Celebrities often try to seem relatable, but occasionally, they say something that makes you go, “Wait a minute…you and I have had entirely different experiences.”
Here are 19 celebrities who were literally the opposite of relatable.
1.
In an interview with Vogue, Bella Hadid — whose mother is Dutch model and reality star Yolanda Hadid — spoke about her early career. Getting a little choked up, she talked about not getting her first Louboutins until she graduated high school.
2.
Speaking as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees at the Cannes Film Festival, Cate Blanchett claimed to be “middle class.” Speaking about refugee stories and her own privilege, Blanchett said, “I’m White. I’m privileged. I’m middle class. And I think, you know, one can be accused of having a bit of a White savior complex. But to be perfectly honest, my interaction with refugees in the … field and also in resettled environments has totally changed my perspective on the world.” Blanchett is reportedly worth $95 million.
3.
In 2009, Natalie Portman proved how differently the rich and famous experience recessions by calling the recession an “exciting time.” Her full quote reads, “I think it’s kind of an exciting time. I mean, everyone is cutting back. It’s happening in every industry — including our own. All of a sudden, people are doing jobs that they hate, and they’re not making as much money as they thought they would, or they’ve lost their jobs entirely. I’ve started to see people looking more toward their own passions and what really excites them.”
4.
The pandemic was full of similar moments, since the rich and famous had entirely different experiences than the average person. For example, Ellen Degeneres angered fans when she compared lockdown (which she spent in her mansion) to jail.
5.
Madonna also filmed a COVID message that was seen as extremely out of touch. In the video, she lay in a bathtub of roses, and called COVID “the great equalizer.”
6.
During lockdown, Taylor Swift recorded a message to the class of 2020, who were missing out on an in-person graduation. In the video, she compared her experience of missing graduation due to breakout career success to the students missing graduation due to a worldwide pandemic.
7.
Chrissy Teigen angered people online when she tweeted during the pandemic, “this is not an ad but if you are holed up at home, ordering america’s best food from Goldbelly is the way to go right now! currently shipping clam chowder from Boston to myself.” In a second tweet, she wrote, “if you’ve ever eaten somewhere and dreamed of having that certain bite again, chances are they have it available for delivery to your mouth and it’s so fun to scroll through.” Many felt the tweet was insensitive in light of how many restaurants had been forced to close due to COVID and also out of touch, considering people couldn’t really afford to have regional dishes shipped from states away at a time when many were unemployed.
8.
No stranger to controversy, she also faced backlash after tweeting that her mom treats AirPods (which range from $129-$149) as “disposable” and buys multiple pairs a month. After people pointed out that the idea of treating such a luxury item as disposable was out of touch, Teigen apologized, tweeting, “Oh man I haven’t checked my mentions for a bit and I didn’t realize how many people were super pissed off about this. It was meant as a joke (and exaggeration) about how my mom doesn’t realize air pods are with a cord are headphones but it came across as super tone deaf and icky.” In a follow-up tweet, she wrote, “I promise I will not always say the right thing in the right way but I also promise I hate disappointing or pissing you guys off. I’m sorry and I will do better to not be such an asshole.”
9.
One more COVID one — Justin Timberlake once said that 24-hour parenting during lockdown was “not human.” Speaking about the constant time around his children, Timberlake said, “We’re mostly commiserating over the fact that just 24-hour parenting is just not human.” He has one child.
10.
This is not lockdown-related, but Megan Markle was similarly accused of being out of touch when she said on Ellen that having one child is like a “hobby” but that having two is “parenting.”
11.
One common misconception celebrities seem to believe is that they work harder than everyone else and thus deserve their immense wealth and influence more than the average person — without any idea of how hard people in poverty struggling to make ends meet actually work. For example, Ariana Grande faced backlash after posting a photo of herself on Instagram that she captioned, “When you’re cute but you’re also the hardest working 23 year old human being on earth #cute #butalso #CEO #haventsleptinyears.” She deleted the post after people online pointed out that those struggling to provide for their families in minimum-wage jobs were probably working harder.
12.
Similarly, Justin Bieber said during the pandemic, “How blessed are we to be able to like…a lot of people obviously in this time have a crappy situation. You know, they look at us and obviously, we’ve worked hard for where we’re at, so it’s like, you can’t feel bad for the things we have.”
13.
And obviously, we have to mention Kim Kardashian giving advice to women in business, telling them to “get your fucking ass up and work.” The moment quickly became a meme, and Kardashian had to clarify that “it wasn’t a blanket statement towards women” and “I’m really sorry if it was received that way,” saying the quote had been taken out of context.
14.
Celebrities also often fail to recognize their privilege in being born to famous parents (aka, being a “nepo baby”), instead believing that they are famous entirely on their own merits. In an interview with Elle, Lily Rose-Depp spoke about the label “nepo baby,” saying, “Nothing is going to get you the part except for being right for the part. The internet cares a lot more about who your family is than the people who are casting you in things. Maybe you get your foot in the door, but you still just have your foot in the door. There’s a lot of work that comes after that.”
“It’s weird to me to reduce somebody to the idea that they’re only there because it’s a generational thing. It just doesn’t make any sense. If somebody’s mom or dad is a doctor, and then the kid becomes a doctor, you’re not going to be like, ‘Well, you’re only a doctor because your parent is a doctor.’ It’s like, ‘No, I went to medical school and trained.'” She then said she wasn’t comparing her work to medical work but that she often hears the term about women and not men and doesn’t think that’s a coincidence.
15.
Kendall Jenner has been similarly accused of being out of touch regarding her modeling career. In an interview with Love magazine, she said, “Since the beginning, we’ve been super selective about what shows I would do. I was never one of those girls who would do like 30 shows a season or whatever the f–k those girls do. More power to ’em. But I had a million jobs, not only catwalks but everything else.” Jenner had been the highest-paid model in the world the prior year and had been modeling since she was a teenager, after growing up in fame on Keeping Up With the Kardashians.
16.
And instead of recognizing the opportunities afforded to her through finding fame at a young age, she stated it was more difficult because of her start as a “reality star.” She told Andy Cohen, “Of course, I had a platform, and I never took that for granted. I always knew that that was there, but that almost made my job a little bit harder. Only because people probably didn’t want to hire me because I was on a reality TV show.” This is despite her own other, Kris Jenner, saying, “I’ve spent the last two days calling everyone I know making sure I can set Kendall up with the best modeling agency possible” on their reality show, just before Kendall signed with Wilhelmina Models at age 13.
17.
In the same interview, when Andy Cohen asked what she’d do if she weren’t a model, she said she’d be an Olympic horseback rider as if this were also an achievable, reasonable goal. (And likely, with her resources growing up, it would have been.)
18.
One last Kendall one: when she quickly became a meme after struggling to cut cucumbers on Keeping Up With The Kardashians.
19.
And finally, we’ll end on one of the most egregious: Grimes once claimed that billionaire Elon Musk “lives at times below the poverty line. To the point where I was like, can we not live in a very insecure $40,000 house? Where the neighbors, like, film us, and there’s no security, and I’m eating peanut butter for eight days in a row?” The interviewer notes that she lives in a “nice house” that is “no Versailles” (though it’s a house with a pool in Austin with a view of the Colorado River).
What’s the most out-of-touch or unrelatable thing a celebrity has ever said, in your opinion? Let us know in the comments!