Guilty as charged! That is, of following every single detail of the trials and fates that befall the rich and famous.
We trace our favorite A-lister’s every move, whether it’s their new brand deal, latest movie, “candid” selfie or even what they’re having for breakfast. But when a star heads to court, it captures the public’s fascination in unprecedented ways.
Don’t believe Us? Take the 503,000 results that appear when you Google “Gwyneth Paltrow ski trial” as proof. (See also: Kim Kardashian’s, Diddy’s and A$AP Rocky’s respective trials made up some of our top-performing stories online.)
But what is it about celebs appearing before the law that drives our rabid, voyeuristic obsession?
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“Celebrity trials offer a rare, unscripted look into the lives of people who usually exist behind a polished media persona,” Joe Tacopina, a defense attorney who has represented celeb clients like Michael Jackson and A$AP Rocky, told Us Weekly. “Courtrooms are great equalizers — status, fame and wealth don’t exempt anyone from due process.”
Paltrow had her day in court in 2023, when she was sued for an alleged ski hit-and-run that occurred on a Utah mountain in 2016. Absent a plea deal, no amount of privilege, money, publicists or clout could get the actress out of appearing in what essentially became a meme-ified trial (and a literal musical). According to experts, that’s a huge part of the appeal.
“Seeing a star in a courtroom instead of a luxury car instantly levels the playing field,” Evan Nierman, founder and CEO of global PR firm Red Banyan, told Us. “It’s one of the few places where they can’t rely on filters, publicists or curated feeds, and that vulnerability makes them feel strangely relatable. Even the biggest names start to look like regular people dealing with real-world problems when they’re sweating it out.”
It’s the ultimate example of “Stars, They’re Just Like Us!”
But let’s not forget: These celebs do differ from everyday folk in that they often have the resources to pay for the best lawyers in the game. (Paltrow won her case, after all, as well as a countersuit, for which she was awarded attorneys fees plus $1.) Kardashian proved that point a millionfold (literally) when she wore a $1.5 million diamond necklace to testify about her 2016 Paris robbery on May 13, making a statement of strength — and extravagance — with her fashion.
In some cases, it’s more the spectacle than the relatability that has the public devouring every detail of what went down in that courtroom. Which brings Us to another interesting element to the madness: While the Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard defamation trial (and countersuit) of 2022 kept folks enraptured with a daily live stream in the courtroom, cases like Kardashian’s and Sean “Diddy” Combs’ ongoing sex trafficking trial are not televised, with restrictions against what recording devices are allowed in the courtroom.
“If anything, keeping Diddy’s case quiet has only made people more curious,” Nierman said. “The less they hear, the more they speculate, and that creates a breeding ground for conspiracy theories and clickbait.”
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Tacopina added that the public’s absorption in A$AP Rocky’s gun assault trial did add pressure to his job on the defense team.
“We had to manage not only legal challenges but also a narrative being shaped [simultaneously] across headlines and social media,” he told Us. “It creates a parallel courtroom — one of public opinion. But at the end of the day, the only people that matter to me are the 12 jurors in the box.” (A$AP, a.k.a. Rakim Mayers, was acquitted.)
A case like Diddy’s — in which each lurid detail that comes out is seemingly worse than the last — also unites the public in creating a villain: “Watching A-listers forced to face the music is like getting a backstage pass to their downfall, and people love it because it feels like a peek behind the velvet rope of fame,” Nierman said.
At the end of the day, the most important thing about these celebrity trials is this: We aren’t the ones at risk of losing it all. So while following along gives us an oddly sterile — and sometimes theatrical — reality show playing out in real-time, we don’t have to worry about facing any of the consequences themselves.
As Nierman says, “It’s messy, it’s dramatic and most importantly, it’s not happening to us.”
