We say we want celebrities to be real. But when they stop letting us in, we often accuse them of changing.
That is the strange bargain of modern fame: the qualities that make someone relatable can become the very things audiences feel entitled to. A candid interview, an unfiltered video or a glimpse into a private life can build a career, until that same openness becomes a demand.
For celebrities, the challenge is not simply staying authentic. It is deciding how much of themselves they can afford to give away.
Authenticity can be one of the most powerful currencies at the beginning of a career.
It is the raw, unpolished and relatable filter that turns amateur artists, athletes and other figures into cultural phenomenons. Fans don't just fall in love with their crafts, but with the human beings behind it.
Yet, to survive the overwhelming noise and scrutiny from their fans, many celebrities pull back, build walls or completely alter their public personas that made them famous in the first place.
That gets to the central tension of celebrity culture: is losing authenticity an inevitable cost of fame, or is “fame changed them” simply an easy explanation for someone who has learned to protect themselves?
The illusion of unlimited access
When a public figure achieves fame through unedited intimacy, maintaining that level of vulnerability becomes psychologically dangerous over time.
"Before fame, we usually have some control over who gets access to us," explains Jogini Packery, counselling psychologist and head of campus at SACAP in Johannesburg.
"Once someone becomes a public figure, their personality, opinions, relationships, appearance and even vulnerabilities can become content for public consumption. That creates an interesting psychological paradox: audiences may say, 'We love you because you are so real', while simultaneously expecting continued access to that realness."
Take Emma Chamberlain, who built a digital empire by rejecting glamour, filming from her bed, openly discussing anxiety and eating cereal on the floor.
As those micro-vlogs evolved into high-fashion luxury brand deals, the demand for continuous raw access triggered acute psychological strain, forcing her to step away from her weekly podcast since April.
A similar trajectory exists in South Africa’s pop-culture landscape with celebrities such as Cassper Nyovest, Kanyi Mbau, Rethabile Khumalo, Boity Thulo and Pearl Thusi among others, stepping away from the limelight now and again to focus on their mental health.
In his early career, Nyovest’s appeal was deeply rooted in his grassroots hustler identity, sharing every victory and flaw.
Yet, as commercial success, multi-million-rand endorsements and high-profile public breakups played out under relentless media scrutiny, that transparency inevitably turned into a highly curated image centred on brand protection and business ventures.
The shift to brand
When an individual shifts from a person into a consumable brand, an internal psychological transition happens. The focus moves from simple self-expression to constant self-monitoring.
"The individual is no longer only asking, 'Who am I?' but may begin asking, 'Who does everybody expect me to be?'," says Packery.
"Likes, sales, headlines, sponsorships and audience reactions become powerful external sources of validation.
"There is then a risk of what psychologists describe as self-concept discrepancy, the distance between who I privately experience myself to be, who I present publicly, and who other people expect me to be."
Packery notes that fame magnifies this gap because the public identity carries literal financial value.
"Once an authentic characteristic becomes part of someone's 'brand', changing one's mind, growing older, becoming quieter, or simply having a bad day can suddenly carry commercial and reputational consequences."
The defensive "false self" and boundary setting
From a psychoanalytic perspective, when a famous figure pulls back, it is rarely an act of malice or "fakery".
Instead, it is an essential survival mechanism. As the late British pediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott proposed, individuals under extreme social pressure develop a defensive "false self" to shield their vulnerable "true self" from being entirely commodified or consumed by the public gaze.
Professional athletes and entertainers routinely adopt these protective masks to survive intense media pressure and preserve their commercial viability.
Rather than choosing between total self-exposure and total detachment, celebrities are learning to navigate what the late social psychologist Erving Goffman termed as "Front Stage vs. Back Stage Behaviour".
Packery emphasises that having a public persona is a healthy, protective strategy rather than evidence of being fake.
"A healthy public persona can function as a boundary: 'This is the part of myself that I perform and share, while other parts still belong to me’. Authenticity without boundaries can become exhausting, particularly when every authentic disclosure becomes available for judgement, commentary and commercialisation."
When celebrities step back from the spotlight, society often misinterprets the move.
"Pulling back can represent an important reclaiming of agency: deciding what belongs to the public and what remains personally owned," Packery shares.
"Reduced accessibility should not automatically be interpreted as arrogance or evidence that fame has 'changed' someone. Sometimes what has changed is simply their understanding of how much access they can sustainably give."
Why authenticity hurts when retracted
Why do fans react so fiercely when a beloved public figure becomes guarded?
The answer lies in perceived psychological congruence and parasocial relationships, one-sided emotional bonds where fans feel an intimate connection with a celebrity who has no idea they exist.
"Authenticity creates connection because people respond strongly to perceived psychological congruence, the sense that someone's public behaviour appears consistent with who they genuinely are," says Packery.
"In highly curated celebrity culture, somebody who appears spontaneous, vulnerable or relatable feels refreshingly human. The complication is that authenticity then becomes part of the psychological contract between celebrity and audience. If the person later becomes more guarded, polished or commercial, some followers experience that change almost as relational disappointment."
The counter-argument: Is "changing" just a lame excuse?
There is a compelling counter-narrative arguing that blaming the "cost of fame" is simply a convenient cop-out.
What separates those who lose themselves to status from those who remain grounded?
While there is no single fame-proof personality, protective factors include a stable identity prior to success, firm boundary-setting and an internal locus of control. However, the surrounding environment plays an equally decisive role.
"Imagine being surrounded by people whose livelihoods depend upon keeping you successful," Packery points out.
"Gradually, fewer people may challenge you, ordinary consequences can disappear and praise can become disproportionately available. That environment can reinforce entitlement or distort self-perception, even in someone who previously appeared grounded."
Despite these psychological traps, several cultural figures prove that retaining core authenticity is possible.
In sports, Manchester City striker Erling Haaland operates in one of the most hyper-scrutinised media environments on Earth, yet he consistently refuses the sanitised, PR-trained script.
His blunt, deadpan post-match interviews, idiosyncratic habits and unpretentious demeanour demonstrate that massive global fame does not automatically erode a person's core disposition.
Similarly, South Africa’s global breakout star Tyla provides a masterclass in staying grounded.
Skyrocketing to international stardom off the back of her massive hit, "Water" and winning multiple global awards, she faced immense pressure to adapt to mainstream expectations.
Instead of adopting a sanitised international pop persona, Tyla has maintained her South African accent, unedited humour and distinct cultural roots, proving that rapid global exposure does not have to fracture one's self-concept.
Dolly Parton offers another, timely example of how fame and authenticity can coexist. Her death this week at 80 prompted an extraordinary outpouring of affection from presidents, royalty, fans, fellow artists and public figures around the world.
Parton spent decades at the centre of global celebrity culture while maintaining the qualities audiences came to associate with her: her humour, warmth, distinctive personality and connection to her roots. She built a vast entertainment and business empire, but remained recognisably Dolly.
Her appeal also illustrates an important distinction in the debate over authenticity.
Parton was never completely unguarded.
She understood the value of a public persona and carefully controlled what she shared. Yet that distance did not necessarily make her seem less authentic. If anything, it helped preserve the sense that the Dolly people loved was genuinely her own.
Perhaps that is why so many people felt they knew her without ever truly knowing her.
Rather than choosing between total self-exposure or complete withdrawal, figures like Zendaya and Tom Holland also demonstrate how to walk the fine line by maintaining a warm public presence while strictly protecting their private relationship.
By establishing clear boundaries between their public front and private back stage, they satisfy their audience without selling their intimacy.
Footballer Cristiano Ronaldo navigates a similar path by treating his massive public image as a highly professionalised enterprise, delivering transparency about his athleticism while reserving true emotional vulnerability exclusively for his inner circle.
Ultimately, the strongest protective barrier against the distorting effects of status is an unshakeable inner circle.
"One of the strongest protective factors is having people around you who are not impressed by your fame but remain invested in your humanity," Packery explains.
"People who can disagree with you, remind you of your values and maintain relationships that are not dependent upon your status."
Rethinking the price of fame
Sacrificing authenticity is not a requirement of fame, but maintaining it without boundary-setting is psychologically unsustainable.
When public figures withdraw the intimacy that made them famous, it is rarely a betrayal of their fans; it is a necessary act of self-preservation.
"Perhaps the contradiction of modern celebrity culture is that we reward people for giving us access to their authentic selves and can then punish them when they decide that we have had enough access," Packery concludes.
"From a psychological perspective, sustainable authenticity should not mean unlimited vulnerability. It means being able to live consistently with one's values while retaining the right to decide which parts of oneself remain private."
alyssia.birjalal@nationalmg.co.za