I suppose if you’re a celebrity, it’s gotta be annoying sometimes to have strangers taking pictures of you as you walk down the street, but maybe it’s not as annoying as all that. Certainly Taylor Swift, op cit, doesn’t always turned her back on the paparazzi.
Equally, as annoyances go, it must be a double-edged sword. As a celeb you certainly want attention, it’s a matter of wanting the “right kind” of attention.
No doubt there are some who find it a kind a relief when they cease to be an object of general photographic fascination, but I imagine a lot more of them find it a very depressing sign that their star is fading.
I once had some filmic dealings with the actor/director Griffin Dunne who starred in Who’s That Girl opposite Madonna. It was at a time when Madonna seemed a good deal more fascinating than she does now, and like some fan boy rube I found myself asking Griffin, “So what’s Madonna really like.” He said he honestly had no idea, he hadn’t got to know her at all in the course of making the movie, but he said, “I think she must be the loneliest woman in the world.”
Those I’m pretty sure were his actual words, his point being that she was so surrounded by her people, so insulated from real contact, that nobody ever made any kind of personal connection with her.
I suspect that hasn’t changed much. And she’s still a focus for the paparazzi and I’m sure that if I saw Madonna walking down the street I’d be tempted to raise my Canon. I realize this wouldn’t make her feel any less lonely.
And yes, I do wonder what on earth’s going on with that right calf of hers in the picture above.
