Why oversharing destroys fame: The mistake celebrities keep making

There was a time when celebrities were only seen at their best. Red carpets, staged interviews, airbrushed editorials. Fame was curated. Distance was part of the job. That version of celebrity gave people something to reach for, something to admire.

But in 2025, we’ve swung to the opposite extreme (thanks to social media). Now we know what your kitchen looks like. We’ve seen your partner, even if they’re not in the public eye themselves, they’ve certainly inserted themselves into it for your socials. We know your child had a tantrum two days ago. We’ve seen your fridge contents, your therapy updates, your mildly chaotic Tuesday afternoon. Being a public figure has become a daily vlog, and the result isn’t intimacy. It’s just overexposure.

Fame has always involved a kind of illusion. It’s not about being fake, but about being edited. Being a public figure means you have two selves, a public persona and a private one. And they should be different. The clients I work with often appear one way in interviews or on stage, and completely different in real life. Some are much quieter than people expect. Others are dryly hilarious in a way they’ve never shown publicly. But that’s how it should be. Their public-facing self is a brand, and that’s all that should be online. Their private self can still exist - it just doesn’t need to be broadcast. The most interesting public figures I know are nothing like their on-screen persona, and that difference is a strength, not a contradiction.

When you remove that distinction entirely, what’s left isn’t deeper connection at all, it’s confusion. It just makes you less interesting. You can’t be aspirational if you’re constantly performing your ordinary.

Fame was once built on distance

What people forget is that talent was never enough. Plenty of people can sing, act or perform. What made someone famous was how they were presented. The mystique, the elevation, the sense that they were somehow operating on a different plane.

That distance was strategic. It wasn’t about deception, it was about creating value. You became interesting by not being everywhere. Even now, if you’re constantly visible, you’re far less likely to be memorable.

That’s why shows like Cribs were once such a phenomenon. They gave a rare glimpse behind the curtain. That kind of access felt valuable because it wasn’t constant. Even paparazzi shots used to hold weight. A blurry image of someone walking to Starbucks made headlines because it was unusual to see them doing something normal.

I’ve had meetings with what I’d consider classic, old-school A-list celebrities. The kind who’ve been globally known for decades. And they do have a different presence. There’s a sharpness to them. A sort of composure and control you rarely see now. When I meet modern-day celebrities, especially the ones who rose to fame online, I often feel like I could sit and chat with them in the same way I would with anyone else. They’re easy to be around, but with a kind of deep shallowness. Usually quite self-absorbed, very image-conscious, and endlessly rehearsed. That used to be the cost of fame. Now, it’s the baseline for visibility.

That elusive ‘star quality’ people talk about sounds like a cliché, but from my own experience, it’s disappearing. There’s something about holding back, about not letting everyone in, that creates real presence. Oversharing strips that away. And once it’s gone, it’s very difficult to get back.

Oversharing is the easiest way to wreck a career

I get clients (singers, actors, athletes, presenters etc) asking the same thing: “Should I start sharing more of my family or daily life to seem relatable?” My answer is always no.

Relatability is something you lean into after the peak of your career, not during/growing it. Oversharing in the middle of active success is the quickest way to lose what made people care in the first place.

It starts small: a glimpse into your home, a few candid moments with your partner, a behind-the-scenes post with your kids. But soon your profile starts to look less like a public figure and more like a family vlog or a lifestyle channel. I’ve even had to tell TV clients to stop filming themselves crying. And I still don’t understand it. The idea that someone, mid-tears, decides to pick up their phone, click the camera, hit record, hold the phone so they’re in shot and continue crying, it’s so strange to me. I think I just don’t get it. It feels like the absolute opposite of authentic.

But the problem runs deeper than taste. Oversharing draws engagement because people are nosey. They want to see your house, who you're dating, your friends, what your children look like. That kind of content feeds curiosity, but it doesn’t build respect. And while you might start gaining more followers, views and likes or landing brand deals on social media, don’t be surprised if the acting roles, music opportunities or presenting gigs start to dry up.

You’re also opening yourself up to far more risk. The more you post in real time, unfiltered and unrehearsed, the easier it becomes to say something wrong, show something out of context, or attract backlash. It’s a cancellation waiting to happen, and one that could have been avoided with a little more restraint.

What’s happening is subtle but damaging. Your demographic is shifting. You're no longer someone people look up to, you're someone they consume. And once you’re in that space, it becomes almost impossible to grow as a mainstream public figure. You might be going viral, but if you're trying to build a serious career as a singer, actor, athlete or presenter, you're growing the wrong thing.

You can’t be both relatable and aspirational

There’s a fundamental conflict at the heart of all this. Public figures want to be relatable, but they also want to be inspiring. They want to seem approachable, but still above the chaos. It doesn’t work.

Relatable is great if you’re trying to sell candles or skincare routines. But if your goal is to build real stardom, the kind that sells arenas, shifts public opinion or creates cultural moments, then relatability flattens you. It makes you normal. And normal doesn’t go viral in a lasting way.

If people feel like they already know everything about you, there’s no journey of discovery left. No reason to pay attention.

The Kardashian Exception

Of course, there are exceptions. The Kardashians built their empire on visibility. They don’t have a central talent like singing or acting. The exposure itself is the product. Their fame model depends on oversharing, and they’ve structured their brand around that.

But for anyone else, especially those whose success relies on skill or performance, that same exposure becomes a liability. When people come for your work, and all they can see is your personality, you’ve boxed yourself in.

Celebrity Is Not the Same as Influence

What I often see with clients, even those who have been in the public eye for years, is confusion between traditional celebrity and modern-day influence. They’ll look at influencers getting huge engagement by sharing their relationships, kids, gym sessions, breakdowns, holiday mishaps, and think, “Should I be doing that too?”

They assume it’s what they have to do now to stay relevant. But I try to explain to them that it’s not the same dynamic. Influencers are building relatability. Traditional public figures, artists, actors, athletes, presenters, should be building authority, intrigue, admiration. It’s not the same type of content, and it doesn’t lead to the same kind of respect.

Influencers are often not trying to be someone you look up to. They’re trying to be someone you feel comfortable around. And while there’s a place for that, it doesn’t create legacy. It creates likeability. The two aren’t interchangeable.

I’ve walked around central London with someone who has over 20 million followers on TikTok. They were stopped once, maybe twice. People didn’t recognise them. Then I’ve walked through the same streets with someone who has been a staple on British television for decades. They have 50,000 followers on Instagram. And they were stopped on every corner.

Some of the most famous people I’ve worked with, iconic names, have relatively small social followings. Their fans don’t need daily updates to stay interested. They buy tickets. They watch interviews. They turn up for the real work, not the posts in between.

Just because someone has a million followers doesn’t mean they’re more famous. Often, it just means they’ve given more of themselves away. Social followings might look impressive, but without mystique, without elevation, they’re mostly empty numbers. It’s the difference between being followed, and being remembered.

Brands make the same mistake

This isn’t just about celebrities. Brands do it too. In an effort to seem ‘real’, they post chaotic behind-the-scenes videos, share internal dilemmas or jump on every viral moment. It might boost short-term engagement, but it often weakens long-term trust. Authority gets diluted when you look too casual.

And then there’s LinkedIn, which, if I’m honest, I personally find to be the cringiest social platform of them all. I never scroll it. I can’t. There’s only so many times you can watch someone running a team of ten refer to themselves as a ‘CEO’, while proudly boasting that they let everyone leave half an hour early because they ‘believe in work-life balance’. That’s not visionary leadership. That’s a Tuesday in most firms.

Running a business isn’t inherently interesting, and I say that as someone who runs one. The day-to-day operations, the admin, the financials, the logistics, it’s not exactly storytelling gold. It’s bloody boring. The part I enjoy is the work I do with clients. That’s the bit that feels meaningful. But somewhere along the line, a strange culture emerged where founders started posting like they were public figures, waiting for applause for doing what thousands of other people do successfully, quietly and without the LinkedIn Ted Talk style monologue.

It’s a similar phenomenon to what’s happened with celebrities. The same urge to be validated for visibility rather than value. But not everything needs to be turned into a personal brand moment. Sometimes it’s fine to just do your job, and do it well.

Transparency is important. But overexposure makes people lose interest.

A little distance still works

This isn’t about faking perfection. It’s about being considered. Strategic. You don’t need to reveal everything to be liked. In fact, the more you hold back, the more powerful the moments you do share become.

Fame can’t survive if you’re posting the process of unravelling it. At some point, mystery becomes value again.

It’s no coincidence that the most successful, sought-after celebrities today are the ones who remain noticeably absent online. Their accounts are run by teams. They post updates, not inner thoughts. It feels deliberate, and that’s exactly why it works. Meanwhile, the ones who overshare often find themselves irrelevant within months. Because the moment you become too familiar, you stop being aspirational. And the world moves on.