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Common sense for the stars
Why wealth should be able to buy sense
by Regan White
regan@thecharlotteweekly.com
Apparently the new cool thing is to be in rehabilitation. If you’re reading this and you’re not in rehab, you’re totally not part of the cool crowd. In fact, I’m writing this from rehab. I figured it might help my procrastination habit. Don’t worry, though, I’ll be out by tomorrow morning – just like Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears, who both seem to think that rehab is the name of some swanky new hotel or – at best – a public relations weigh station where one can sit for a few hours waiting for one’s image to mend. Because, as we all know, nothing combats a newly shaven head better than skipping off to rehab. Then it can at least appear that you know it was a dumb idea.
It’s like blowing up fish in a barrel with sticks of dynamite, I know, but I figured I’d be remiss if I didn’t address some of the celebrity nonsense that has gone down lately. It’s not that Lohan and Spears and countless other celebs don’t need rehab – because they do. It’s that they need more than 48 hours of it. I’m no psychologist, but it’s pretty clear those girls need a little more than a few days in a plush pad and some sweet-talk counseling. None of this check-out-whenever-you-want, movie-production-has-halted-so-you-can-receive-two-days-of-counseling garbage. They need some everyone-has-forgotten-you-for-10-minutes-you-were-gone-so-long rehab.
But it’s not just the ladies, either. Remember a few weeks back when Isaiah Washington not only used a hateful slur on the set of “Grey’s Anatomy” but then brought it all back up again in public of his own, self-mutilating volition? He missed the Emmy Awards because he was in rehab. How can you be in rehab for bigotry? And magically, Washington’s character never missed an episode. I guess bigotry rehab can be handled in part-time classes, like night school!
If they only had a brain
When it comes to celebrities, I find myself wondering: How is it that with all their wealth they aren’t at least able to purchase a little common sense? I can understand how they may not come equipped with it – how, if they had any to begin with, it might get trampled under the gaudy weight of success and excess. But come on!
A perfect example of this is visible at the Oscars. How can any star possibly show up to the Oscars looking horrible? I’m not talking about the Bjork swan dresses or the Lara Flynn Boyle ballerina getups because clearly those were planned headline stealers. I’m talking about just looking plain, old bad. These people make millions of dollars. Not only are designers throwing free couture at them, but these celebs pay people to dress them. And as a celebrity, regardless of whichever ill-advised stylist may find his or her way into the flock, where is that little voice of reason that says “I don’t think this is too flattering”?
That same inner voice seems equally silent with celebrities on issues far weightier than evening gowns. It was only months ago I stood in Sean O’Connell’s office looking at pictures of Anna Nicole Smith – may she rest in peace – and her lawyer-turned- questionable-lover Howard K. Stern frolicking in the Bahamian surf following their commitment ceremony. Note that the ceremony came soon after the birth of her daughter and immediately after the death of Smith’s son. O’Connell and I stood in his office, hovering over his laptop, sadly shaking our heads.
Contracting common sense
That was the moment I first proposed a kind of commonsense consultant for the clueless rich and famous – not an agent or lawyer who’s well aware of who signs the checks and thus lets Anna Nicole do what Anna Nicole wants. Rather, I mean a binding contract the celeb signs that says, “I understand that most of the time I’m just winging it when it comes to reason – and that’s when I try to think at all. I hereby declare that the undersigned commonsense consultant will be right in all matters. Even when I start kicking and screaming about who I am, the undersigned consultant will have the ultimate say in matters of grave importance to my character, fortune, well-being and general reputation.”
Most of us have these people in our lives. Whether it’s our friends, family or the common sense we come equipped with, most of us have someone who, when push comes to shove, would say, “Honey, you just had a baby and your son just died of a drug overdose. Maybe this isn’t the time to get it on with your shifty lawyer.” Someone who could sit us down and say, “Look, stop crying over your ex-husband. He was a shiftless, gold-digging backup dancer. He doesn’t have a single source of income except you. And by the way, you have two infant children and you’re 25 years old. Maybe you should scrape yourself together.”
Don’t tell me it would be difficult. These people are begging for guidance. We all watched as Britney Spears turned to Paris Hilton, of all people, as a mentor. Nice! It’s little wonder Spears is now a tattooed, cue-ball-headed has-been. How quickly the mighty pop tartlets fall.
Reason’s evolution
Is it because the rich and famous are surrounded by people who are more than happy to pander to their wishes, more than happy to agree with whatever harebrained scheme the starlet of the hour has come up with? Or is it that they can just get away with it, to the delight and fascination of the tabloids?
I hope not. I was pretty angry with someone this week. Did I take a tire iron to her car in the fashion of Britney Spears wailing on a paparazzo’s car with an umbrella a week or two ago? No. Was it because I knew I wouldn’t get away with it? No. It was because I believe that most of humanity strives to create a difference between mankind and the monkeys at the zoo throwing their own excrement. I believe that we use the enlarged mammalian brains we were given to the best of our individual abilities.
Maybe the stars are doing the best they can. All I am saying is if they can afford to buy pet sharks for their pools or Swarovski-studded swan gowns hand-sewn by child laborers, some common sense might be a worthwhile investment. Either that or rehab.
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