Insufferable celebs need to stop with their sob stories

Why do Meghan Markle and Adele and other megastars feel the need to show they’re just like the rest of us?

As Zoolander model Derek Zoolander might say, it’s really, really ridiculously hard being a celebrity.

Just ask them, and they’ll tell you at length about their struggles – especially if they’ve got a new book or album to promote.

Rather than being grateful for being rich and famous with great-looking hair, celebrities feel the need to show they’re just like the rest of us.

Crying Hermes bags full of crocodile tears, they document their casting call humiliations, poverty-stricken backgrounds, relationship woes and petty privations.

Meghan Markle recorded an insufferable hour-long interview with Ellen DeGeneres.

There’s singer Billie Eilish talking about how she “lost” her teenage years – the very same years she spent becoming a rich and successful global superstar.

And model Kylie Jenner complaining about how hard it is to read negative things on social media. Poor Kylie! Surely someone who’s worth $700m could pay others to do that? And George Clooney who says the “big house on the hill is isolating”. Poor George. Must be hard being a fabulously wealthy international icon.

All of it is designed to cover up for the fact that the celebs in question live in $20m houses and catch private jets to make guest appearances at climate change summits.

Exhibit A this week in celebrity sob stories is Meghan Markle, or as she likes to call herself, the Duchess of Sussex.

In an insufferable hour-long interview with Ellen DeGeneres, Meghan details how she couldn’t afford to get her car fixed when she was younger. The Ford Explorer was such a lemon that the doors wouldn’t open and she had to crawl in and out through the boot.

Funnily enough, she left out the bit about going to an exclusive private school thanks to her father’s Lotto win.

Adele is singing from the same self-obsessed song sheet. Picture: Supplied/Sony

Meghan also trod some familiar territory during the interview by promoting herself as a global humanitarian hero and champion of everyday working women while sporting a $5000 Oscar de la Renta blouse.

She also left out the bit about causing controversy by cold-calling US senators and name-dropping her title while lobbying them about paid parental leave.

“I will do everything I can to make sure that we can implement that for people,” she told Ellen. Except, presumably, shut up and go away which is the one thing that might help the most.

All of this is designed to endear Meghan to the ordinary Americans. She’s married to a prince but she’s just like them! She, too, sold scrunchies at school! Had to make thanksgiving dinner herself! Had a bad hairstyle when she was growing up and didn’t even realise it!

And – wait for it – her daughter is teething. Can you believe it? First. Baby. Ever.

Singer Adele has been singing from the same self-obsessed song sheet while promoting her new album 30.

The singer, who went to court numerous times to protect the privacy of her son Angelo, includes some audio recordings of their private conversations.

Some of the most intimate moments of his life are served up like cold-cuts on a platter for the emotional nourishment of the record-buying public.

“Tell me you love me,” she says at one point. Angelo replies: “I love you, one million per cent. I feel like you like me too.”

The paragon of privacy when it suits her, Adele details how she didn’t know what she was doing during her divorce and had a lot of “big feelings”.

This cringe-worthy purge is excruciating. How dare she use her son to sell records? To risk his vulnerability to underscore her own feelings? To betray his privacy?

But wait. That’s not all. Then she goes on to diss her son’s father by calling him crazy and lazy and to discuss the other man she associates with the breakdown of her marriage. In interviews she even called herself a single parent even though her son’s father is involved in his life.

But then again, when you’re the most famous, feted star in the world, why should rules of goodness and decency apply?

Adele may be an amazing singer, but she’s a hypocrite when it comes to privacy.

As Zoolander once famously said: “Moisture is the essence of wetness, and wetness is the essence of beauty”.

To this I’d add: And hypocrisy is the essence of celebrity.