You know them. They preach about saving the planet, then fly off in their private jets. (Where’s the puking smiley?)
They have a clean-living, wholesome public persona -and promptly get caught snorting coke off someone’s naked ass.
And they deserve all the shit they get. So bring it on.
Bono, Madonna and Paul McCartney come to mind. Macca had his hybrid car flown to him, FFS.
By the way: I am generally left-leaning, for what it’s worth. But I’d like to keep politics out of this discussion as far as it’s possible.
River Phoenix is always the one who comes to mind the first where drugs are concerned: a spiritual vegan who promoted clean living while doing speedballs.
The child actress Danielle Brisebois, bka Archie Bunker’s niece on All in the Family, recalled doing a ‘Just Say No’ commercial in the early '80s. The set was used to film several celebrities consecutively that day, and she said the actor who filmed the one after her’s (whom she would not identify but said “you would definitely know him”) was, in front of everybody (and remember Danielle was a kid at the time) lifting tiny spoons of coke to his nose while waiting to make his “Just Say No” commercial.
Johnny Depp told a story in a magazine interview about being high on pot and coke at a Just Say No fundraiser dinner when he was on 21 Jump Street. He said to him the most surreal thing wasn’t the hypocrisy (he’d been ordered there by his publicist and the studio- one of the reasons he hated that series) but that he was sitting next to Armand Hammer and others who were furious because they couldn’t get a cup of coffee, yet there was an open bar. (Caffeine had been labeled a drug for purposes of the event, though alcohol hadn’t.)
Many years ago Patty Duke’s autobio Call Me Anna was filmed as a miniseries in which her battle with bipolar disorder was addressed (moreso than in the book actually). At the end there was a number for the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) and Patty Duke appeared on talk show after talk show discussing her commitment to the problems of mental health and mental healthcare in the United States. I worked for a large NAMI affiliated non-profit and ever struggling mental health agency at the time that provided counseling, assistance, medication and other services to the mentally ill and operated many residential programs that literally kept some of the residents off the streets, but said residential facilities were constantly on the verge of closure due strictly to funding. The head of the agency asked Ms. Duke, who again had been constantly on the news speaking about how near and dear this cause was to her, to speak at a meeting in Montgomery that would be attended by several legislators and directors of non-profit agencies. She wrote back (or her representative did) that she would be absolutely delighted to do so, that it was a subject she felt strongly on and could speak on from much personal experience, and that she had spoken on the issue many times. This was contingent if she did not have an acting commitment at the time— (No problem there, that’s how she makes her living, so obviously that comes first) but if she didn’t then she’d love to come and would do so for just $17,500 plus deluxe travel and accommodations for her and an assistant.
I still remember my boss cussing over that one. “I don’t think she has the star power to sway a legislature or that she quite understands that $20,000” (estimate of fee plus expenses) “is a tad more than we keep in petty cash, and if we did we’d use to keep some @#(@ing houses open!”
Noam Chomsky was one of several extreme left figures revealed to have set up trust funds for his children in such a way as to avoid inheritance taxes he’d spoken in favor of, while Michael Moore has made liberal use of tax shelters as well and charges $50,000 for a personal appearance [though he does sometimes waive it- especially if there’s a camera around and he wants the footage].
Crow doesn’t expect anybody to use one square of toilet paper. It was an example of what people in the entertainment business call a “joke”. Not that that stopped some humor-impaired pundits from leaping on it and claiming that Crow was serious so they could pontificate on how those celebrities are out of touch with reality.
Pretty much all of them, as far as I’m concerned. Notable exceptions might me Dee Snider and Ted Nugent (though I don’t agree with him much, at least he seems to have some integrity).
I actually avoid most all “celebrity” news, so I don’t know too much about them. However, I recently saw Angelina Jolie say how much she “loved children” and “wanted more of them”. Well, sure she does. Cause she can foist them on the nanny while she jets off to wherever to make a new piece of shit movie. Its a fucking fashion statement to you, bitch.
Real life hypocrites affect me a lot more. I found out last night that a hardcore fiscal conservative I know is on all kinds of government assistance, refinanced his house through the government so he could afford to stay, and hasn’t married the mother of his 2 kids so they can stay on WIC and government healthcare. And earlier this year I found out very similar things about another hardcore conservative I know. And this applies to oh, half or more of the town I grew up in. Apparently they think everybody but them should pay lots of taxes.
Nope, they just think that everybody should pay taxes. If loopholes exist to allow large numbers of people not to pay taxes they’re not so stupid that they will penalise themselves by not availing themselves.
That’s not hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is where you say that people should do X and then you do Y. If they believe that society should have a flat tax rate for example, they are only hypocritical if they then shift all their earnings to an offshore tax shelter when that happens. If they believed that individuals should pay more tax then they are legally required to and then engaged in the behaviour you described that would be hypocritical. But I have never heard anyone espouse such a view, while I have heard many calls for a tax system which doesn’t allow for people to avoid taxation or to “sponge” off society
SO? Welcome to the USA, where we actually have the freedom to hire whomever we want, and if it lets him keep his costs down, deal with it.
And why yes, I am anti union. I have a friend whos boyfriend is union, and his union boss keeps putting buddies into positions, not him [when the venue prefers having him work there. Apparently the venue cant pick which union employees they have to suck up and take.]
Look, blue collar is blue collar. Are you going to tell me that everybody should join a union or be forbidden to work? And to be honest, that is a bit of the pot calling the kettle black … theoretically the way it seems that YOU mean it the union makes sure that ifd you are not union, you dont work, so dont the poor schlubs that are not union need the jobs? Dont the poor schlubs that are not union theoretically [according to the unions] get the short end of the stick? So gee, Springsteen is actually doing the poor blue collar working man a hell of a favor hiring them instead of a union guy, because the union guy wants to deny them work because they are not ‘in the system’.
If you claim that everyone should pay, say, 80% of their salary to the government and lobby for it, then there is nothing stopping you from doing so now. If it is so important to do it, then do it. I’m sure the government would appreciate it. Why wait until you are ‘forced’ to do it if it is such a good idea?
I’ve posted this a few times, but hey why not repeat myself? About ten years ago, I worked as a special events coordinator for one of those large book super-stores (guess which one!) and dealt with a number of fairly big names. But Deepak Chopra sticks out in my mind as the biggest two-face jerk of the lot. The so-called ‘spiritually enlightened master’ came into the store three times - twice for book readings, once as a customer. On all three occasions, he behaved in an arrogant rude manner, and was impatient & uncooperative. Once, he referred to a bookseller as a “minimum wage stooge.” On one visit, he was accompanied by Demi Moore, who was as fawning as a puppy dog. He seemed pretty curt to her in return though. When dealing with the store workers, he was a petulant, screaming diva. Then he’d step out out in front of the audience, and BLINK OF AN EYE, he’s serene and smiling. And for someone who preaches about letting go of material belongings, he has expensive tastes - always in the designer silk suits, gold rings, etc.
Over ten years later, I still bristle at the times I’d met him. An unbelievable, two-faced fraud.
He (Deepak Chopra) figures prominently on “asshole” lists compiled by waiters/waitresses and media escorts as well.
I have to give a shout out to Angelina Jolie on one thing- I think she honestly does care about the causes she espouses. When she was just becoming big and married Billy Bob and was doing things like licking her brother in public and talked about wearing a vial of Billy Bob’s blood (and him her’s) and other “weird shit that the press is sure to talk about when it seems nuts and is about a rising beautiful actress”. I think it’s more than coincidental that she stopped the Goth exhibitionist crap when she started going to Third World refugee camps and seeing people without the barest of necessities. She’s certainly pampered and privileged, but I think (may be totally wrong) that it really was an epiphany to her and made her a lot less self consumed. (Divorce from Billy Bob Thornton also couldn’t hurt anyone in reality perception.)
Celebrities who shill for environmentalist causes really irk me. When you think about it, most of these entertainers are probably the worst possible spokespeople the environmentalist movement can have.
I’m all for saving the planet, but don’t lecture me on CFLs when you’re driving around in an SUV escorted by a fleet of other SUVs.
And, when it comes to other forms of hypocrisy, I’ll throw a shout-out to Sean Hannity, who rails about how unions are evil, but is himself a member of one of the radio and television guilds.
…where’s the hypocrisy? I’m sorry, did you mean to say she’s advocated for no one to ever have guns ever no matter what? Because only then she’d be a hypocrite for hiring armed bodyguards.