Welcome to the Hotel California: The Dark Side of Fame and Fortune

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Every time the Eagles’ song “Hotel California” comes on the radio, my family responds with groans, eye rolls, and repetitions of “Oh, no, not again.”

The song is the basis of a long-standing joke with my family. When I was in high school, I wrote an essay about the song, deconstructing it as an allegory for the darker side of fame. The hotel appearing in the distance with its “shimmering light” is too attractive for the weary desert traveler to pass up. The lady who leads the visitor down the corridors has a “Tiffany-twisted” mind and the “Mercedes bends” because she’s so consumed by materialism; she even says, “We are all just prisoners here, of our own device,” implying that the luxuriant lifestyle is both addictive and self-destructive. 

Even though the hotel guests in the song may have initially and voluntarily chosen the opulent grandeur of Hollywood, they quickly lose their agency and ability to save themselves: “[They] can check out anytime [they] like, but [they] can never leave.” Maybe the Eagles intended the song to showcase the harsh reality of the music industry, or maybe they themselves struggled with addiction or mental health issues at the height of their popularity. 

Admittedly, I may have talked about the song’s “true meaning” one too many times with my family, resulting in my being the butt of the joke. 

However, the recent publication of numerous celebrity memoirs brought the complexities of privilege to the forefront of book discussions and society news. Prince Harry’s Spare jumped to the top of the bestseller list as people rushed to read the tawdry details of mistreatment and racism perpetrated by the royal family. The suffocating presence of the paparazzi in Harry and Meghan’s lives overwhelmed them and pushed them to seek privacy and mental well-being in the States. Undoubtedly Prince Harry harbors anger, resentment, and emotional scars in response to the paparazzi’s role in the death of his mother, Princess Diana. Who can blame him for trying to save his family from a similar fate?

Prince Harry’s story is not a one-off. The very public struggles of celebrities play out across various media around the globe on a daily basis, and people can’t get enough of it. The title of Jennette McCurdy’s recent memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died sums up the abuse she endured at the hands of her late mother. McCurdy, the former Nickelodeon child star of iCarly and Sam & Cat, details the pressure her mother forced on her to continue acting when she didn’t want to and to maintain a certain weight, all of which eventually led to isolation, an eating disorder, and lingering trauma. Couple that with literally growing up on TV in front of millions of people, and it’s a recipe for disastrous mental health. 

We’ve watched Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, and Amanda Bynes experience very public mental breakdowns.  More celebrities have lost their lives to drugs and alcohol than we can count. The stress of living their lives in the public spotlight, constantly scrutinized and judged by fans, media, and paparazzi for every pound gained or every fashion faux pas made, must take an unfathomable toll on their well-being. 

And yet our society craves all of the salacious details behind the sparkling façades, pre-ordering celebrity memoirs and breaking sales records, sometimes before the books have even been released. Maybe we want to reassure ourselves that the famous are mere mortals like the rest of us or, perhaps more darkly, we secretly want to revel in a little schadenfreude, gloating over the misfortune of the privileged. 

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While it’s easy to fantasize about living the life of Beyoncé or a Kardashian, the underpinnings of glamor are often murky and dangerous currents, grasping and pulling the famous and the beautiful down into a swirling eddy of isolation and destruction. Maybe celebrity memoirs will put a singular, human face on the large canvas of “celebrityhood” and inspire support and empathy from pop culture fans around the world as opposed to unhealthy voyeurism. 

Years after I wrote my essay, I learned that most people believe “Hotel California” is about drug addiction and rehab, tangentially connected to the trappings of celebrity life, I suppose. Perhaps the song’s dark themes and ambiguous interpretations contribute to its continued popularity. Its haunting melody reminds me a little bit of “Eleanor Rigby” by The Beatles. I wrote an essay on that one back in high school, too. Sounds like material for another article. 

(This article was originally published in Times-Georgian April 8, 2023.)