Celebrity Couple Crazes – It’s Time to Rethink Our Fascination

After every major celebrity event comes a tsunami of memes and social media posts that spark conversation between everyone else. Right on schedule, in the days following the Golden Globes, the internet is flooded with new photos of celebrities, and my Instagram DM’s are filled with my friends debating the legitimacy of Kylie Jenner and Timothée Chalamet’s relationship. While society’s obsessive curiosity about our favorite stars’ romances is nothing new, as an avid consumer of entertainment, it seems to me to be a fruitless hobby that distracts from the art at hand and instead focuses on petty drama.

Couple Craze at Award Shows

In addition to the viral intimate photos, Chalamet received irksome questions about his latest paramour on the red carpet. An interviewer from Entertainment Tonight! asked the French-American actor about how it felt to receive such an overwhelming amount of support, especially from Jenner, his date that night. Chalamet deflects like a well-trained politician with a hint of annoyance responding “It’s a great feeling to be in a room with so much love and so many great peers and people that are fantastic.” Not once in his response did he acknowledge the part of the question aiming to dig up dirt on his love life. 

This line of questioning along with Chalamet’s irritated response highlights two main issues: society is way too invested in celebrities’ personal lives, and journalists need to ask better questions. Journalists ask these shallow questions because they think this is what viewers want to hear (based on Rolling Stone’s Instagram post of Chalamet and Jenner receiving over 48,000 likes confirms their prediction). 

Journalists’ Role in Our Obsession

Journalists have the responsibility to redirect the conversation back to the celebrity’s projects and away from their personal lives when clearly they have not been doing so. Red carpet journalists should be inquiring into Chalamet’s five-year devotion to his latest film, “A Complete Unknown” and the project he is proudest of in his career. Asking celebrities if the event is a date night does not count as a thought-provoking question. 

Society feels a sense of entitlement to this intimate information, especially about celebrities’ personal lives. However, just because celebrities are in the public eye doesn’t give us the right to a free flow of personal details. Constant scrutiny and media pressure make being a public figure an incredibly difficult and brave task, and endless questioning about their romantic lives is only an added burden. Intense curiosity is not a valid reason to strip celebrities of their privacy.

TV Stars and Musicians Also Experience a Lack of Privacy

Of course, Jenner and Chalamet are not the first to have audiences invade their privacy with curiosity. For Chalamet, this is nothing more than a few pesky questions. The real issue is when society’s perversion begins to affect celebrities’ ability to complete their work.

A prime example of this effect is the television show “Outer Banks” which captivated audiences during the pandemic but progressively lost its grasp with each successive season. This show demonstrated an idyllic and adventurous lifestyle but was eventually ruined by viewer speculation of inter-cast relationships. Co-stars Rudy Pankow and Madison Bailey, whose chemistry was adored by audiences, crumbled to the point of hiring stunt doubles to perform intimate scenes. While this is immature and unprofessional, at the end of the day, the stars are just normal people who lost a great friendship. Not only did their personal lives suffer, but the show as well. Their disconnect was palpable and created an awkward dynamic with the rest of the cast. 

This issue is not limited to actors and actresses. Musicians also often field speculation about their relationships and who their songs are about. Whether it is Joshua Bassett being dragged for “what he did” to Olivia Rodrigo or Swifties disappointment with the number of songs about Matty Heally on “The Tortured Poets Department,” people care too much about who the song is about as opposed to just listening to the song and taking it as the art it is. So much goes into creating a song, the least important aspect is who it is about.

It’s Time to Rethink Our Obsession

Putting aside my personal feelings on this subject, my avid consumption of post-award show news has proven to me that people care too much about celebrity relationships. Audiences need to have the ability to separate artists from their art. A huge component of consuming content is recognizing that it is simply content. When you’re watching a fiction film, you’re acknowledging that it is not reality. There is a line between audiences and celebrities, and audiences need to be more respectful and aware of this divide. If they don’t, the quality of entertainment will deteriorate. This is a vital skill that needs to be developed to continue the production of great entertainment. We want to maintain a positive relationship with our favorite stars, so we can value their art and still feel connected.