11 Celebrities Opened Up About the Hidden Side of Fame, Revealing the Pitfalls of Becoming a Star

Giving autographs, being adored, attending the most fabulous parties, and traveling the world — that’s how we, the common people, imagine what being a star looks like. And let’s not deny it, we’ve all, at least once, secretly dreamed about living our best life like this. However, few of us hardly ever think about the difficulties that life under the spotlight might bring. Some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry were honest enough to discuss the hard parts of living in the public eye.

We at Bright Side wanted to discover what is it like to walk in their shoes, so we bring you their side of the story.

1. Cameron Diaz

The beautiful actress, who seems to have retired from acting, explained in an interview that becoming famous doesn’t equal happiness: ’’There’s sort of epidemic in our society today that everybody thinks that if they become famous, they’re finally going to be happy,’’ Diaz said. She admits that when people come up to her and say, ’’I want to be like you. I want to be famous,’’ she always asks them a simple question: ’’Why?’’

’’I don’t do what I do to be famous. That’s just a part of my job.’’ Diaz continues. She explained that fame does not define her: ’’If you’re looking for fame to define you, then you will never be happy.’’

According to her, true happiness lies in staying true to yourself. You should try to answer the question, ’’Why do you do anything you do?’’ because ’’fulfillment comes from within you, by being authentic to yourself.’’

2. Justin Bieber

Becoming world-famous at a young age can be exhilarating, but also terrifying. The music star says his world was ’’flipped on its head’’ when he became a superstar. Bieber opened up on Instagram: ’’I went from a 13-year-old boy from a small town to being praised left and right all over the world.’’

As he explains, he had tons of money and zero skills for the real world: ’’This is a very scary concept for anyone.’’ Bieber said that by the time he was 20, he’d made pretty much every bad decision one could think of.

At one point in his career, the famous singer admitted that he was not fulfilled despite being famous and having money. ’’It almost completely destroyed me,’’ but he said that it was thanks to the people in his life who love him that he was able to overcome his hardships.

3. Jennifer Lawrence

The Hunger Games star blames her super-successful acting career for the lack of freedom in her life. Lawrence claims she’s not able to freely hang out in public without fans noticing her. The talented actress also said that she has become ’’incredibly rude’’ since she became popular, only to avoid unwanted attention.

’’That’s the only way I have of defending myself,’’ Lawrence explains. She is not happy about the special treatment she gets as a Hollywood A-lister: ’’When people treat you differently, but you don’t feel any differently, it’s kind of alienating. You feel like a zoo animal or something.’’

The actress once said that she will never be okay with the fact that strangers are following her around wherever she goes, and that there’s nothing she can do about it. She recalled an incident when she called the police to complain about strangers sleeping in front of her house, but even they were powerless to help her: ’’It makes no sense," the actress concluded.

4. Leonardo DiCaprio

One of the most famous actors in the world has never really complained about being famous, but he said that that kind of exposure can lead to ’’social anxiety." He explains that being famous is so surreal, that many people, him included, never get used to it: ’’It’s like being in a video game,’’ he says.

On the flip side, he says he would have quit acting if he was truly bothered by the constant attention: “If I wanted to quit acting, I could have done it a long time ago. I love making movies. I feel lucky and fortunate to do it, and it is absolutely worth sacrificing a lot of my private life,” he said.

Leo thinks that being famous is far from being the worst thing possible: “There are people with much harder jobs who sacrifice a lot more of their own lives to do them. I don’t want to hear myself complain about the hardships of being famous because I do have the freedom to stop if I wanted to.”
But judging by his outfit, DiCaprio doesn’t really like to be recognized in public.

5. Megan Fox

To describe how living under the spotlight sometimes feels, Megan Fox uses a very striking comparison: ’’What people don’t realize is that fame, whatever your worst experience in high school, when you were being taunted by those 10 kids in high school — fame is that, but on a global scale.’’

She further revealed that at one point in her career she experienced a ’’psychological breakdown’’ and wanted to do nothing for a while: “I didn’t want to be seen, I didn’t want to have to take a photo, do a magazine, walk a carpet, I didn’t want to be seen in public at all because of the fear, and the belief, and the absolute certainty that I was going to be mocked,” Fox said.

6. Brad Pitt

Although he has always seemed comfortable with his superstar status, the handsome actor admitted that in the early days of his Hollywood career, it was not easy for him to deal with his new lifestyle: “In the ’90s, all that attention really threw me,” Pitt said. “It was really uncomfortable for me, the cacophony of expectations and judgments. I really became a bit of a hermit.”

He continued isolating himself until he realized he was only ’’imprisoning’’ himself: ’’Now I go out and live life, and generally, people are pretty cool,’’ he said. Pitt once famously described the uneasy feeling of constantly being in the limelight by saying that: ’’Fame makes you feel permanently like a girl walking past construction workers.’’

7. Lady Gaga

Although she looks like she’s enjoying every second of being a superstar, there are some side effects of being famous that Lady Gaga can’t stand. For example, ’’spending days just shaking people’s hands, smiling, and taking selfies,’’ feels ’’shallow’’ to her.

Gaga believes she has much more to offer: ’’I feel sad when I only become a money-making machine,’’ she adds. But over time, she learned the importance of saying ’’no’’ in order to stay true to herself.

She started declining invitations and missing out on some of the events and projects she believed were not worth her time: ’’Slowly but surely, I remembered who I am,’’ Gaga said and continued: ’’And then you go home, and you look in the mirror, and you’re like, ’yes! I can go to bed with you every night. Because I know that person.’’’

8. Matt Damon

What’s strange about fame, Damon says, is that, ’’Intellectually, you know that the world is the same as it was yesterday. Except, your subjective reality is altered forever because everybody treats you differently.’’ So, it’s a confusing situation where the world remains the same, but your life changes completely.

It’s something many people are unprepared for, he says, and they have to find a way to deal with it: ’’Everybody deals with it with whatever tools they have." For him, his family and his work helped him stay grounded. Following his role in Good Will Hunting, which launched him into stardom, it took Matt a couple of years to ’’get back on his feet." ’’My work really saved me because I was able to still be an actor,’’ he said.

9. Ethan Hawke

For this famous actor, the worst part of being a star is feeling isolated: ’’The second you become famous, you’re kind of in a weird isolation.’’ Hawke also said that the reason why celebrities often marry other celebrities is that they’re in “isolation together.”

Hawke added that it’s hard to break the image that people already have about you after seeing you on the big screen, and that he was often trying to make a different impression and show his real self. It makes him sad when all people want is a selfie, not an open and honest chat, and that he has often tried to break this ’’glass wall’’ that surrounds most celebrities.

10. Daniel Radcliffe

When someone becomes as famous as Harry Potter star, Daniel Radcliffe, it’s difficult to remain grounded and protect your privacy. What’s more, every mistake is 100 times more visible when you are in the spotlight, which can make people nervous and scared.

It’s especially hard for child actors. Radcliffe stated that he was lucky enough to have supportive parents who helped him a lot when he struggled with fame as a kid: “They gave me enough perspective on my life and helped me at key moments.”

They also taught him how to ’’laugh off bizarre situations that come with fame,’’ he says. Daniel admits that he loves making movies and being on set, and that’s the only reason why he’s still in the entertainment industry. And fame is only a by-product of his job.

“When I hear people say that they want to be famous, I’m like, anonymity is a really cool thing. Like, it allows you to do a lot and make mistakes and then not feel like all very, very high stakes all the time,” he added.

11. Cardi B

American rapper, Cardi B, whose career started on Instagram and Vine, confessed that becoming world-famous made her feel like a ’’prisoner’’ and that constant scrutiny feels like “constantly being in the principal’s office.” She stated that she’s ’’tired’’ of fame because she can’t be herself anymore.

Cardi B admitted that if she could turn back time, she would go back to 2013 when she was just an anonymous dancer who was making good money. ’’That is where I want to be. That’s when I was me,’’ the music star confessed.

If you were a star, what aspect of being famous would be the most challenging for you to handle?