He didn’t learn not to smoke pot. Give me a break! Working your body to an extreme is naturally accompanied by kicking back to an extreme.
No. He learned he can no longer trust his friends. Michael Phelps learned that, now that he is famous, “friends” will happily sell compromising photos of him to tabloids, tell the media that he lost at beer pong, and try to sell his party goods on e-bay.
He’s 24 years old, and he’s learned that fame and trust are mutually exclusive. I feel sorry for him.
I feel sorry for him as well. He probably never thought that people might be jealous or greedy enough to use his fame against him.
He’s seen the dark side of both fame and human nature.
He’s young. We all do stupid shit when we’re young. We wouldn’t grow into the fine, upstanding citizens we are today if we didn’t. 🙂
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I have never understood why people want to know the most intimate and sordid details of a person’s life, famous or not. I figure with anyone, if they’re not comfortable sharing it, they shouldn’t have to. And the people who ferret out these things to yell it from the mountaintops are foolish and petty. I don’t buy tabloids. I don’t really buy magazines at all. And I treat them like it I treat the rest of the media I deal with – I don’t believe everything I read. I feel for him and those like him, and my contribution is ‘not buying’ or ‘not buying in’. They’re people too. You can’t stand in the spotlight and expect not to be scrutinized, but some people should have more ‘decency’. *shrug* Six in one hand, half dozen in the other.
Wow, did you hit the nail on the head. I had the same discussion a few days ago with some folks. It’s a hard lesson.