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The story about the Paula Abdul stalker/fan who killed herself outside of Abdul's home is a really disturbing one. It took her audition segment from a couple of seasons back to jog my memory of who she was. This young woman wasn't so much looking to become the next pop superstar as she was looking to be in the same room as the object of her obsession and seek her approval.
Living in a celebrity-saturated age and having been in fandom for a long time, I've met more than a few people who glommed onto a celebrity and literally made that person their lives. I don't mean 16-year-old girls who buy every Tiger Beat with the Jonas Brothers or something but people you'd think would have matured beyond that point and go much, much further than sending a fan letter or traveling to see a concert. I'm not naming names, but I once encountered a middle-aged fan who followed the object of her obsession for several years, crashing the sets of his films, seeing him in the audience at every late night talk show appearance (on both coasts), hitting every red carpet event, etc.. It got to be so frequent, the actor avoided her for a while. I saw what other fans called "The Shrine" in her home, a room completely covered with his pictures. It was all a bit creepy but more than anything else, I felt really sad for her. Here she was spending so much of her time, money, and energy on someone who couldn't possibly reciprocate any of it. Worse yet for these people who invest so much into a star, they're investing in something that isn't even real. Most actors of a certain stature craft personas, a public image that's a go-between their real personalities and the roles they play. It's a way to protect themselves. Unless we hang out with these people 24/7 or knew them before they got famous, all we know about them comes from that artificial persona.
Poor Paula Goodspeed either never figured that out or she finally did once she hit the big 30 and couldn't handle she'd wasted so much of her life on something that was a fantasy in the first place.
But you can't blame her completely. The celebrity media creates a false sense of intimacy with these people in the first place and sell us the idea that their coolness can rub off on us plebes too.
Take Gwyneth Paltrow's bizarre new website GOOP. What the hell does GOOP stand for anyway? Through e-mails beamed from this site, Gwynnie seeks to share with the great unwashed her secrets to awesome living. Of course, it's easy to live the good life if you are a Hollywood princess whose last movie made major bank and you are married to a successful, but irritating, rock star. In Gwynnie's world, you can run errands in your $995 Gucci boots and wear fabulous clothes only meant for tall and skinny women.
Well, who needs that? Maybe I should start my own lifestyle site where I share my amazing secrets to fine living. Stuff like, "How To Hide Things At T.J. Maxx So They'll Get Marked Down Further" or "The Best Restaurants To Visit When Someone Else Is Paying" or "How I Scored $500 Shoes For $75 On eBay" or "The Best Microwavable Macaroni and Cheese." Things you'd really want to know.
Living in a celebrity-saturated age and having been in fandom for a long time, I've met more than a few people who glommed onto a celebrity and literally made that person their lives. I don't mean 16-year-old girls who buy every Tiger Beat with the Jonas Brothers or something but people you'd think would have matured beyond that point and go much, much further than sending a fan letter or traveling to see a concert. I'm not naming names, but I once encountered a middle-aged fan who followed the object of her obsession for several years, crashing the sets of his films, seeing him in the audience at every late night talk show appearance (on both coasts), hitting every red carpet event, etc.. It got to be so frequent, the actor avoided her for a while. I saw what other fans called "The Shrine" in her home, a room completely covered with his pictures. It was all a bit creepy but more than anything else, I felt really sad for her. Here she was spending so much of her time, money, and energy on someone who couldn't possibly reciprocate any of it. Worse yet for these people who invest so much into a star, they're investing in something that isn't even real. Most actors of a certain stature craft personas, a public image that's a go-between their real personalities and the roles they play. It's a way to protect themselves. Unless we hang out with these people 24/7 or knew them before they got famous, all we know about them comes from that artificial persona.
Poor Paula Goodspeed either never figured that out or she finally did once she hit the big 30 and couldn't handle she'd wasted so much of her life on something that was a fantasy in the first place.
But you can't blame her completely. The celebrity media creates a false sense of intimacy with these people in the first place and sell us the idea that their coolness can rub off on us plebes too.
Take Gwyneth Paltrow's bizarre new website GOOP. What the hell does GOOP stand for anyway? Through e-mails beamed from this site, Gwynnie seeks to share with the great unwashed her secrets to awesome living. Of course, it's easy to live the good life if you are a Hollywood princess whose last movie made major bank and you are married to a successful, but irritating, rock star. In Gwynnie's world, you can run errands in your $995 Gucci boots and wear fabulous clothes only meant for tall and skinny women.
Well, who needs that? Maybe I should start my own lifestyle site where I share my amazing secrets to fine living. Stuff like, "How To Hide Things At T.J. Maxx So They'll Get Marked Down Further" or "The Best Restaurants To Visit When Someone Else Is Paying" or "How I Scored $500 Shoes For $75 On eBay" or "The Best Microwavable Macaroni and Cheese." Things you'd really want to know.
