Published: July 05, 2009 02:32 am      

JOHNSON: The price of fame

If you were to ask the average person whether they would like to be famous, odds are that the answer would be yes. Who wouldn’t want to be known throughout the world? Who wouldn’t want to be an object of curiosity to millions? Who wouldn’t want to have the best seats in the best restaurants and never have to stand in line? What’s wrong with being surrounded by an entourage that caters to your every whim? Sounds great, doesn’t it?

Not so fast. Fame may look great from the outside, but it can be costly. The price may be higher than you are willing to pay. Becoming famous is like signing a blank contract; you don’t learn the terms until it is too late to back out of the deal.

You don’t know the cost of the goods you bought until after they have been delivered, and you can’t return them for a refund.

Once you’re famous, you’re pretty much stuck in a bubble — unless the world forgets you. Fame can be addictive because you want more and more. Once your 15 minutes are up, they are up. You may waste the rest of your life trying to recapture the magic.

I had my own small taste of fame in the early ’70s, when my music career was starting to take off. I had a manager, a publishing agreement and was working on a recording contract.

I was beginning to find out what it was like to be stopped on the street by strangers. I was having a lot of fun traveling on the east coast college concert and nightclub circuit as an opening act, and was getting favorable reviews. I was on my way, until my big ego did me in.

By 1975, I had drunk and drugged my career down the toilet and alienated my manager. I ended the decade singing in bars for $50 a night and all I could drink. But thank God I blew it. Looking back from the perspective of the past 30 years, I can truthfully say that losing my music career probably saved my life.

Most of the entertainers and musicians I used to hang out with back in the “glory days” are dead. Some had their 15 minutes of fame and then sunk out of sight like a rock in a pond.

A few are still making the rounds in the business, pounding on doors that are permanently closed to them. Others have given up the dream of fame and fortune and are doing something else with their lives. But a few of my old acquaintances stayed in the entertainment business and thrived. They learned how to cope with fame and stay sane.

Here’s the problem for famous people: Everyone wants a piece of you. Any real friends you have are going to be the folks that were your friends before you were famous.

After you grab the brass ring, it becomes harder to know whom your real friends are. As you grow famous and rich, new people worm their way into your life, start to flatter you and begin to cater to your every unreasonable demand.

If you are famous, the question you are always asking yourself is whether the people in your life are there because they love you or because you have something they want. In time you may stop asking because you fear the answer.

What’s in it for these new friends? A piece of the action. They get to bask in your reflected glory and brag about how well they know you. You put some of them on your payroll, and they move in with you and start to share your comfortable and indulgent lifestyle. You become the center of their attention, but the attention they give you can destroy your soul.

People don’t become part of a famous person’s entourage or get on his payroll by speaking the truth in love. In order to keep the gravy train going, they will continue to flatter you while working behind your back to keep your old and straight-talking friends away from you.

If they work their will with you for long enough, your world will become so unreal and your soul so warped that you will actually trust these people you think love you. You will probably never know that they are only in it for themselves.

The moment the world turns its attention to the next big flash-in-the-pan, and especially once your money is gone, then so are they — parasites abandoning you to go feed on another fame-blinded fool. Like fleas leaving a dead cat.

Fame can kill. It killed Michael Jackson.

I remember a TV interview where Michael talked about his childhood. He said that he never had a chance to just be a kid like everyone else. He said he cried because he was not allowed to play in the park with the other kids; instead, he had to go to the recording studio to work like an adult.

Watching that interview, I remember thinking that this was a man in pain trying to self-medicate. Michael was rich enough to build his own child’s world at Neverland Ranch and live there — to go back in time and live the childhood life he was denied.

His fame and his wealth made him a target. So did the spectacle of a grown man surrounding himself with kids to play with. People generally don’t file huge civil lawsuits against broke people.

Now this talented man’s life is over, and the vultures are gathering to pick over the bones and take whatever scraps are left. There will be fights over his children and his estate, and because he was famous, the media will bring us every detail of the whole sorry mess.

It’s a shame, but it’s the price of fame.



Richard Johnson is executive director of Christian Formation Ministries. His organization has numerous volunteer opportunities available. For information, e-mail richard@christian-formation.org or call 812-945-0886.