Not just because Kate Moss's breasts are smaller than mine

Today smacking: Celebrity envy

There’s a punishment I can think of that is worse than death. It’s worse than being thrown down a well full of ravenous rats. Worse than eating semi-decomposed slugs. Worse than finding porno pictures of your parents at a ‘key party’ in the 70’s. Worse than getting stuck in an elevator full of someone else’s egg-fart. Worse than the voice of that guy who does the Cillit Bang adverts on TV. Worse, even, than Kirsten Dunst’s need for a supportive bra, or just any bra at all. No, the worst fate in the world, the one I wouldn’t wish on even my archenemy, even if they had kicked me in the shins and convinced me I was adopted, is the fate of being a really famous celebrity. I wouldn’t wish being Britney Spears on anybody.

I begin to feel distinctly uncomfortable when I flip through crap-filled magazines such as heat or OK! and they’re proclaiming that the latest cool thing to do is to wear what Kate Moss is wearing (because, Oh My God, she’s always SO RIGHT NOW), and eat in the same restaurants where Kate Moss is ‘eating’ (help me, I’m dying of laughter-induced hypoxia), and have the same addled and confused boyfriend that Kate Moss has. Well, OK, nobody’s stupid enough to want to follow that last one. But the point is that in these magazines we’re constantly being told that our tiny little lives are not the least bit as exciting or meaningful as those of the celebrities we worship, and so we go ahead and believe that the only way we’ll ever come close to being as interesting as our favourite famous faces is to emulate them. Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, I can’t think of anything worse.

Does anyone out there really think that Lindsay Lohan, Posh Spice, or the ‘Jolie-Pitts’ are having any kind of fun? When I think of what celebrities have to do to stay in the limelight, and remain in the public’s good graces, I shudder. There’s the constant need to look good and wear new clothes, the requirement to do and say interesting things, and the absolute necessity to hide all the parts of your life which could – and would – be construed negatively by the press. It’s no wonder so many celebrities say “Fuck it,” to the idea that they will ever have any privacy or be treated like normal people who have a job to do. (Which most of them are, except Paris Hilton, whose earthly purpose scientists have still yet to determine. Personally I’m convinced she’s an alien masquerading as an heiress in order to conduct a social experiment in how readily the people of earth will accept someone as a celebrity simply because we’re told she’s famous, despite the fact that she does nothing, says nothing, and quite apparently eats nothing. Boy, did we ever show them.)

I don’t wonder at all why some celebs end up embracing their own demises, conceding that any publicity is good publicity. So then we have the ‘flashing our bald genitalia as we get out of cars’, the ‘publicly bouncing in and out of rehab’, the ‘inflammatory statements to the press about other celebrities we’re supposedly having a public tiff with’ – because if you can’t keep the press on your good side, then you might as well make them beg for the bad. And if you’ve got some excellent PR behind you, you can do a Kate Moss and get up to all the seedy shit you want, appear all genuinely apologetic about it after a stint in rehab, and end up with more job prospects than before you let yourself be photographed doing lines when you should have been looking after your young daughter.

Of course, many think that it’s a simple case of, ‘If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.’ To some extent I think that this is true, and I think that in the last few decades anyone trying to become famous would have to be severely brain-damaged not to realise how much of their identity and privacy would be sacrificed in achieving that end. But we forget that celebrities are real people, with real fears and hopes and insecurities – oh, truckloads of insecurities – just like the rest of us plebs. You try having every aspect of your personality and all your decisions and beliefs scrutinised by a catty media who don’t care to analyse the real you; see if it doesn’t drive you to coke-fuelled benders and a slippery shame spiral.

Me, I like that I can say unwholesome and politically incorrect things without the world jumping on my back. I can talk about drugs I’ve done without fear of it turning into next week’s big rehab story. I can go across the street for a litre of milk in my pyjamas and feel safe in the knowledge that the only photographs of me doing so will be taken my pervy neighbours who don’t know how to use the internet yet. I can get drunk with my mates every weekend without heat magazine fearing I’m having a breakdown, and best of all, I can put on a few kilos and run around in ill-fitting underwear and nobody gives a flying rat’s arsehole. Sure, I’m poor as hell, but there’s a lot of comfort in being just another civilian.

So nope, nuh-uh, and nosiree Bob; I wouldn’t wish being Kate Moss on anyone.