Susie O’Brien: Hypocritical rich and famous need to keep advice to themselves
While the rest of us are sweating on the arrival of the next bill and serving up mince for dinner again, the hypocritical royals are jetting around the world, breaking their own rules and offering us advice on how to do things better, writes Susie O’Brien.
Susie O'Brien
Don't miss out on the headlines from Susie O'Brien. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Cosmopolitan magazine once took a stand against the objectification of women, then objectified men by celebrating 36 “Summer Olympic bulges”.
These “peens that deserve gold” were swimmers wearing budgie smugglers, but it didn’t stop the mag’s editor from being called a hypocrite.
No one likes hypocrites — especially rich and famous ones.
While the rest of us are sweating on the arrival of the next phone bill and serving up mince for dinner again, A-listers are jetting around the world breaking their own rules and offering us advice on how to do things better.
You know, like Jane Fonda, who raves about how she’s “living proof that it’s possible to age gracefully” but has had so much plastic surgery that blowing out birthday candles would melt her face.
The same goes for Cate Blanchett, who lectured us about the benefits of the carbon tax that would hit low-income earners, while living in a $20 million Sydney mansion.
The maxim seems to be: do what I say, not do what I do.
Now, can you please all stand while we introduce the latest celebrity hypocrites: Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
On their new Insta account @sussexroyal, the couple are picking a worthy cause to champion every month to their 8.8 million followers.
There’s nothing useful like how to fit into skinny jeans three weeks after giving birth, or choosing baby names that aren’t popular with dogs.
No, they’re pushing much more worthy topics like mental health and gay pride. This month they’ve discovered the environment and climate change and they’re beginning to lose me.
Their latest post calls for more to be done to reduce fossil fuel emissions and plastics. They speak of the “ticking clock to protect our planet” and urge: “Let’s save it. Let’s do our part.
“With nearly 7.7 billion people inhabiting this Earth, every choice, every footprint, every action makes a difference,” they write.
The post doesn’t mention that the Royal Household’s travel emissions have risen 98 per cent since 2018 due to a rise in the use of “chartered large fixed-wing aircraft for foreign business travel”.
There’s also the inconvenient fact that Meghan used Amal Clooney’s private jet when she went to New York for her baby shower.
Meghan and Harry have travelled to countries such as Morocco, Dublin, Australia and New Zealand, mostly on chartered flights. You won’t see them in the cheap seats on Jetstar, trying to decide whether to splurge on an in-flight toasted sandwich.
Private or chartered jets are one of the most fuel-hungry ways to get around.
And yet this doesn’t stop jetsetters from preaching to the rest of us.
The same criticism has been levelled at some of Hollywood’s biggest stars like green activist Harrison Ford, who once said he would “often fly up the coast for a cheeseburger” in one of his seven private planes.
There’s also Leonardo DiCaprio, who has a well-established environmental charity but once flew 12,000km to pick up an award for his green activism. He started one of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s pet green organisations “working towards positive change”.
Well, what are they doing to stop DiCaprio from making truly awful movies or dating women half his age? That’s the positive change I want to see.
MORE NEWS: ‘INCLUSIVE’ POLE-DANCING STUDIO’S MAN BAN
These celebrity saviours are missing the point. Most of us have environmental concerns that are much more mundane.
Help me sort my recycling. Tell me once and for all about those milk bottle lids. In or out?
How do I get my teenagers to take shorter showers and use less ozone-depleting Lynx Africa body spray?
How do I convince my partner we don’t need an energy guzzling second fridge to house his collection of Richmond commemorative beer cans which he vows to never ever drink?
Where’s the clicktivism hashtag for that? Where are the celebs standing up for these causes?
From now on I am going to ignore all these famous ecowarriors.
Unless they’re smuggling real budgies in their trunks to help get them airborne, I won’t listen to a word they say.
— Susie O’Brien is a Herald Sun columnist
AFL locker room lechery reveals lack of respect
The sight of Richmond ruckman Mabior Chol being groped by his teammates was schoolboy locker room lechery. It was also pathetic, weird and we deserve better from our AFL players, writes Susie O’Brien.
Box office classics fail to capture iPhone generation
Movie night seems like the perfect way to get ourselves through stage four. But trying to introduce the iPhone generation to much-loved classics from the ‘80s has been a massive flop, writes Susie O’Brien.