack being given to a teen sensation of another era, Britney Spears, perhaps cursed with rising to icon status at a time when celebrity sympathy was not the new black. Instead forced to bear all the lashings that are now being retrospectively viewed as a key catalyst in her breakdown of 2007 that ultimately fueled the “grounds” for Jamie Spears to lock her inside of a conservatorship that prevails to this day.
Another sign o’ the times in terms of celebrities being more doted upon as opposed to routinely lambasted by the media has been indicated by Gigi Hadid’s recent request for her baby’s face to be blurred out in all paparazzi and fan photos so that the spawn might be able to have a normal childhood. Even though that childhood will never be normal based on affluence and privilege levels alone, but fine. Do famous people deserve the same “rights” as anyone else? Sure. But don’t they have a surfeit of extra rights that nobody else actually does? Indeed. And which is better? To have “basic human rights” or “superhuman rights”? Most would speculate the latter. But in the present, and largely thanks to what can now be called the “Britney Spears effect,” celebrities are not only asking society to uphold their additional privileges in day-to-day existence but also the same ones that the “nobodies” are afforded. At the same time, why can’t the “nobodies” get at least one small modicum of privilege in the form of anonymity being the sole luxury of the poor (which, in America, is essentially anyone who doesn’t make six figures a year)?
As for Eilish, she’s barely been world-famous for a few years and she’s already thinking about retiring from this particular profession (“Maybе I should think about a new career/Somewhere in Kaua’i where I can disappear”). Either a testament to Gen Z’s lack of grit or their lack of tolerance for anything that fucks with their mental health. But to exist on this planet at all is to automatically incur a mental illness, so why not be rich and powerful if one can? Especially if the sole caveat is a stalker here and there that security can stave off, or a hater on the internet that no one listens to anyway. But no, celebrities want empathy, to boot. Because, like that interlude on “Lucky” notes, “She had all that fame, all that money—and she still wasn’t happy.”
Unfortunately for the célébrité, as previously stated, it’s impossible for a mere mortal to empathize with the grotesquely affluent lifestyle of a celeb, elevated in our culture to godlike status before they get knocked off their pedestal upon some formulaic “revelation” paraded in the media. So, alas, celebrities will just have to settle for something like “sympathy” instead. Even though it’s widely known to be a fool’s move to pity the rich in any way, shape or form.
