The Companion 010: Celebrities aren’t our friends
Having recently interviewed Stormzy and many others in the public eye, I've had to remind myself of this fact. Plus, an interview with Elizabeth Day.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve done a lot of profile interviews — most of which with celebrities.
They have ranged in intensity and subject matter, traversing the planes of the music, academia and football industries. Some of them were with self-professed ‘talkers’, like Stormzy, others were with introverts, more hesitant to share. Viv Anderson, England’s first Black football player, was wary of the press, having been burnt by the tabloids in the past. But, despite their many differences, with all of them, I had to suppress a very particular spark of yearning and remind myself that even if we had a pleasant conversation, they were not my friends nor were likely to become so.
With this in mind, it was very clarifying to read Elizabeth Day’s book, Friendaholic, a few months ago. This book, which traces the author’s experiences of friendship and her realisation, in short, that she has too many friendships than she is able to thoughtfully carry, really spoke to the part of myself that I know can lean into people-pleasing to the detriment of my own well-being. Since I've read it, I've felt more secure in the idea of letting some relationships naturally fade, and not overpromising myself to people who I don't have the time or space to care for in the way that I know my friendships need to be nurtured.
Perhaps one of the reasons why I felt drawn to the book is that, as journalists, our careers are different but not dissimilar; I’ve had perhaps more muted versions of some of the experiences she describes (Day is, of course, white and middle class and this colours a lot of her interactions). In particular, in relation to this question of celebrities and friendship, her words helped to remind me that even if we as journalists have long, deep, moving conversations with our subjects, they must remain as such: subjects in a professional interaction.
“Although, in my early journalism days, I nurtured a misguided need for everyone to like me, I realised pretty swiftly that most individuals I met were not going to be my friends, no matter how hard I tried. If I was sent to interview a celebrity and got on with them, the chances of striking up any kind of friendship in the outside world were minimal. The celebrity in question would often have far healthier boundaries than I did and they also had a team of publicists and managers and make-up artists who would be impossible to penetrate. Plus, they had media training, which meant they were equipped to be professionally charming without giving themselves away.” — Elizabeth Day, Friendaholic
I was also reminded of this in the past few weeks when reading about the allegations that Lizzo mistreated and sexually harassed her dancers, and the reams of celebrities who have come to the defence of Tory Lanez, a rapper who has been sentenced to ten years in prison for the shooting Megan Thee Stallion. As Iggy Azaelia demonstrated (the musician claimed that she didn’t ‘support’ Lanez until a letter revealed that she plainly had done so), people in the public eye lie and scheme and do unexpected things, sometimes because they have to, sometimes because they’re bad people, and sometimes simply because we don’t actually know them, nor understand their motivations.
This is why I really struggle to understand people who ‘stan’ certain celebrities, bands, and so on. We are not their friends, and we shouldn’t presume to lay claim to any profound knowledge of their character. As journalists, we have slightly more close contact with celebrities and are often tasked with the unnerving responsibility of finding the truth or the cracks in their façades. It benefits people to be nice to us (though you’d be surprised at the number who don’t give a shit), making it all the more important for us to do our due diligence and pay attention to the other interactions they have in our presence. And making it all the more difficult to distinguish friendliness from attempts at friendship.
But, it is freeing to remember that you can have a nice interaction with someone that doesn’t need to turn into anything more.
Elizabeth Day: ‘I appreciate your magic, but I don't want it’
Back to Friendaholic. Day’s book very much deserves a whole newsletter dedicated to it. I found it profoundly enlightening. Here, we chat about the realities of writing honestly about your friendships, self-acceptance and why Graham Norton is the best celebrity she’s met at setting boundaries.
What would be your advice to anyone who's cast into the public eye in terms of protecting themselves from insincere attempts at friendship?
Elizabeth: I'm addicted to connection. I love that instant feeling that you've got so much to talk to a person about. I never want to lose that in my life. There's still capacity for me to have that and I still experience it. My advice for anyone who does find themselves in the public eye, or who is famous overnight, is that it's okay still to have that buzz of initial connection. But you shouldn't feel that simply by being friendly to someone, you are duty-bound to be their friend. You can take a bit of time to get to know each other, in the same way that you would with a romantic relationship. You can have that instant buzz of chemistry, but then you go through the dating process — you have conversations and you talk about shared goals. You can do that for friendship, too. I've learned not to allow the adrenaline buzz to cloud my judgment.
There are a few people that I've witnessed be so good at that. Graham Norton is one of them. I have met him a couple of times now, I really liked him. He is exceptional at being friendly and lovely. But also having a completely appropriate boundary in place that doesn't feel clinical or restrictive. I think that's a kind of magic, and I'm not sure I totally have it yet. A couple of weeks ago sat next to one of my heroes, Elizabeth Gilbert (the journalist and author of Eat, Pray, Love), at dinner. I'd never met her before. Obviously, I go into that situation being like, we are destined to be really good friends, we've even got the same first name. I actually asked her the question that you just asked me. She said, ‘I was taught this by an energy healer, who said to me when you're talking to someone, you can be completely engaged and connected. But in your head, you should say, I appreciate your magic, but I don't want it.’ I was like, ‘Are you doing that now?’ She said, ‘Yeah.’
Having started this newsletter and writing my Stylist column, one of the things that came up for me in reading your book was an awkward question: am I just doing all this because I think it will make me a ‘good’ friend?
Did you deal with any similar revelations about your approach to friendship while writing?
Friendship is such a peculiar and beautiful intimacy. And yet, as I say, in the book, there just hasn't been enough dedicated study, to give it a language all of its own, to be able to express the unique complexity of it. And so sometimes, when I was writing about it, it felt like, am I allowed to do this?
I worried about the friendships that are no longer an active part of my life. I knew that if I wanted to write an encompassing book about friendship, that told the truth about what it was, I also had to tell the truth about friendships of mine that have ended (for now anyway). Although I did an enormous amount of anonymisation, I know that the emotional truth is there. I worried about the impact that might have on them. I hope that I have written about them with a lot of love, because I still do feel a lot of love and respect, even if a friendship has ended.
And then the other account in which I worried was, as you say, am I a good enough friend? Even that language is so moralising. Its tone, ‘good’ or ‘bad’ friend. The conclusion I came to is that I'm not always good, but I do strive to be a true friend. I realised, again, I had to tell the truth about myself and my own weaknesses as a friend. One of the areas that I definitely historically have really let myself down in is cowardice and conflict avoidance, which at times has meant that I haven't told the truth to a friend. The path of least resistance has been slowly dropping out of their lives. And that's something that through this act of examination, I don't think I will ever do, again, because I've taken the time to understand where that comes from, but also the impact it can have on the other party.
You interview many of your close friends in the book. Did you consider interviewing any former friends?
I refer you to my previous answer about being extremely conflict-avoidant. In the fullness of time, I love that idea. One of the key conclusions that I landed on was that friendships don't always have to be lifelong. A friendship isn't a failure simply because it ends. And sometimes friendships can come back to you later in life in a different form. It's difficult with something as acute, loving, compassionate and lasting as friendship, not to turn the failure inward and believe that you have failed as a person and as a friend. And perhaps you have, but the failure is not yours alone.
Were there any times having those conversations with your friends, where you felt a bit scared or defensive about what they were going to say about you or about your relationship?
Definitely with Sharmaine, it was talking about race. I really, really hated the thought that I might have let her down. I was nervous about that. But that was a really wonderful conversation. Probably the same thing with Clemmie, my friend who went through a life-altering brain haemorrhage. There was a sense there that I hadn't been a good enough friend. She says something so profoundly beautiful about the nature of empathy and about how it's not having to have gone through exactly the same experience. It's about making the effort to try to imagine it. That's enough. That was very helpful.
You’re often quite self-depreciatory in the book. Was there a sense of acceptance by the end of the project that there are really nice things about you which is why people want to be your friend?
I didn't want to be smug in the book. I didn't want it to come across as like, I've got too many friends. Poor me. And I knew that that was something that I really needed to be super aware of and stave off at the first pass because it wasn't about that. Yes, it's got a splashy title. But it's about more than that. So yes, I definitely accept myself more.
Do you feel a sense of responsibility for making the world a better place? And do you think that can be achieved through our friendships?
I got to interview Greta Thunberg and I was really nervous about it. I read a lot of her work and watched documentaries about her and I was like, she is going to hate me. Because I belong to the generation that ruined the planet. But she was so lovely. It's one of my favourite interviews because she is obviously super smart, and an incredible activist. But she's also very kind, and her whole thing is, let's think of a constructive way forward rather than pointing fingers. And yes, we can make the world better through friendships. I think I'm really interested in making the world a better place, emotionally, in terms of opening up conversations on things that I didn't grow up talking about. Shame is one of the most corrosive things, and probably one of the motivations for much of the damage that we do on this planet.
Do you feel like the culture of friendship has changed in your lifetime?
I think there's more attention being paid to it. We've also lived through a fetishization of friendship. In that sort of ‘BFF’ way — you get one half of the necklace — which is tied to the rise of social media. There's a glorification in certain areas of friendship, which, on one side is wonderful, and on another can feel really exclusive if you don't have that particular experience of friendship in your life. In terms of what makes a true friendship — I don't think the dial has shifted on that. I think the fundamental premise of what it is, of the qualities that we look for, those are ageless. It’s just the means that we have of expressing them have changed.
What is the first image that comes to your mind when you think of friendship?
The picture I have on the front of Friendaholic, two fingers interlinked.
What's the best thing you've watched, listened to or read about friendship in the past year?
Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet is amazing. It’s such a vivid evocation of a lifelong female friendship in all of its gritty, glorious nuance.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.