Enter Pablo Picasso, arguably the most successful and captivating artist the world has seen. His creative gifts have been envied since he began his craft, and if you subtract him from the equation of modern art, a gaping hole exists. Picasso possessed all the power a man could want and more. But he lacked something that 99 percent of us already have: a conscience.
Pablo Picasso was a rapist, an abuser, and a narcissist. His distorted paintings of women reflected the pleasure that he got from hurting them. “He first raped the woman, then he worked,” said one mistress. Another mistress, Dora Maar, was beaten by Picasso and left unconscious on the floor.
Acquaintances of Picasso said that he would “honor” a man by stealing his wife and sleeping with her. “I would rather see a woman die than see her happy with someone else,” said Picasso, “Nobody leaves a man like me.”
It’s hard to comprehend how such a gifted creator could be capable of such evil. But this raises a serious question: does exorbitant fame and wealth induce the sort of sociopathy that Picasso exhibited?
I don’t imagine a 15-year-old Picasso beating women and proclaiming himself a god (no, Kanye West was not the first celebrity to do this). Instead, it was the unparalleled fame and insecurity about his own work that fostered his moral corruption.
One of Picasso’s mistresses hanged herself. His widow shot herself. His eldest child died of alcoholism. He died resentful and unhappy. But of course, these truths are conveniently edited out of his grand narrative.
The inability to grasp this pathology that celebrity culture creates is one of humanity’s greatest impediments. We’ve been so deluded by a system that deifies the famous and ultra-wealthy that we neglect how morally bankrupt they can be.
Enter superstar number two: Steve Jobs.
The Steve Jobs story is a fairy tale. He’s the visionary genius who starts Apple, gets overthrown by his own employees, then makes an epic comeback to turn Apple into the iconic brand we know today. But chances are if you worked at Apple with Jobs, you’d want him gone too. He was a nauseating, egotistical brat.
His biographer, Walter Isaacson, revealed much of what was previously kept from public knowledge.
Jobs was notorious for parking in handicap spaces at Apple’s headquarters. Could he not have paid for a valet, built a personal parking garage, or simply walked?
After one Apple employee pulled an all-nighter finding the type of flowers that Jobs demanded for a press event, all he managed to tell her was that her suit was disgusting (coming from the guy with a closet full of dad jeans and turtlenecks).
In 1984, Jobs said that Mick Jagger was “on drugs…or brain damaged” because he didn’t know who he was.
His egotism even carried over to his deathbed, where he restlessly searched for ways to cure his own cancer with acupuncture sessions, fruit juices, and spiritualists.
Despite these realities, we still regard stardom as some utopian thrilling lifestyle – this irrationality is an epidemic. Do we truly want to inhabit the world of the ultra-famous in which figures like Picasso and Jobs are so disconnected from reality that they view ordinary people as disposable parts? They are literally incapable of having genuine human interaction because their fortunes have numbed them, and if anyone dares to question their power, they are silenced and marginalized. Their highly-publicized charitable donations, philanthropies, and photo ops are screens to obscure what goes on behind closed doors.
To think that money is the only thing separating “us” from “them” is an illusion. What separates those living in reality from those in the celebrity bubble is selfishness and ignorance.
The key to fame, they tell us, is hard work and dedication. No. The key is greed.
Dominic Vaiana studies writing and media strategy at Xavier University. His personal articles, essays, interviews, and book recommendations are sent in his monthly newsletter. For questions or comments, email dominicvaiana@gmail.com.
