The biggest celebrity news of the past month has been America’s Sweetheart being cheated on and a Latin heartthrob who we haven’t heard much from in a while publically coming out of the closet. And it made me wonder about the timing of these events…When I watched the Oscars, Sandra Bullock seemed a bit too composed for someone winning her first Academy Award. Especially because before The Blind Side, no one ever expected her to win for her body of romantic comedies, which the Academy does not usually reward. All I could think of was Halle Berry visibly shaking and crying uncontrollably. But not Sandra… She was cool, articulate and even wry in her comments about Meryl Streep being her lover. Then, two weeks later, the story came out about her husband Jesse James cheating on her over the past year.
Hollywood is a well-oiled public relations machine and celebrities have teams of people being paid exorbitantly to advise them. When it comes to the media getting a story, there are no accidents. I believe that Bullock knew about her husband’s philandering long before the story hit Extra and CNN but her “people” chose to wait until after the Oscars to release it so as not to endanger her pretty much shoe-in but there’s always the possibility of an upset chances at Oscar glory. Did you ever notice that during January and February there is tons of hype about who will win the major categories at the Golden Globes and Oscars and then about 6 months later it’s hard to remember who won Best Actress? After the immense outpouring of sympathy Sandy has received, no one will forget who won in 2009.
Even more curious is the story this week about Nicolette Sheridan accusing Mark Cherry (creator of Desperate Housewives) of assault and suing him for wrongful termination http://tinyurl.com/yd3zffm. Her character was killed off last season, so it’s been over a year. Why is she suing him now? Does she have a new Lifetime movie of the week coming out?
The bottom line is, like the old adage says, Image is Everything.
In terms of Ricky Martin declaring “I’m a fortunate homosexual man” http://tinyurl.com/yjxu2f4 (after eschewing the subject with Barbara Walters a few years ago) – again I wondered, “Why now?” I have to say for the record that I am totally happy for him. My work is all about helping my clients find their authentic expression through image work and I’m all about EVERYONE living their truth. I have many gay friends, family and clients and have heard countless coming out stories and the common thread is it’s usually not planned. Everyone’s on their own journey. So, for Martin it could just be “his time” but I’m still dubious. There was a deluge of comments on facebook last week – he’s right, he’s wrong, it’s shocking news, it’s not surprising, finally, etc… There are many facets of the crystal on this subject but I hope if it is a strategic move that it brings him only peace, joy and many more fans.