I cannot stand Rita Ora. Which is unfair of me because she’s probably a very nice person.
She hasn’t done anything mean to me, and as far as I know she’s never done anything mean to anyone else either. And yet something about her sets my teeth on edge.
I’m not alone in having an irrational celebrity hatred. Lifestyle editor Ellen Scott confesses that she finds Jeremy Renner from The Avengers utterly unbearable, but has no idea why.
When I requested to hear people’s irrational celebrity hatred the list was long and diverse, including: Ricky Gervais, Leonardo Di Caprio, Lily Allen, Josh Widdecombe, Rita Ora, Anne Hathaway, Davina McCall, Katherine Heigl, Emma Watson, Jessie J, Jack Whitehall, Jess Glynn, Ewan McGreggor, Samuel L Jackson, Beyoncé, Emma Thompson, Kevin Bacon, BJ Novak, Keira Knightley and Cheryl Cole.
Another popular choice was Greta Thunberg, which seems unfair given that she’s an activist not a celebrity, and also a teenager who has ASD.
No-one on this list has been accused of any hideous crimes or acts of evil. Most of them are probably absolutely lovely.
And yet, there are people who hate them. Not for solid, easily defined reasons, but thanks to a general sense they can’t explain.
They’ll say the celebrity has an annoying face or their voice sets them on edge, but are sure the celeb is talented and lovely. It can feel incredibly cruel to have this irrational hatred, especially if the person in question is doing excellent things.
Intrigued by what it is that makes us hate total strangers, I spoke to Sally Baker, a therapist.
She tells Metro.co.uk: ‘Sometimes celebrities seem immune to their privilege, and we have to watch from the sidelines their car crash of a life.
‘There’s a part of us that loves seeing celebrities fail, but there’s another part of us that want to be lifted into a fantasy world by celebs, and it can feel really annoying with even their huge advantages they can’t make their lives have happy endings.
‘The public set the bar really high for celebrities. Somehow we emotionally invest in them being god-like, cellulite-free, body perfect creatures.
‘When a celebrity fails physically by putting on weight or looking the worst for wear we are merciless in our condemnation because it triggers us to doubt our ability to succeed to improve ourselves or improve our life when celebs can’t even manage to.
‘We look at all the advantages celebs have that money can buy and how they struggle in their personal lives. It makes us insecure we’ll ever succeed when we have so little time and resources to invest compared to them.’
Which makes sense in the case of car crash celebs. But what about the ones who bump along happily enough without sex drugs and multiple marriages?
Sally says: ‘Sometimes we feel out and out envy for a celebrity, and we refuse to acknowledge their humanity because we are unreasonably jealous of who are and what they have. Our envy of some celebrities feeds our obsession with them.
‘We are driven by a desire to find out more and more about them. We are desperate to find their weakness, their Achilles heel so that we can then feel better about ourselves and our lives.
‘Being jealous of celebrities is a no win. Even when they’re betrayed and broken-hearted, they are in a more select resort than we can ever afford and even with their heartache they still look perfect.
‘If we were not interested in them we wouldn’t care at all about how their life is working out for them but because we are envious of them it feels like an energised state and we’re plugged into reading and watching and essentially envying them all of the time.
‘Our relationship with some celebrities is a conundrum because we might express dislike for them but at the same time obsessing about them. We deny that they have something about them
Psychotherapist Annette Vaillancourt suggests that it might be even deeper than that, saying: ‘People “hate” what they deny in themselves. It is why there are hate crimes.
‘People are trying to eradicate something within themselves that is unacceptable, but acting out towards others whom they perceive to have that characteristic or trait.’
General consensus seems to be that as long as your dislike of a celebrity is limited to switching off the TV when they appear, it’s not a problem.
If there is a famous person who really grinds your gears for no good reason, that doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person, and you’re certainly not in a minority. It might mean that the celebrity in question has things that you envy, or that they have qualities you dislike in yourself.
There is a huge difference between a personal dislike (entirely reasonable, if illogical) and acting on your dislike. It should go without saying that it’s never okay to target the people you find annoying on social media or in real life.
If you start feeling compelled to tweet a celebrity abusive messages, feel that your hatred is dominating your mind or feeling tempted to send them hate mail then you need to reflect on why you’re feeling that way and speak to your GP about your mental health.
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