Like anyone who has ever had to perform some form of work, I despise wealthy celebrities.
Their constant tears in interviews, their overuse of words like “journey” and “dreams” and their inability to empathise with anyone other than rare amphibians and cyber-bullied American Idol contestants make them difficult to like.
They are a strange and reptilian breed whose thirst for never-ending attention and gaudy bling can repulse even the gentlest of souls – which is why it pains me to take their side on rare occasions.
Ashton Kutcher - he of car-finding fame - has reportedly fallen out of favour with the crew of Two and a Half Men, where he is in the process of replacing actor-turned-Twitter account Charlie Sheen.
His co-workers have described him as a “diva” and slammed his use of a two-storey trailer, which they describe as a “mansion on wheels”. Others have predictably joined the attack, adding the usual comments about living to excess and so and so forth.
Other celebs have attracted similar criticisms in the past following gross displays of unnecessary decadence and extravagance. What most critics, however, fail to appreciate is that people are entitled to spend their money on whatever they like, no matter how repulsive it may be.
The point of being rich is that you can afford to buy horrendously expensive things and wave them in other people’s faces. How many among us can honestly say a billion dollars wouldn’t turn them into an obnoxious eccentric? I would probably last about two days before I transformed into a tyrannical anti-Oprah.
Sure, some of my loot would go to charity, but I can assure you the vast majority of it would be spent on diamond-encrusted Frisbees and fireplaces. “I want a fireplace in every room,” I would bellow as carpenters and architects scurried around my palatial manor, dodging helicopters and celebrity chefs.
Fabergé eggs would be bought and smashed in drunken rampages and entire suburbs would be purchased and transformed into giant Zen gardens and man-made crop circles.
I’d casually take a remote island paradise off some oil baron’s hands, fill it with life-size fibre-glass dinosaurs and pay Jeff Goldblum and Sam Neill to re-enact all three Jurassic Parks, while I watch the series on Blu-ray instead and completely ignore their efforts.
I would hire Russian scientists to construct giant slingshots that launch things into the Sun and pay John Farnham to play a show inside a giant, empty pyramid, before sealing it shut for all eternity and cackling like a rabid, dehydrated hyena.
It would be madness, I tell you. Madness and narcissism and gold-plated carnage.
To be rich enough to ignore social norms and building regulations is the dream we all secretly have, but pretend not to. We don’t dream of buying conservative second-hand cars and home-brand lifestyles – we dream of cars, penthouse pools and challenging Richard Branson to a cage fight.
The vast majority of us will never amass the kind of wealth the Zuckerbergs and Lohans of the world enjoy. If any of you ever do, however, I hope you spend it on the ridiculous and the decadent and the impossible.
So long as you engage in some philanthropy, you’re entitled to waste millions of dollars on whatever you like.
Celebrities are no different. Besides, there are way better reasons to hate on Ashton Kutcher.
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