I think I'd be allergic to fame

Celebrity gossip actually makes me queasy. I just don’t understand it and probably never will, and I’m okay with that, because this is one of those rare things that makes me feel normal and think everyone else is crazy.

Recently, I was switching between radio stations when I heard a story about Anne Hathaway’s supposed pregnancy. According to the reporter, Anne Hathaway, her husband (or fiancé?), and -his parents? Her parents? I don’t remember- were at a restaurant and then suddenly burst into celebratory joy.

Um. So that means she is pregnant? (Now there might be actual evidence of it, of which I’d be aware if I cared, but that’s not the point.) The reporter went on to explain that most people in the restaurant debated over the cause and concluded that the engagement is already public knowledge so the next step would logically be pregnancy.

Wow. Why can’t people leave them the hell alone? And who really cares? I suppose pregnancy might mean Hathaway is out of the film scene for a little while, but beyond that, I don’t see how her personal life is relevant to the public at all. I mean, let’s all just say, “Congrats,” and move on with our lives, please.

It’s not that I don’t like celebrities, but I don’t care at all about the personal lives of my favorite celebs because honestly, it’s none of my business (and it’s boring.) So why do we care?

Is it envy?

I’m starting to think it might be. Another reporter recently commented on Johnny Depp’s divorce and claimed that we all secretly want celebrity marriages to fail. Why? That’s an awful thing to say. I would have preferred that Johnny Depp stay married happily ever after, or better yet, that I never knew about his personal life at all. I like to watch him in movies. He’s a talented actor. And I would probably sleep with him, given the chance… but my interest ends there.

The same goes for Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. They want the details of their divorce to be private. Who wouldn’t? Christ, just leave them be. What I find even more amusing are all the Cruise Haters out there. The anti-Scientology ex-fans of Cruise who never approved of him making a scene about being in love with Holmes on a talk show. What. The. Hell.

Cruise has pretty much apologized to everyone and their mothers. In a recent issue of Playboy, he claims that he understands how it came across, but that he never felt that way; that he never wanted to tell people how to live their lives. Then he goes on to complain that now, if he doesn’t talk about his religion, then people perceive it as avoidance, and if he does, people perceive it as preaching. It’s a no-win situation for him, and maybe he brought it on himself, but more likely, it’s just another example of how sickly obsessed our culture is with tearing into people not unlike us except for their fame. (And yes, I often read the interviews in Playboy because they’re interesting and typically relate to the one thing I sometimes care about in regard to celebrities: their careers.)

Cruise is a talented director and actor (and also pretty sexy) so we should probably be content to simply watch the man in his roles. Beyond his film career, I don’t understand where we get off with all the unwarranted judgment.

The biggest question I have is why we waste all this energy on judging the personal lives of these people we’ve never met. Aren’t there more productive things to do with our time?