The real secret to success in the entertainment business isn't winning an Academy Award, an Emmy, a Grammy, or any other prize that marketers dream up to sell more dvds and movie contracts. The real secret to success isn't working hard with an acting coach or editor to achieve the big-time status most of us dream about.
The real secret to success is fucking it up royally. PS: if it's in the public eye, even better.
For the average person, if you mess up, you learn from it and move on. There's no big story here, nothing particularly alluring about falling off your bike while learning to ride it. You fall until you learn how to stand. However, if you're a Hollywood celebrity like Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears, your train-wrecks draw people in. You keep the spotlight, people find you interesting.
Why? Because beautiful is boring, and completely alien to the bottomless-pit that is Ugly. One can only be so beautiful. People see billboard pictures, look back in amazement, but don't ask any more questions because it's just another beautiful person, up there, in Times Square (or where ever) being beautiful. The story is about as deep as a rain puddle. But Ugly. Ugly is like an onion: it has layers.
This is the real reason why people still give a shit about Lindsay Lohan, for example. She is as destructive as a hurricane, and in any other career won't be able to land a job. (Wait, she hasn't released a film since 2007.) The money most people want to spend on their dream-home, Ms. Lohan has spent on rehab. And yet, all around the world, people want to talk about her. Who she's sleeping with, who she's drinking with, what she drinks, how much she drinks, when she drinks, where she drinks, if she's sober, who she dates. None of this talk revolves around her career as an actress.
But enough dumping on Ms. Lohan, because, though it is fun, it's just too easy, and admittedly, a little unfair. My screw-ups aren't public.
The old adage in PR is that, "there's no such thing as bad press." When you consider that publishers and production companies go after people who are able to draw a crowd, and thus drive up sales, this is probably true. It seldom matters what the crowd looks like, or the demographic, so long as there are many, and they have money.
When Howard Stern started out on the airwaves, he was vulgar, he defied his bosses, he ignored the rules of broadcasting, but he was popular. Why? Because people couldn't wait to hear what he was going to say next. This helps explain the popularity of the 'toxic celebrity,' People want to see what they're going to do, say, throw, smash, snort, drink...next.
Toxic celebrities don't care about their career. They want to remain in the spot light, and the best way to do that, is keep the train-wrecks coming, and make them bigger and hair and panty-free, each time.
