Anyone who knows we will be aware of my deep love of boybands. I wasn’t particularly a superfan of 1D, growing up in the 80’s and early 90’s my boyband fixations lie elsewhere. But I followed them on the X factor, from those early first auditions to the success they eventually gained. I was excited when the show chose to join them together and create a boyband, and I knew they’d be huge.
But I want to say this: Choosing to act, or sing, or be in a boyband, or whatever it is, doesn't give people free-reign to treat you however they want. Yet that seems to be a very common perception.
No one asks for the crap that comes with being famous/in the media and it can be so hard to cope with. Singers, actors, others in the media - not one of them should have to put up with the treatment they get from the tabloid press and even their so-called 'fans'.
Being in the public eye can be very stressful. It doesn’t matter what kind of day you’re having, if you’re a public figure. You still have to smile at people that approach, wanting an autograph, a picture, a hug, to talk, even if you’re out doing the grocery shop, or to the doctors, no matter what you might have going on in your own life at the time. If you don’t stop and interact, you’re the one in the wrong. You have to put up with the tabloids talking smack about you because - that’s just what the tabloids do. You have to take abuse from strangers online and you’re not supposed to speak back.
Then there’s the people behind the scenes that treat you like a commodity, the managers, producers, directors, record companies, who schedule you to the point of utter exhaustion and then schedule you a bit more, anything to capitalise on your success while it’s hot, with zero thought for your wellbeing. Even if that means sending you to perform on a live TV show when you just found out your 18 year old sister was just killed. Because if you cancel, you’re unprofessional, you can’t do your job, and no one will want you anymore.
CONTINUED IN COMMENTS
2 years agohelens_zone
But the truth is you have no idea how you’ll handle it. Because when you are on camera, when you are part of public awareness, it’s something you just can’t understand or know how you will deal with until you experience it. And you never know what is going on in someone’s life or what pain they are experiencing. That a bunch of keyboard warriors can publish their damaging rhetoric, judging celebrities just for being famous, judging someone who has just tragically died, instead of showing the compassion we as humans should all be showing each other, always, it hurts my heart. As a very kind man who has been through much of what I’ve just written once said…”Civility costs nothing”. Peace.
2 years agohelens_zone
Then those same executives and managers will drop you like last weeks trash when that success is no longer quite so forthcoming, without so much as a by your leave. I argued this week with a guy online who said Liam chose to be famous, he chose that life, therefore he deserves all the media interference, all the speculation, and it’s perfectly acceptable for TMZ to publish photos of his dead body and for people to make jokes. Hell no. NO ONE chooses that life. Most singers, actors etc don’t even care that much about how well known they are. They just want to sing, or act, or dance. Liam just wanted to sing songs. Hell, he was 14 when he walked into this life. How could he have known at 14 the crap that would accompany success? He didn’t choose that. And River Phoenix, who I adored. People said his drug addiction was a choice, so he deserved to die - what utter crap. It was an illness. It was a coping mechanism. He’d been famous since he was a child too. And child actors in 1980’s Hollywood, had it anything but easy. He was a recovering addict at the time of his death. I suspect that the one thing imminently harder than being famous and in the public eye, is being a famous recovering addict in the public eye, needing time, needing space, and totally unable to get it. How can anyone in that position get their life together while everyone is watching, waiting for you to screw up? He said, a month before his death, that he regretted getting into acting, that it hasn’t been worth it, but it was too late to claw his way out. Tell me again that he chose the life he had. So to anyone that says Liam deserved what he got or should have been more responsible - think about what you are saying. The pressure of his life must have been immense, I’ve heard a lot of people talking about how if they had his life they would be so happy and embrace it, not wreck it with drink and drugs. They said the same thing about Robin Williams. “What did he have to be sad about? If I had his career and his life I’d be so happy”.
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