Lucy Carne: We need narcissistic plonker celebs to help us feel better about our mundane lives

Thank goodness for self-indulgent stars like Orlando Bloom and his “brain octane oil” to make us feel better about our own mundane lives, writes Lucy Carne.

Cast your mind back to a year ago when the first lockdown began.

We hoarded toilet paper, binged Tiger King and naively assumed COVID would be over by Christmas.

It was also this time last year that Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot subjected the world to her toe-curling rendition of Imagine.

Imagine if we never had to hear Gal Gadot singing Imagine. Picture: You Tube

All us plebs stuck at home were meant to be so grateful that Gadot – and 25 of her Hollywood pals including Kristen Wiig, Amy Adams, and Will Ferrell – had graced us with their vocal butchering of John Lennon’s Imagine from the comfort of their luxury holiday homes.

There’s nothing like multi-millionaires telling us to imagine there’s no heaven and no possessions when people were dying and losing their jobs.

Then came Madonna in a bath telling us that the pandemic was “the great equaliser” and Ellen DeGeneres likening self-quarantine in her $45.7 million LA compound as “being in jail”.

And then of course we had a 39-year-old Duchess compare herself non-ironically to the Little Mermaid and her 36-year-old husband whinge because his dad cut off his pocket money.

Madonna schooling us on the pandemic from her bath. Picture: Instagram

The damage celebrities unleashed on their own value seemed irreparable.

It took a pandemic to prove that overpaid, under-educated narcissists were useless to society.

Who needs the elite rubbing our faces in their privilege anymore, the common masses (myself included) railed.

But I realise I was wrong. For now, more than ever before, we really do need inane celebrities.

The health of our society rests on the shoulders of a vaccinated community, dedicated front line workers and the ability to laugh at Hollywood elite sharing their outrageous daily routines.

Because with everything going on at the moment, what else do we have if we can’t guffaw at the tone-deaf self-indulgence of a “90 per cent plant-based” Buddhist who was once nominated for an Oscar?

Please, don’t shame celebs into silence. And please don’t like them become normal.

The last thing we need is to read about how a celeb had reheated spag bol for dinner and wiped kids’ urine from the toilet bowl.

In the war, Vera Lynn united with her song of hope. Today we have Orlando Bloom, uniting us in mockery.

The Hollywood actor and partner of singer Katy Perry has been globally lampooned for an interview with The Sunday Times last week in which he outlined his daily routine.

All I can say after laughing my way through the article is thank god celebrities are not like us. And boy, has Bloom delivered.

If Gwyneth “vagina candle” Paltrow and Pete “activated almonds” Evans co-created a lifestyle, this would be it.

Orlando Bloom, with his partner singer Katy Perry, has been mercilessly mocked for sharing his daily routine. Picture: Phillip Faraone/Getty Images

Bloom starts his day with some Buddhist chanting which he then posts on Instagram.

“I have a smart ring sleep tracker and the first thing I do is look at the app to see if I’ve had a good sleep and check my readiness for the day,” he says.

He then does some “eye-gazing” with his baby daughter (we don’t hear from her again until bedtime) before he has “some green powders that I mix with brain octane oil, a collagen powder for my hair and nails, and some protein”.

I don’t need a sleep tracker, as I don’t sleep. Last week I was vomited on twice through the night by a sick child and endured a pre-dawn mini Michael Flatley slipping into bed to river-dance on my spleen.

At 5am I’m woken by a small dictator demanding Bluey on the TV.

For breakfast I eat a lot of coffee. Followed by more coffee.

I focus on providing my children with environmentally-friendly, wrapper-free lunch box fillings (as suggested by school and childcare), which basically means I remove the muesli bar wrappers at home and put them in my own bin, rather than kindy’s bin.

Meanwhile, Bloom explains that he “only eats a really good piece of red meat maybe once a month”and tells us: “I sometimes look at a cow and think, that’s the most beautiful thing ever”.

Orlando Bloom managed to find a window in his daily routine to present at the 26th Annual Critics Choice Awards on March 7. Picture: Getty Images/Getty Images for the Critics Choice Association

It’s a statement so profound it deserves to become an inspirational poster alongside Prince Harry’s “What if every single one of us was a raindrop?”

The rest of Bloom’s day then involves hiking, weights and some form of ‘work’ for Amazon.

“I spend a lot of my time dreaming about roles for myself and others — for minorities and women. I’m trying to be a voice for everybody,” he explains.

Back in suburban reality, I spend the day with the sweaty body of a feverish four year old battling RSV stuck on top of me.

I too try to “be a voice for everybody” by breaking up a fight over Lego

Another seemingly healthy small child soon coughs a mouthful of droplets in my face.

For a self care break, I clean the guinea pigs’ cage.

In the evening I watch five minutes of Q&A and switch to hours of mind numbing Bravo’s Summer House while folding never-ending piles of laundry.

At midnight I think about mopping the floors and instead go to bed.

And as I fall asleep, I take Gadot’s advice and imagine. I imagine a life of brain octane oil and eye gazing like Bloom’s.

And you know what? I’ll pass, thanks.

And for that, I am forever grateful for celebs and their weirdness to affirm that our treadmill of mundanity isn’t actually all that bad.