Famous People Have Feelings Too
Okay. I get it. She's a celebrity. Oh so willingly in the public eye. She has to know people are going to say things, terrible things. She's probably quite used to this. I imagine you can't survive for a second in that world without growing a relatively thick skin. Fine.
But she is pregnant. She is carrying a little life. And you know what? She seems happy. I know, I know. We never really know what goes on behind closed doors - in real life, in surreal life - but it appears that she is a contented creature. And she is about to become a mom. And I know, from experience, that there is something wildly exciting - and absolutely petrifying - about hovering on that priceless precipice, wondering, willing, waiting.
Has she gained too much weight? Maybe so. I don't know. I don't really care. I don't know what too much weight means. I am not a doctor. Most of us aren't. Most of us are people, human beings, who know very little about most things. Most of us are leading our lives, hour by hour, day by day, doing the best we can. Most of us are not snapped by photographers every time we step out of a car or order a plate of food. Most of us have no idea what that is like.
Look. I know she has oodles of money and leads a quintessentially fabulous life. I know this intrigues many and perhaps angers some. But I also know that she is a human being, a human being carrying another human being, a human being who, despite her riches, feels.
She feels. Like I do. Like you do.
Why do we insist upon being so mean? I say we because we are all, in our own ways, complicit in this cruelty. We might not be the ones writing the articles, but we are reading them. We might not be the one snapping the photographs, but we are the ones looking at them, studying them, smirking, judging, feeling better about ourselves when we spot a flaw. We are all guilty of this.
Reality check. Does Jessica look as hot now as she has in the past? Of course not. If memory serves me, neither did I when I was days away from popping a baby from my body. This just isn't the most flattering time in a woman's life. And maybe Jessica's doctor or Jessica herself wants to whittle her way back to her former self after the baby is born. And when and if she does that, I will say: Good for her. I imagine others might speculate that she has taken some dangerous diet pill, or works out instead of spending time with her child, or that she has developed a grave eating disorder. Oftentimes, it seems that there is no winning for these celebrity creatures.
I hope Jessica welcomes a healthy girl one of these days and is able to tune out the incessant media nonsense. I hope she is able to slip into those magic moments of a new world, a wonderful world I know well and inhabit daily, a world I cherish and curse depending on the time of day, a world that has become my everything.
And if you take a moment and look at the photo above you will see something: She is beautiful. Maybe she has been airbrushed or fiddled with, who knows, who cares. When I look at this picture I see curves, I see creation, I see life. Yes, I also see the commercialization of a very private thing. Would I pose nude for a magazine while substantially pregnant? No, probably not. But who am I to judge, really? Who are any of us to judge?
Good luck, Jessica. Your life is about to change in exquisite and unimaginable ways.
Why do you think the media is so downright mean? Do you think it is really about selling stories or do you think this maybe has more to do with deep-seated insecurities we all feel and flee from? What do you think about celebrity posts on ILI from time to time? Oh, and Happy Easter, all!