“Most of them are not as rich as you think they are, and almost all of them are bad at managing the money they do make. Most of the money they make goes towards trying to appear wealthy.”

I'm a Senior Staff Writer based in New York City, where I've been covering classic BuzzFeed-style content since 2020.

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"Some of the more minor celebrities are true actors, musicians, or sports heroes on their way up and trying hard. Then there are the truly evil ones that take advantage of their fame, or people who are so far gone on drugs, you know they will die young or end up in prison and never really make it. Someone once said that Hollywood and fame just bring out who you really are inside faster. I think that is true because they all have a lot of pressure on them."

"B/C and below musicians, ESPECIALLY, are some of the worst people I've come across."

"This is so true. I used to pretty regularly appear on the talk show circuit because of my job, and I spent a lot of time in green rooms. The B/C celebs always brought a whole army of people with them — usually family and friends — while the A-listers maybe had just one assistant or something. And the B/C celebs themselves could be pretty chill, but their 'entourages' were usually, like, completely lacking in anything resembling chill, social skills, or even just basic manners.

During one thirty-minute live-to-tape show I did, the green room had a lot of little bottles of wine/beers/etc. meant for the talent to sip on prior to the show (relaxed talent makes for better TV is the thinking there), and one minor celeb's family members (I will NOT name the celeb; it wasn't their fault, it happened while we were on stage) were like, stuffing their bags with the bottles and all the snacks, and security almost threw them out before a PA ran up to the celeb during commercial break and dragged them over to defuse the situation. It was so ridiculous."

"I have known nepo babies my whole life despite not growing up around the industry. The nepos with truly accomplished parents, whether that means movie stars or kids of famous elected officials, are usually more normal regarding manners, self awareness, and not that entitled. The ones with semi-famous parents are nightmares."

"I know a couple of small-time actors (busy, but not based in NY/LA), and they have this same energy. Very nice, but always 'on' — speaking and behaving like there's a camera around even when everyone else is chill."

"Oh yeah, I know a bunch of famous comedians. Misogynistic or not — NONE of them were cool kids. Comedians tend to be pretty dark and often depressed. That being said, I respect comedians. Acting is one thing, but getting on a stage and writing even 10 minutes of material that makes people laugh is hard AF."

"I've worked pretty closely with Owen and found him to be one of the loveliest celebs. ... I got the sense that he has to interface with SO many people that he’s just not going to engage with anyone more than necessary, which is totally fair. After a couple of weeks of working together, he very quietly made one of the funniest situational jokes I’ve ever heard, just for me. I heard from other people that they had similar experiences. He was extremely easy and respectful to work with.And had an awesome dog."

"One of my old clients has a heroin problem, and if anyone from his fanbase found out, he would be DONE FOR. Just anything involved with a celebrity eventually turns sour, messy, unhealthy, toxic, and FAKE. I left the job within a couple of months because the industry is dark and really produces many nasty people. Bad vibes all around — even the nice interactions with celebrities didn't even prove to be a silver lining. Don't work with celebrities."

"Going in, I knew that I had to tread carefully around them because of their reputation, but I was a little surprised by how not rude they were. ... Because they were rather friendly with me from the get-go, I didn't have to walk around on eggshells while interacting with them and could be myself. Also, I'm generally not the kind of person who ever asks for pictures, autographs, etc., so that helped.

A couple weeks in, we had a quiet moment together, and they broke down in front of me. At first, I thought to myself, 'Oh shit, I'm fucked,' but those were tears of joy. I was the first person in a long time to have treated them like a normal person and not as some diva or someone who should be placed on a pedestal.

They opened up about the fact that they enjoyed acting as an art form but hated much of the pageantry and attention they got as a celebrity and much of their abrasive personality came from years of being exploited by people who they assumed to be friends and feeling like a 'zoo animal' whenever they were out and about with people treating them like they were the latest attraction to see and forgetting that there was an actual person underneath.

Are there some genuinely horrible people in Hollywood entertainment, etc? Absolutely. But it also taught me not to always judge a book by its cover, and a lot of times when famous people come across as abrasive, it's a bit of a defense mechanism."

"Meanwhile, everyone in his entourage was on the phones looking for the next spot to hit up because the actor kept complaining that the party sucked and he didn't have any fun, and that he wanted to actually do something worthwhile with his night. His whole attitude struck me as whiny, self-conscious, and negative, and from the way he was interacting with his crew of yes men and women, it was clear he thirsted for and fed off their validation. It just felt desperate and so off-putting, in my opinion. I was invited to come along to the next location with them to hit up another party, but I declined because the vibes were so off. My takeaway was, 'None of y'all are going to have fun no matter where you go because your attitudes are wack.'

When I've talked to people in the show's fandom, I see them get goo-goo-eyed talking about the ~dreamy~ cast and how charismatic and adorable they are when they've met them at cons. I just shrug and say nothing while remembering Mr. Charisma breathing his garlic breath in everyone's face and asking if it smelled okay."

"I remember running into Dan Aykroyd and Jon Lovitz years ago at the Kentucky Derby. I was absolutely SHOCKED by how huge their heads were. Both of 'em. Like a couple of grapefruits on toothpicks. ... Their heads and facial features were just massive."

"No matter how rich, most of them still have things they refuse their kids. One Uber-famous singer's son kept stealing my Lego men! His mother stopped buying them for him since he kept losing them. I will never stop being bitter."

"It's probably because many of them are on special diets. I've worked with a number of celebs who weren't allowed to eat the crew meals because they had to eat a specific way (GF, organic, non-inflamatory, etc) and/or were on a meal plan, or if they did eat off the caterer, it was very specific orders (plain grilled chicken, brown rice, etc).I was on a job overseas once, and my department had a box of American snacks for the locals to try and Americans to feel a little less homesick. #1 on the call sheet walks by and seems interested in the snacks, so I offered him one. He seemed like he actually wanted to take it, but his trainer ushered him away before that could happen. His assistant told me that his trainer watched him like a hawk and won't let him eat anything they didn't approve."

"The number of cigarettes they used to bum off me when I worked in entertainment…I should have charged them all."

"I dated a professional hockey player for a little bit, and I remember he was excited to be on the IR list because it meant he could smoke weed and not have to worry about being tested. He also definitely abused pain pills they were able to get from the team doctors."

"And that was just one of the stories! She wouldn't tell us the name, obviously, but that didn't stop us from trying to get it out of her lol."

"Also, the lifestyle of making music, touring, press, etc., is very disorienting, so even though they're not 'doing anything,' it's hard to wrangle them."

"I work with one band in particular, and I find that if they are touring, then you can wrangle them because they are on a defined schedule and their life has structure; they all have the same time off, so scheduling stuff is easy to fit into those between times. When they aren't on tour, it is like herding cats; they all have their own shit going on, and getting five people to have the same four hours free at the same time, despite them not having steady work schedules, is a Herculean effort.

I learned it was far easier to tell them when they had to show up rather than ask them when they were free to show up. Also, when they are not on tour, their life is less structured, so they tend to ramp up their drinking and drug use, so even if you get them to show up, there might be a limit to how productive they are."

"Some of them, I guess fame makes it that way, because there's one super, super famous A-lister whom I got to hang out with when she was on her way up. And then I met her again a dozen years later, after she had become wildly rich and famous, and she was totally rude."

Submissions have been edited for length/clarity.