Have you ever seen a celebrity in prison you've admired?

Oscar Wilde & Stephen Fry.

Yes. There is a journalist here, a high profile journalist, who has gone to gaol more than once for taking a stand on the court’s protection of paedophiles by prohibiting the release of their names.

Furthermore, there were two fairly high profile journos who were jailed because they refused to name their sources.

I suppose Rodney Downey Jr. I admire his acting ability. But that is all. I don’t follow the lives of any actor or actress. They are paid to entertain and I generally don’t give them any more value as people than anyone else with a skill. In the end, most will only disappoint as people. I suppose the better your are at your craft the more likely they are to have other short comings.

Big Clint?

Lil Wayne.
Bruno Mars.

I sincerely hope no one says Paris Hilton.

I once admired (no more since he has been outed as such an anti-Semite and bigot) Mel Gibson, and I think he should have been in prison.

My heroes have all spent time in prison. Nestor Makhno. Abbie Hoffman. Huey Newton. Henry David Thoreau. Prison is how the State rewards independence, honesty, compassion, and defiance, all qualities necessary to be a decent human being.

Daniel Berenson
Nelson Mandela

Steven Biko

I really enjoy Jeffrey Archer’s books (Kane and Abel, Honor Among Thieves, etc)—he has a book series he wrote about being in prison, “A Prison Diary.”

Robert Downey Jr and Mel Gibson (Air America anyone?) have both spent time behind bars after spending too much time in front of them. I do admire their talent, but recognize the need to get them to realize the damage they were doing.
I will add that admiring their talent is different than admiring them. There aren’t a lot of people I admire, and I struggle to name more than a few.
I do admire Chuck Yeager. Couragous and brave test pilot.
Neil Armstrong, John Glenn, and most of those early astronauts.
It isn’t easy to admire someone well known, because their flaws become so well known. Clinton, Truman, Kennedy, Gandhi, Lennon, Teddy Roosevelt. Great people for sure, but some of the ingredients make me shake my head.

Nelson Mandela

Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu Jamal.

Paris Hilton.

Elvis….....he was in Nashville all the time recording at RCA.

Father Bill O’Donnell, a local priest who was jailed numerous times, mostly for blocking the gates to the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia. (School of the Americas is where the Latin American Death Squads receive US Army Training.)

Father Bill passed away back in 2003, but my church still honors him and his conscience regularly.

I just came back to answer Nelson Mandela! Then I noticed @janbb and @AmWiser‘s posts. And yes Steven Biko.

@Luiveton If you’ve been in prison – then I would admire you as a Fluther celebrity whose been behind bars. However, if you have not been – then I’m gonna say Paris Hilton.

Why? That is a very good question. I don’t know the answer. But can you tell me the name of a classical Greek shoemaker? (Arthur Miller – my mash-up)

There, I said it. Watcha gonna do about it?

;-)

I think Mandela would be horrified at the merest hint of being linked to celebrity.
Just thought i’d add that thought for no particular reason.

Depends how you define celebrity. The Paris Hiltons of the world don’t own the word. To me it means a person who is widely known, is spoken about and famous. Mandela fits that bill.

@zensky Owch.

I’ve always classed celebrity as “fluffy pap” the Bieber’s & Hilton’s of the world.
Whereas Mandela would be more suited as a statesman, a revered figure in history.

This is how the Oxford English Dictionary defines celebrity (the other entries are not relevant to people). I would argue these definitions apply very well to Mandela. Unfortunately, because the word is applied so regularly to people such as the Biebers and Hiltons of the world, our understanding of the word has changed perhaps.

3. The condition of being much extolled or talked about; famousness, notoriety.
a1600 R. Hooker Of Lawes Eccl. Politie vii. viii, in Wks. (1662) 22 The dignity and celebrity of‥Mother-cities should be respected.
1751 Johnson Rambler No. 165. ⁋6, I did not find myself yet enriched in proportion to my celebrity.
1838 T. Arnold Hist. Rome I. 332 Recommended to public notice by the celebrity of their family.
1863 M. Arnold in Macmillan’s Mag. 7 Jan. 255 They [Spinoza’s successors] had celebrity, Spinoza has fame.

(Hide quotations)

4. concr. A person of celebrity; a celebrated person: a public character.
1849 D. M. Mulock Ogilvies ii, Did you see any of those ‘celebrities,’ as you call them?
1856 R. W. Emerson Eng. Traits xi. 195 One of the celebrities of wealth and fashion, confessed‥that [etc.].
1876 C. M. Davies Unorthodox London 99 Thronged with the spiritual celebrities of London.

Opinions are like arseholes, how very apt.

Just words and semantics is all.