Fake Celebrity
Friendships
Having grown up in Los Angeles, I’ve had my fair share of
celebrity encounters, as well as the fair share of encounters with celebrities’
kids.
After today’s documentary about Madonna, I was reminded of a
somewhat shameful memory…
Madonna’s daughter, Lola, went to my small private school in
Los Angeles for a few years. When I was in 6th grade, Lola was is 2nd
grade. My friends and I decided it would be a good idea to befriend this little
innocent celebrity child. So one day at “mommy-time”, the time when you wait to
get picked-up by your parents after school, my friends and I walked up to her
and started chatting as if we had no idea who she was. Because we were 6th
graders, we were confident. Little kids always thought it was cool to have
“older” friends, so we had age on our sides. Lola thought she was the coolest
kid for having these older middle-school friends. So each day at “mommy-time”,
we hung out with her a little bit more.
I was so proud of this little friendship I made. I remember,
I even got the privilege of signing her cast when she broke her arm. There was
a phase when everyone was having their friends sign their backpacks, so I also
got to leave a cute little note on roller-backpack, forever to be remembered. I
felt so cool.
Looking back, I feel so guilty. I truly admit, that the only
reason my friends and I befriended Lola was because she was the daughter of a
huge celebrity and it was something cool to brag about. We told ourselves and
others that we were friends with her because she was super nice and cute…which
she was, but that obviously was just a cover for our star craze.
I genuinely feel bad for stars and stars’ family members.
Its hard for them to make true friends because they never know whether people
are actually their friends, or only friends with them for their stardom, their
power and their privileges. At this age, I would never do such a thing. I would
never want to befriend someone for ulterior reasons besides a genuine
connection. It was a very immature and ingenuine thing for me to have done. So
I may as well apologize now: “I’m sorry for having ulterior motives, Lola. You’re
a great person and deserve true friends.”
This is exemplary of the negative side effects of stardom.
Totally agree - this is such a sad side of being the kid of a star. It's not like you signed up for it. But I think the other side of this argument is also pretty unsettling: when the kids of stars think they're "all that" just because of who their parent(s) are. I remember one of my friends in middle school was really, really good friends with Steven Spielberg's daughter and whenever she'd come hang out with me and my friends, the conversation would ALWAYS manage to turn to her. Everyone was so curious about her life, how she would regularly jet-set from LA to Manhattan for a screening, etc. And that's fine. But it was so obvious that she loved talking about herself and her crazy cool life. It always felt like she knew she deserved to be the center of attention and the only reason was because of who her father was and all of the cool things she got to do because of him. Don't get me wrong, she was a really nice kid and I admittedly partook in some of the questioning and reveling. But in retrospect, I just wish her argument for privilege and attention didn't come from such a seemingly superficial place!
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