Celebrity Contract

Looking at the Tiger Woods scandal from the vantage point of the ordinary citizen, one of the most curious aspects is the way in which a string of women came forward to declare that they had had sex with him. There clearly had been an implicit understanding between Woods and each woman, a bond or even contract that they would not go public with their relationship. So the interesting question is why did they do so and how did that sequence unfold? The string of "admissions" suggests a breakdown in the social code that protects celebrities generally.

There are any number of Hollywood actors and actresses with wholesome reputations who have for decades managed to preserve that impression despite behavior no different than Woods'. Usually the clean image of a celebrity is disturbed by the arrival of the police, as happened with Woods. But why did the local incident become a drawn out spectacle?

Why was there no long drawn out list of women after Hugh Grant got arrested? Surely his backseat tryst with Divine Brown could not have been the first time that he had stepped out on Elizabeth Hurley, yet there was no cluster of women all ready to confess that they too had slept with Hugh Grant. The same code of silence governed Eddie Murphy's reputation after he had been stopped by the police with a prostitute. Having had sex with a star used to mean not talking about it.

The silent agreement breaks down when the normal rules are not followed, such as when Mel Gibson makes anti-Semitic slurs, but if he had been merely slurring his speech nothing would have come of it beyond a DUI.

How many actors, sport stars, musicians have not been busted for drugs? When a celebrity gets arrested for possible drug consumption, it usually involves driving, but there almost never any investigation beyond that one interface with the public. No search warrant to look through the house. No wiretaps on all the other people who were at the party. None of the many possible steps the police could take to find out who was doing what with whom. And beyond the police's discretion, a vast code of silence prevents less known people from stating publically that they slept with, got high with, or did whatever with some famous person.

So what happened in Tiger Woods' case? Why did that code break down? Partially, because Tiger Woods did not provide a Hugh Grant apology the next day on a talk show. He did not cut the scandal off quickly as David Letterman did for himself and has done for other stars. But even beyond Woods' supposed mishandling of his own publicity, there is the striking way in which all those women felt that they had more to gain by telling their stories than by not. This shows something about the further democratization of fame, Andy's fifteen minutes and all, but really there is more, and as a total outsider to the circuit one can only guess what shifted in the discreet arrangement between stars and ordinary people.