Celebrity apologies– we’ve all seen them, we’ve all laughed at them, and some of us have felt very passionately about them. Speaking from personal experience, it could have been our not so subtle Twilight obsessions that led us to relive Kristen Stewart and Rupert Sanders’ scandalous affair apologies over and over again. Or maybe it was the horror we witnessed as Kanye interrupted T-Swizzle’s VMA acceptance speech that sent us to YouTube to watch as he spilled his regrets. Regardless, we’ve all been there. (And if you have not, here are some good ones to skim through.) While some of these apologies are very heartfelt and genuine, we all know some of them are not quite so authentic. So why are these celebrities so pressured to say their piece even when their opinions do not change?
A life with celebrity status requires a certain responsibility to promote a specific image to the public, and when an incident occurs that counters said image, audiences expect a type of substantial recognition regarding their behavior- in most cases this comes in the form of a public statement or apology about whatever had people outraged. Power has a lot to do with it, and in some cases, it’s not the power that the celebrity has over people, but the power the industry has over the celebrity. We hold these people at a higher status than ourselves because of their influence and prominence in the media, but they are ordinary people who choose what to portray to the public during their off-times. If they do not want people to know their opinions, they would not post them.
Let’s dig deeper. In 2017, after President Trump was elected as the face of our country for some reason, comedian Kathy Griffin posted this photo of herself holding a bloody Trump mask.
(entertainment weekly)
The photo was not scripted, Griffin told NPR personality Sam Sanders, but just part of an average photo shoot. She wanted to “shame” President Trump in a comedic way, so she held up his “decapitated head” with the caption “I support Gore.” Some background on the picture lends more of an explanation- Tyler Shields, the photographer, has a history of provocative imagery, and Griffin was playing on the misogynistic comment Trump made about journalist Megyn Kelly that she had “blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.” Unhappy with the misconduct of the President, Griffin was left to her own devices to retaliate. And so she did.
What happened, though, was a wave of defamation from adamant Trump supporters and the like. Even the President and his wife made statements, Malania Trump, going so far as to demand CNN to relieve her from her duties as co-host of New Years Eve Live with Anderson Cooper. And they did. Kathy Griffin, once known for her comedy and quirkiness was then known as someone who tried to pull one over on Donald Trump, but lost the battle. Her career stuttered as she lost her CNN position, a comedy tour, and became the suspect of a federal investigation. According to Griffin she was placed on a “no-fly” list, so she could not travel until the investigation ceased. Her image was originally meant to shed light on the comments the President was making against women, but ended in her receiving death threats.
Griffin apologized soon after the incident, stating in a Twitter video, “Hey, everybody, it’s me, Kathy Griffin. I sincerely apologize. I am just now seeing the reaction to these images. I’m a comic. I crossed the line. I move the line. Then I cross it. I went way too far. The image is too disturbing. I understand how it offends people. It wasn’t funny.” We see you, Kathy.
It did not lessen the attacks, however, as she still dealt with death threats toward her and her family. So why does Kathy Griffin have to apologize if she’s going to get fired and deal with backlash anyway? The industry’s need for consumerism. Celebrities are a means of capital in entertainment. An entire brand can be built on one person’s face, hair, fashion, etc. So naturally, when a person in that business says or does something that gives them so much negative attention, the powers that be (i.e. those in charge of maintaining a reputation like CNN) see them as a liability. The celebrity, or whoever is at fault, is forced to apologize publicly, and if that does not help, power is taken away from the individual. In this case, it was suspending Griffin’s career.
Griffin has said many times since that she does not regret posting the picture. She told People that she isn’t sorry for the post, but rather how much stress it caused for her family. Interviews from 2019 reveal that she is still receiving threats, and she gets asked about the scandal daily. It has been two years, why is her one mistake still so relevant? The public still finds the incident important because not only did she publicly apologize, but she also publicly rescinded her apology. If she had left her celebrity apology somewhere out in the Twitter-sphere, she probably would have had less of a sustained reaction. Like every other celebrity who must make a public apology, she would have been the talk of the town for a bit, then everyone would gradually forget or purposely avoid talking about what she did. She did not give us the usual apology, though.
The public’s relationship with Griffin, along with the industry’s need for money were the driving forces of the “celebrity apology.” However, apologizing under false pretenses does not make anyone feel good, so Griffin took responsibility for her actions while sticking by her opinions. To the public it feels like an outrage that she said one thing two years ago then took it back, but I can imagine this is the reality for most celebrity apologies. Many stars do not have the choice whether or not to apologize, they are forced to by their managers, companies, brands, etc. So most of those apologies probably aren’t real. Your fave celeb probably still has the same opinions as they did when they f***ed up. Nobody is perfect, including Hollywood’s finest… sorry about it.
