Flaawsome Talk with Kjersti Flaa - June 20, 2025


Ep 4： Hollywood’s Greatest Scam： The Celebrities You Thought Were Real


Episode Stats

Length

20 minutes

Words per Minute

174.72668

Word Count

3,548

Sentence Count

257

Misogynist Sentences

17


Summary

In this episode, I talk about the end of the mystery of Hollywood, and how social media has changed the way we look at celebrities. I discuss how we ve traded mystery for access, and what that means for the authenticity we expect from celebrities.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 This January on Paramount+, it began on the shores of New Jersey.
00:00:04.900 Now, a new pack emerges in the great white north.
00:00:09.260 Canada Shore, new original series, now streaming on Paramount+.
00:00:14.440 Hi, and welcome to Flossom Talk, the podcast.
00:00:22.920 I'm Tashli Flau, and this is my fourth episode of my special podcast that I do once a week.
00:00:28.340 Most of you might know me from YouTube, where I do everyday updates about Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni's legal feud.
00:00:36.980 But here on my podcast once a week, I will talk about other things as well.
00:00:40.760 A lot about my experiences in Hollywood, good or bad, and about working as an entertainment reporter,
00:00:46.820 and other interesting trends in pop culture that I find interesting.
00:00:51.260 Today, I put out a post on my YouTube channel asking people if there's anything you want me to talk about,
00:00:56.300 specifically here on this podcast, and I got so many amazing suggestions.
00:01:00.220 So I will go through that list and find things.
00:01:03.000 And if you haven't seen that yet, please check out my YouTube channel, Flossom Talk.
00:01:07.640 Last week, I spoke about big egos in Hollywood,
00:01:10.620 and how these big egos are protected by the machinery around them.
00:01:14.820 As I said before on my YouTube channel, I think that's one of the things that surprised people,
00:01:18.860 maybe the most about this, is how protective everything is.
00:01:22.660 In this episode, I want to dig a little bit deeper on what happened to the mystery of Hollywood.
00:01:29.060 How did this endless access that we have to celebrities change the way we look at them?
00:01:34.180 And how has it stripped away the glamour?
00:01:36.920 Where did the magic go?
00:01:38.700 And what does that mean for the authenticity that we expect?
00:01:42.120 Is real celebrity dead?
00:01:44.320 I remember the time when celebrities were kind of enigmas.
00:01:48.380 There were these mysteries surrounding them.
00:01:50.360 They were kind of larger than life, and they were so untouchable and so unreachable.
00:01:56.720 Of course, we never knew what they were eating for breakfast.
00:01:59.540 We didn't know their skincare routine, or what their bathroom looked like,
00:02:03.960 or who they texted at 2 a.m. in the morning.
00:02:06.700 I think that mystery and that distance we had to the celebrities is what made them stars.
00:02:12.000 Think about it.
00:02:12.680 Old Hollywood icons like Paul Newman, Audrey Hepburn.
00:02:16.360 They weren't constantly exposing themselves and explaining themselves.
00:02:21.280 Everything we saw from them was curated interviews, black and white portraits,
00:02:26.240 or we saw them on a big screen.
00:02:28.120 There was a space between us, and in that space, we could project whatever we wanted.
00:02:33.160 Elegance, glamour, wisdom, even perfection.
00:02:37.460 But today, that space is gone.
00:02:40.320 We know what celebrities eat.
00:02:42.060 We know what they think.
00:02:43.160 We know what they feel.
00:02:44.600 We know what they vote.
00:02:46.040 We know what they fear.
00:02:47.480 And we hear about it all day long.
00:02:49.800 The mystique has been replaced by content.
00:02:52.540 We have traded mystery for access.
00:02:55.060 I actually did a documentary on this that you can find on my YouTube channel
00:02:59.520 about how social media killed the movie star,
00:03:02.200 and how as soon as we got so much access to their real lives,
00:03:06.660 they became just like us.
00:03:08.880 Remember in the magazines, they used to have these columns or pages
00:03:12.700 that was devoted to celebrities or stars.
00:03:16.580 They're just like us, and you would see a star drink a cup of coffee
00:03:20.380 or maybe fill up their car with petrol,
00:03:23.020 and we were like, oh, wow, she filled up her car with petrol herself.
00:03:28.620 Oh, look, he went to Starbucks, and he's got his name on the cup.
00:03:33.000 Wow, that's really unique.
00:03:34.920 Like, today, we see that every single day on social media.
00:03:40.360 The celebrities have become influencers,
00:03:42.620 and the influencers are also celebrities.
00:03:45.240 They don't feel elevated anymore.
00:03:47.680 They feel like a part of the algorithm.
00:03:50.220 And maybe that's why we stop being so forgiving,
00:03:53.160 as we've seen with Blake Lively.
00:03:55.360 I mean, she has been the same person for the last 37 years,
00:04:00.360 but we never spoke about it before.
00:04:02.960 Maybe we didn't know, maybe because she was hiding it really well,
00:04:07.120 but now we've seen what kind of person she really is,
00:04:10.880 and we are not forgiving her.
00:04:13.320 And I think when you sell yourself as just like us,
00:04:16.160 we start holding you to the same standard.
00:04:19.300 And when you fail, we don't see a tragic fall from Olympus.
00:04:23.580 We just see another person who lied for likes.
00:04:27.620 Were the stars different before than they are today?
00:04:30.860 Is this a cultural shift that we are seeing right now?
00:04:34.840 I'm not just talking about messy private lives,
00:04:37.400 because that's been a thing for celebrities for years.
00:04:40.420 There's always been scandals surrounding celebrities.
00:04:43.680 What I'm talking about now is how stars have built entire brands
00:04:47.900 around being relatable.
00:04:51.000 Stars didn't want to be relatable before.
00:04:53.180 They wanted to be an enigma.
00:04:55.040 Today, the stars want to be relatable.
00:04:57.380 And one of the reasons for that is because they want to sell us stuff.
00:05:00.520 They want us to buy their products.
00:05:02.600 So they're creating these relatable personas that are kind, funny, grounded.
00:05:09.360 And then we realize it was just a performance.
00:05:12.600 And then we get so disappointed because then we feel like they fooled us.
00:05:17.920 They lied to us.
00:05:18.880 We follow these people on Instagram.
00:05:20.720 We've shared their posts.
00:05:21.900 We bought their products.
00:05:23.060 And we realize it was all a lie.
00:05:26.060 I used to believe that fame revealed greatness.
00:05:28.420 So for me, coming from Norway, you know, the way I grew up with celebrity,
00:05:33.220 I never saw a celebrity.
00:05:34.760 Obviously, there weren't many Hollywood stars coming to Norway.
00:05:38.340 And I remember I was imagining things going on in Hollywood,
00:05:42.060 that there was like one red carpet, like going through Hollywood,
00:05:45.600 and people just walk up and down that red carpet.
00:05:48.400 I was very young when I thought that's the way things work.
00:05:50.800 But I had this idea of this mystery world where these people were like not really real people even.
00:05:59.200 I just adored Hollywood stars.
00:06:01.120 My mom used to buy these gossip magazines and I would cut out pictures of them
00:06:05.140 and I would hang them on the wall.
00:06:06.400 Sometimes there was a poster attached.
00:06:08.660 I would make, you remember Dynasty, that soap opera?
00:06:11.760 That was the first soap opera that I showed in Norway.
00:06:13.700 And I was obsessed with it.
00:06:15.520 I would cut out all the, I would cut out all the actors in Dynasty
00:06:20.760 and I would put them on a collage on my wall.
00:06:23.500 And then I had memorized how they do their autographs.
00:06:26.820 So I knew how to write Pamela Sue Martin, Linda Evans, Sammy, Sammy Jo.
00:06:34.220 I don't remember her real name now.
00:06:35.860 But I knew all these characters so well.
00:06:38.680 And I knew how to do their autographs.
00:06:40.700 My whole wall was covered with these people.
00:06:44.200 I never imagined in my wildest dreams that I would meet any of these people.
00:06:49.160 Obviously, that was not on my list of what I wanted to do in my life
00:06:52.140 because I thought that they almost didn't exist.
00:06:55.300 And back then, I thought it was kind of exciting that these celebrities weren't like us.
00:07:00.200 You know, I thought it was really cool that they were like divas,
00:07:03.740 that some of them would ask these crazy things.
00:07:06.340 I only want to eat green M&Ms and you have to put them in a bowl for me.
00:07:10.880 Otherwise, I won't perform.
00:07:12.460 There were stories like, of course, people like Maria Carey,
00:07:16.220 who had these outrageous things that she wanted 20 white kittens
00:07:20.000 and 100 white does for a Christmas lighting event,
00:07:24.320 which was denied by organizers.
00:07:27.000 She would only drink champagne of certain straws.
00:07:29.600 She would also bring her own lighting with her to wherever she was going to interviews
00:07:35.140 so she would always have the perfect lighting on her face.
00:07:38.620 I remember Magnus told me he interviewed her, my partner,
00:07:41.980 and he said it was one of the worst experiences ever.
00:07:45.420 He waited for her like four or five hours in a hotel corridor.
00:07:49.840 She got there and she really didn't want to be there.
00:07:52.720 And he asked her, what are you dreaming about right now?
00:07:55.660 And she said, leaving this room, poor Magnus.
00:08:00.660 So he was sitting there waiting for so long to interview her and she just wanted to leave.
00:08:05.060 Anyways, and then you have some people like Jennifer Lopez.
00:08:08.480 She's also known for having all these demands.
00:08:10.420 There was even rumors about her insuring her butt for $27 million,
00:08:14.440 which she claims is not true.
00:08:16.420 I don't know what to believe of these things.
00:08:18.580 Madonna, obviously, she only wanted to bath in Vos water
00:08:22.940 and she wanted a new toilet seat for every venue she went to.
00:08:27.040 Barbara Streisand, who asked people to turn their back when she was passing them in the hallway.
00:08:32.520 And more recently, younger stars like Justin Bieber,
00:08:35.560 who says he had a meltdown because he didn't get the right socks.
00:08:38.880 Yeah, these were stories about celebrities that I just ate them up
00:08:42.100 and I thought it was so, so exotic that some people were like that.
00:08:47.740 I never really questioned it.
00:08:49.860 And I don't know about you guys, if you've questioned these kind of behavior before
00:08:53.780 or you thought like me, like, oh, wow, that's pretty amazing.
00:08:57.440 These people are so famous.
00:08:58.580 They can do whatever they want.
00:09:00.000 And that was kind of cool.
00:09:01.600 But today things are very different.
00:09:03.100 And I think it has to do, again, with social media.
00:09:06.400 I think being famous isn't what it was because so many people can be famous
00:09:11.180 and so many people are famous today.
00:09:13.460 There's so many famous people on social media.
00:09:16.740 I remember in our apartment in West Hollywood,
00:09:18.980 I was walking around with Oscar one evening for an evening walk
00:09:23.200 and I saw this crowd, like huge crowd of people,
00:09:26.820 probably a hundred people following this guy around.
00:09:29.880 I didn't know who he was.
00:09:30.900 And someone was like, oh, he's a famous YouTuber.
00:09:33.120 And I was like, wow, I've never seen people behave like that in front of any celebrity.
00:09:38.880 So these new celebrities are, of course, taking up the space as well.
00:09:43.460 But side note there, someone told me, a photographer who's worked with a lot of big celebrities,
00:09:49.000 and he said the worst celebrities are the social media celebrities.
00:09:53.340 They are much more demanding.
00:09:55.260 My neighbor actually told me this story recently.
00:09:57.580 There was a movie with Julia Roberts and George Clooney premiering.
00:10:02.820 And they had this Instagram influencer that they were representing,
00:10:05.980 and she was going to walk the red carpet.
00:10:08.480 And then she was demanding all these things that she had to have a special car.
00:10:12.420 And she also wanted to walk the red carpet with George Clooney and Julia Roberts.
00:10:16.920 And she was like, oh my God, this is crazy.
00:10:20.380 So yeah, I'm not saying that social media stars are any better behaved
00:10:25.000 than movie stars or rock stars.
00:10:28.500 But there are a lot more celebrities.
00:10:30.720 But because fame is so much more accessible, it's also a lot more replaceable.
00:10:36.100 And that's another reason that I think there are so few new movie stars.
00:10:40.420 And I think Hollywood is to blame.
00:10:42.160 They were pushing all celebrities to be on social media,
00:10:44.940 while at the same time, they were really doing them a disfavor.
00:10:49.860 They wanted to sell their movies through social media,
00:10:53.140 and they wanted the celebrities to have a lot of followers.
00:10:56.280 And they wanted the celebrities to be relatable,
00:10:58.780 because they thought that was a great marketing strategy.
00:11:01.880 And maybe it was for a while.
00:11:03.560 But now that has really backfired.
00:11:06.540 I think most celebrities we know are traveling with these teams of camera people
00:11:11.840 and everyone doing the social media for them.
00:11:14.400 Some are doing it by themselves.
00:11:16.060 And sometimes, like we're seeing right now with, for example, Justin Bieber,
00:11:20.880 who's obviously doing his social media by himself,
00:11:23.940 you can see into his world and how it's falling apart,
00:11:27.440 and we're watching it in real time.
00:11:29.920 And things like that never happened before,
00:11:31.840 because celebrities were so protected.
00:11:34.260 Now they're just like loose cannons.
00:11:36.660 And the PR and marketing machinery around them has kind of lost control.
00:11:41.400 And I think another reason why we're not worshiping celebrities anymore
00:11:43.960 is that we have learned more about how everything works.
00:11:48.700 We know PR manipulation when we see it.
00:11:52.140 And I think a lot of you have seen this now with Blake Lively,
00:11:55.440 how hard her PR people are working around her to try and save her image,
00:12:01.740 while she at the same time is doing the opposite.
00:12:04.640 And they're posting and planning and planting stories about her
00:12:08.540 that puts her in a positive light.
00:12:10.100 And then she goes out and says something stupid or shows off on social media
00:12:14.840 and everyone's probably just like pulling their hair out.
00:12:18.600 I think another reason why celebrities have fallen from grace
00:12:22.560 is that we are not impressed with their fortune
00:12:26.540 and how they're flashing money, how they're showing off,
00:12:30.640 how they travel in private jets, live in their eight-bedroom houses
00:12:35.080 and have drivers and housekeepers, seven cars.
00:12:39.680 These things are kind of gross.
00:12:41.520 And it's not a good way of living.
00:12:43.440 You don't need seven cars.
00:12:44.980 You don't need seven bedrooms when you're two people.
00:12:48.260 And I think people aren't really admiring that kind of lifestyle anymore.
00:12:52.380 It's like, why do you need to have a yacht?
00:12:55.100 Why do you need to have a private jet?
00:12:57.100 Why do you need to pollute?
00:12:58.160 Why do you have a carbon footprint?
00:12:59.720 That's probably a thousand times more than a regular person.
00:13:03.620 And then you brag about it.
00:13:05.260 It's not sexy.
00:13:06.640 I also think a lot of people started being turned off by celebrities
00:13:10.380 when we saw examples on how some of them have been huge frauds.
00:13:17.420 They branded themselves as kind, real, grounded.
00:13:22.460 Often they ended up being the worst people.
00:13:25.300 We have people like Ellen DeGeneres.
00:13:27.500 She was the be-kind queen.
00:13:31.200 And guess what?
00:13:32.100 She wasn't.
00:13:33.420 She was warm, quirky, and kindness was kind of her brand.
00:13:38.520 And then we realized that she was not very kind to people she worked with.
00:13:44.820 And it kind of really blew up.
00:13:47.000 And I think people got so disappointed in her.
00:13:50.360 She was accused of having a toxic workplace.
00:13:52.920 She was accused of bullying.
00:13:54.620 It was really nasty things.
00:13:56.020 And I think people got really heartbroken by that
00:13:58.800 because they have bought her brand for so long.
00:14:01.860 They chose to believe in her.
00:14:04.000 They chose to believe that she was the person she portrayed.
00:14:07.700 But then it was all a big, fat lie.
00:14:11.000 Same with Chrissy Teigen.
00:14:12.440 She was like the queen of Twitter, funny, outspoken, unfiltered.
00:14:17.520 Everyone was kind of like, oh, I love her.
00:14:19.360 She's so quirky.
00:14:20.120 And then, bam, she turned out to be a bully.
00:14:23.960 Her relatability was not genuine.
00:14:27.300 She was a mean person.
00:14:29.900 Same kind of with James Corden, who also, I thought, I was so shocked when I heard that
00:14:35.740 he wasn't a nice person.
00:14:37.580 He was also sold as this warm, cozy, funny.
00:14:41.860 He was kind of like the humble British guy.
00:14:44.460 He was like one of us.
00:14:45.740 But then, voila, he was rude.
00:14:49.060 He was rude to stuff.
00:14:50.740 He was rude in restaurants.
00:14:52.360 People, I remember I was reading stories about him.
00:14:54.740 People were sharing online about how rude he was.
00:14:57.600 And I was like, wow, I would never, ever have guessed that.
00:15:02.800 Then you have someone like Gwyneth Paltrow, who was selling us this wellness guru thing
00:15:07.720 that she was so relatable.
00:15:09.240 She was disciplined, afflifting, she was spiritual, she had all these qualities and very relatable.
00:15:16.640 Not so much, actually.
00:15:17.680 I never thought she was relatable.
00:15:19.600 But then it all seems like this elitist wellness scam.
00:15:23.700 Like all her products that she was selling on Goop were just like super overpriced.
00:15:29.040 And she was selling us a lot of just crap.
00:15:31.840 I think for me, the biggest shock was probably Will Smith.
00:15:34.480 When he walked up and slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars, I thought that was planned.
00:15:38.220 I was watching it live and I was like, wow, that didn't happen.
00:15:41.320 Because Will Smith is one of those people.
00:15:43.380 If you would have asked me a few years ago, who were my like top list of favorite people
00:15:48.380 to interview, Will Smith would be on the top of that list.
00:15:52.340 And Ryan Reynolds would follow very close.
00:15:55.340 He was also super nice to interview.
00:15:57.860 So if someone would have told me today what I know about Ryan Reynolds, I wouldn't believe
00:16:02.440 them.
00:16:02.800 I would be like, no way he's like that.
00:16:05.020 And that's also one of the reasons I was so shocked when Will Smith did what he did.
00:16:10.180 Because I've met him so many times and he's always been the most generous and nice and
00:16:15.760 polite and energetic and positive person.
00:16:19.700 And I was like, wow, who is this man?
00:16:23.180 And I think the more of these celebrities that slip up like this and show us who they really
00:16:27.640 are, we start questioning the other celebrities.
00:16:30.940 Who are these people?
00:16:31.900 Why are they, are they all selling us something fake or are some of them actually nice people?
00:16:38.380 I would say that I've met a lot of nice celebrities too, that I'm hoping are those kind of people
00:16:43.200 in real life.
00:16:44.200 I think when you see celebrities out and about, I've seen some of them in New York and you
00:16:48.820 see them, how they react with regular people.
00:16:51.020 That's when you see who they really are.
00:16:53.940 You know, most people are smart enough to behave nicely in front of a journalist, except
00:16:59.840 like lovely.
00:17:00.980 But I think a lot of celebrities show their real self when they are dealing with people
00:17:06.280 that they see as beneath them, like drivers, waiters, even cleaning personnel.
00:17:12.820 If you're being rude to anyone, I think that says a lot about you, especially if I'm going
00:17:17.600 to a restaurant and I see someone being rude to a waiter.
00:17:20.000 I'm like, I don't like you and I don't want anything to do with you.
00:17:23.640 I know exactly what kind of person you are.
00:17:25.900 I think a problem for celebrities now that are trying, that have slipped up and they're
00:17:30.120 trying to apologize.
00:17:32.000 We don't really buy it.
00:17:34.940 I saw, I remember I saw that video with Will Smith when he was trying to apology, apologize.
00:17:41.420 He, he just came back from India.
00:17:43.240 I think he went there to find himself and he was talking on this video about how he had
00:17:48.860 forgiven himself.
00:17:50.200 And I'm like, no one cares if you forgave yourself.
00:17:54.280 You're not apologizing to yourself.
00:17:56.820 I mean, that to me was just like how your ego is so big that you think that people care
00:18:03.400 if you actually forgave yourself.
00:18:06.480 The people that you should ask for forgiveness to, which he really didn't until after a really
00:18:11.680 long time, I don't remember exactly what happened there, but Chris Rock said he never heard
00:18:16.440 from him.
00:18:17.340 As we all see when we follow the Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds drama, we have seen a couple
00:18:22.720 that everyone thought were someone else.
00:18:26.180 We've seen this loving couple who love to joke around.
00:18:30.380 They sold us like this perfect image of their marriage.
00:18:34.140 They have all these kids.
00:18:35.900 They even have, they even managed to keep the kids out of the public eye, which seems like,
00:18:40.240 oh, they're really protecting their kids.
00:18:42.480 They were both charming and witty and grounded down to earth.
00:18:47.100 And both were like effortlessly cool.
00:18:49.640 Even Blake was like a fashion icon.
00:18:52.300 And they made fun of Hollywood.
00:18:54.100 And they gave us just enough to make us believe that we knew who they were, which we obviously
00:19:00.820 didn't.
00:19:01.820 Now we realize that Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively were just products.
00:19:05.980 They were just a marketing campaign.
00:19:08.400 They're just a brand.
00:19:09.560 Everything is curated.
00:19:11.920 Their soundbites, their magazine spreads, their Instagram posts, everything is curated
00:19:18.500 for us to believe that they are something they're obviously not.
00:19:23.120 That they're a gorgeous, relatable, philanthropic, funny couple who we all should aim to be like.
00:19:30.100 What I have realized is the more educated or intelligent that the celebrity is, the nicer
00:19:36.060 they are, I think some of the people that I have to be rude to people are not very smart.
00:19:41.100 And I think sometimes some celebrities aren't really smart in general.
00:19:45.440 And I think that to me has been kind of a disappointment too.
00:19:48.440 I'm not going to mention names of people that I don't think are very smart.
00:19:51.580 But I can say that some people that I thought would be a lot more interesting turned out
00:19:57.280 to be really boring.
00:19:59.180 Anyways, that's it for me, you guys.
00:20:00.920 Please keep sending me suggestions for what you want me to talk about here at
00:20:04.140 flawsometalk at gmail.com or just put a comment on this video if you're watching on YouTube.
00:20:11.540 And again, thank you so much for all your support.
00:20:13.460 You guys are amazing.
00:20:14.440 And I'll see you in my next episode or I'll see you every day on YouTube.