In reading assorted articles about the doings of various well known people, especially but not exclusively creative types in the entertainment industry, in some cases the extent of their sexual adventures and drug use seems positively epic, and yet they often only get caught or outed when they are stopped by the police or some other accident of fate occurs. You rarely see the low level people who are are also involved in this behavior as service providers or hangers on etc. blabbing about it.
In this age of grasping opportunity I’d have to ask why? When a paparazzi shot of some blurry celebrity breast or a nipple slip can yield thousands of dollars (or in some case tens of thousands of dollars) why do these assistants and similar drug and sex providing proles so loyally hold their tongues about much more explosive and potentially lucrative information re the foibles of their patrons?
Why don’t they cash in more often? What is the magical teflon that keeps these misbehaving famous people protected against all odds?
The celebrity is such (or thought of as such) a powerful person that tattling on them would limit your access to them, other celebrities.
Payoffs.
To me, the supreme example of this isJimmy Savile, one of the biggest entertainers in Britain, but completely unknown to 99% of Americans until after his death.
Many celebrities require employees to sign non-disclosure agreements. They are threatened with legal action if they drop a dime on their boss. That can intimidate many people to keeping their mouths shut.
Well one way is paradoxically to have your “deviancy” as an open secret but be discreet about it. That means it is less newsworthy and therefore of less temptation to the press and media. Not a media example, but one way that honsexual politicians and senior government officials stayed “safe” (and still do in places) was to have their preference be well known but to keep that out of the limelight.
In many cases, those around the celebrities might not be virgins, themselves. And might even (gasp) have taken a toke or snorted a rail on occasion. They leave the “tattling” up to the little old ladies (of all ages and genders.)
But this would apply to celebrity antics involving consenting adults. Not much of an excuse for those aiding and abetting Jimmy Savile…
I think it’s also likely that tattling would implicate the lackey as well, as I’m certain that any given celebrity in question is not personally procuring drugs and hookers themselves.
Additionally, there are whole classes of celebrity, like rock stars, for whom such things are expected and may actually in fact enhance their reputations, thus telling on them is pointless.
The entourage/staff/circles of employees either don’t know or don’t want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.
The folks watching want to believe the story they are being fed - we wanted Lance Armstrong to be that amazing; “we” (well, not me; I’m not in the UK) wanted Jimmy Savile to be this (extremely creepy-looking) “national treasure.” So it goes.
Humans get caught up in this stuff - same as it ever was.