Superstars and Self-Love

 Take Cristiano Ronaldo, Serena Williams and Taylor Swift, a triumphant trio for the ages. Each is blessed with the two things you need to reach the top: huge talent coupled with a ferocious work ethic. There's an awful lot to love - if only they didn't seem to love themselves so much.

Swift's talent and generosity are as awesome as the wealth they've generated for her. Why, in a Disney + docuseries about her huge Eras tour, we saw her distributing envelopes to emotional crew members, sharing out some of the profits. Wonderful! Who does that? On the other hand, who has themselves filmed doing that.

And now she's married, which is wonderful too. Millions shared her joy. But was it necessary to book for the purpose one of the world's  most celebrated venues, bringing New York City to a standstill? At the moment the deed was done, in the manner of smoke puffing out of the Vatican chimney, the billboards at Madison Square Garden flashed up the glad tidings for the world to see...

John William Waterhouse (1849-1917)
Photo Credit: Walker Art Gallery [CC BY-NC]Echo and Narcissus

Ardent self-love has always been part of the superstardom package, but the needle is now being pushed so deep into the red zone that, especially in sport, we're getting distortion. There's some argument as to whether Williams, the retired tennis megastore, asked for or was offered a wildcard place in the draw for the first round at Wimbledon... Her opponent was a young woman called Maya Joint who didn't appear to have read the script and went and beat the hero of the hour. For her trouble, Maya got a cursory handshake. None of us got to hear what Williams made of it all, because she declined to appear at the mandatory post-match press conference. Mandatory, that is, apparently, for everyone other than Williams. By way of an excuse, she said that her knee was sore. Hmm. Whatever, the message was clear: this was all about Williams and everyone would have to bend their own knees to her will...

In team sports, the veneration of the individual, by the team and the organisers as well as the individual in question, is even dafter. Ronaldo, never anything other than his own biggest fan, pointed our Ronaldo's brilliance once again this week. "Before Cristiano," he explained, "Portugal has never won a big trophy." True that. But in this world cup, way past his best, everyone other than Ronaldo could see that Portugal might have been better off without him.

Yet Fifa bent the rules to excuse him from a suspension for a red card for violent conduct that would have seen him miss Portugal's first two World Cup matches...

(Adrian Chiles, The Guardian, 2026)

Swift sings songs, Ronaldo kicks a ball and Williams hits a ball with a racket. They do what they do very well and so we should admire their talent. If Ronaldo and Williams talk about their sport and Swift talks about her singing we should listen to them very carefully. They are the experts in those fields. Anything else they want to say or do - treat them like you would with any other Joe Bloggs - use your critical faculties and don't become overwhelmed by stardust in your eyes.