Celebrity Special Treatment

Trolling the news sites for inspiration at the beginning of this brief, I thought I was going to end up writing about nothing in particular as nothing was jumping out at me. Then I saw the press release of Chris Brown's sentencing for his abuse on then-girlfriend Rihanna earlier this year. According to the New Zealand Ministry of Justice, the average person would recieve 6 months to a year in jail, as well as anywhere between 2 and 5 years probation when released, for a assault case such as this, especially taking into consideration the degree of damage he caused to her. Chris Brown received 5 years probation and six months' community labour. The probation is very specific in his case to cover only other instances of assault and also contact with Rihanna, as the average person's probation would prohibit them from traveling overseas for the duration of their sentence. As this would not allow Brown to tour, this and other parts of his probation agreement were stricken. Celebrity or not, you commit a crime, you do the time.

This got me wondering, what have other celebrities been able to get away with due to their status? Of course, firstly there is the highly publicised case of Paris Hilton's probation violation in 2007. Hilton was previously charged with drunk driving, for which she struck a plea bargain out of court. However, she violated the terms of her probation and was sentenced to 45 days in jail. 3 days later, she was released into the custody of her parents. Public outcry over the preferential treatment she had recieved saw her sent back to jail for another 3 weeks, which is still less than half of her original sentence. During her time in jail, she was in separate part of the jail reserved specifically for celebrities, city and state officials, and police officers, was allowed visitors at all hours of the day and night, ate her meals in a different part of the jail than the other inmates and was also allowed outside for her recreation time at different times to the other inmates. This all occured "for Hilton's personal safety".

You would think that after the amount of public outcry about Hilton's special treatment, sentencing would become stricter on anyone, celebrity or otherwise. You would be wrong. Later in the same year, both Nicole Richie and Lindsay Lohan (one-time friends of Paris Hilton) were arrested for drug related offences, Richie in August for driving while under the influence of drugs and Lohan in November for drunken driving and possession of cocaine. Richie spent one hour and 20 minutes of a measly 4-day sentence in jail, while Lohan spent nearly the same time, 84 minutes. Knowing that the average jail sentence for drug offences is anywhere between 1 and 33 months, depending on the drug involved. Possession of cocaine alone should have warranted Lindsay Lohan with at least 3 months behind bars, let alone her drunk driving offence on top of that. The time either of them spent "in jail" has been proven not even long enough to have spent a second behind bars. It would have been just enough time to be fingerprinted, have a mug-shot taken and processed through the system.

Looking at all the drug offence sentencing made me think about the most famous junkie in the modern celebrity world, Amy Winehouse. There weren't many press releases or news items about her past drug offences, but I did manage to come across one article about U.S authorities lifting their ban on her from entering the country after 2 previous 2007 convictions of hers, cannibis possession (which would have any average person facing a lifetime travel ban), and an assault charge (for which an average person would be denied work visas overseas). She was originally faced with the ban and denied work visa, but she was found innocent of the assault charge and was no longer denied work visas and now, two years on, U.S authorities have decided to lift the travel ban so she will be allowed to tour there in 2009. At this point, she had not even proven that she could finish a stint in rehab, let alone would be drug-free during her time in the States.

However, I think the one celebrity treatment situation that made me furious wasn't even the case of an actual celebrity, it was of a celebrity offspring. The case of Nick Bollea, Hulk Hogan's son, and his reckless driving charge. Bollea was imprisoned for 8 months after he drove his Toyota Supra into a tree at an excessive speed, ultimately destroying the car and leaving passenger and supposed "best friend" John Graziano in critical condition, and he will now require extensive, lifelong care due to the injuries sustained during the crash. Bollea, however, was released after just 166 days, with over 2 months of his sentence left. Having had friends injured and also who have died in cases of reckless/drunken driving, this case really hit me. I think initially he deserved a much longer sentence than 8 months, specifically for the harm caused to Graziano, if nothing else. And being released after some 5 months was a definite example of special treatment. This case got me looking into the outcry against special treatment for not only celebrities, but their children and even siblings. A court case involving an unnamed celebrity mother and her child was used by the court to define some rules about the indifference towards celebrity children and their court cases in contrast to any other person. According to Sir Mark Potter (President of the Family Divison of the High Court), "First, private law family cases concerning the children of celebrities are no different in principle from those involving the children of anyone else." As we can see from the case with Nick Bollea, this has not been followed. And if they make these kinds of allowances for children of former wrestling stars, imagine the preference A-list celebrity offspring can and do receive. In reference to New Zealand, there is the ever famous Millie Elder-otherwise known as Paul Holmes' daughter and her P addiction cases that are ongoing even now. She was arrested for various drug crimes in 2007, but partly because of who her father is, she was given benefit of the doubt on the fact that she was off drugs and would stay off them without being sent to jail, but now, two years on, she is faces new drug charges. It is no wonder or surprise that this would be in part to the fact that she was not punished for the crime that she commited.

This research has opened my eyes to the number of celebrities getting special treatment not only for crimes, as mentioned in this blog, but with anything from leaving rehab centres early, to being allowed on planes without a valid passport. frustrates me that celebrities are seen as higher beings to the rest of us, when they are just people like we are. Regardless of how many movies you've made, or albums you've sold, if a person breaks the law, they break the law, and they should be punished equally to everyone else. Punishment is a way of showing people what they did is wrong, and if you recieve special allowances or treatment during these punishments, it's a waste of time to have even bothered.