A brief exploration of why and how ultra-famous celebrities use PR.
This is a question people ask when others suggest a relationship like Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s is “staged”, or when a friendship like Addison Rae and Kourtney Kardashian could be manufactured by the entertainment industry.
Well, have you ever heard the saying, “All press is good press”? This is because when the name of a celebrity continues to be in the tabloids, they rise in relevance. In the case of staged PR, often, the celebrity themselves controls and consents to the narrative being presented.
They will, however, need to manufacture the right story for the right audience at the right time.
The right time is often when the two are working on a project together, or maybe one has just had an album released and the other started promoting their documentary. If one of the celebrities has been handling the fallout of a scandal and when one, or both, celebrities have queer rumours surrounding them they want to dispel.
As consumers of media, we can only guess what the truth is, but as critical thinkers, we can get pretty close.
The Killers wrote a song in 2004 that inadvertently takes listeners through the PR romance experience.
The Cycle of “Showmance” as Narrated through Mr. Brightside:
- It started out with a
kiss… tabloid rumour
This tabloid rumour starts when a magazine or a media outlet begins pairing two starlets, making connections of their lives when there was not one before.
- “And she’s calling a cab, while he’s having a smoke”, said a “source close to the celebrity”
Random blind items will begin to be released about the two. Platforms like PopBase or E! News will post excerpts from articles or interviews about how the two are together, or how they make their busy schedules work to see each other. And somehow, it will always be from a “source close to the celebrity.”
- Open up my eager eyes – it’s the two of them out and about together
Paparazzi walks are scheduled. How else can you explain the way Taylor Swift can be MIA for months and then suddenly be swarmed by paparazzi leaving a recording studio in New York? Getting paparazzi in New York is not nearly as common as people think. There are four times fewer “paps” in New York in comparison to LA. It is the same for celebrity PR; a cute walk, hand in hand in a park or leaving each other’s fancy apartments at noon will be sure to catch eyes…which is the point.
- It started out with a tabloid rumour, how did it end up like this?
Finally, what seals the deal is their red-carpet debut. This “red carpet” can be literal or figurative. The red carpet can be a sporting event, a concert, a movie premiere, etc. This final step allows the public to feast their eyes on Hollywood’s brand-new couple.
This is simply a brief crash course on a PR tactic that has made corporations and businesses lots of money for years. Love stories never get old.
Of course, celebrities date, break up, and get married just like the rest of us. But sometimes, if their jersey sales rise and they are on a break from the highest-grossing tour of the century, it just might be a beneficial business proposal for the happy celebrity couple.