INSIDE THE SECRET CELEBRITY PR MACHINE

The disinformation age has hit Hollywood, and the celebrity-industrial complex is armed to the teeth. Meet the crisis publicists, right-wing wranglers, and trolls for hire who are shaping what we think about today's biggest stars.

- ANNA SILMAN

ONCE upon a time, when a celebrity's reputation hit the skids, their publicist knew who to call. Caught doing drugs? Cheating on a spouse? Paying for a blow job on Sunset Boulevard? Publicists could facilitate Oprah interviews, negotiate the cover of People magazine. The seeds of redemption could be sown. Now, however, YouTube gossip vloggers have the reach of Anderson Cooper, Selena Gomez fan accounts have bigger populations than some small European countries, and TikTok makeup influencers are covering legal depositions with the fluency of third-year law associates. With more and more people making a living dissecting celebrities' every misstep, the nature of what constitutes a scandal has changed, and some episodes seem to mushroom indefinitely. In this climate, an act as simple as unfollowing a costar on Instagram can become an international incident, and Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni are staring down the barrel of forever-war. The age of 24/7 gossip and round-the-clock surveillance had already taught us that private meltdowns could easily become front-page news—God forbid you wanted to lick a tray of doughnuts or fight with your sister's husband in an elevator in peace. But that was before you had to factor in the bots. And the Reddit snark accounts. And Deuxmoi.

It might be the hardest time ever to be a celebrity—but hoo boy, it's a good time to be in crisis PR. If you have the power to tame the influencers, game the algorithm and turn the online mob into your private army, your services have never been in higher demand. As Emily Reynolds Bergh, who runs a Nashville-based communications firm with a crisis public relations arm, puts it, “When cancel culture entered the equation, my job honestly skyrocketed.”