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DWI Crashes and Celebrities – Image maker or breaker?

May 10, 2010
Author: Chris M. Alexander

The life of a celebrity is all about the image. Celebrities go through a lot of strain to ensure that their name and face remains in the minds of promoters and fans. Some resort to unconventional publicity while some are always there due to their life styles.

Most DWI offenders will be negatively impacted by the charge, let alone celebrities who are obligated to their fans to keep a squeaky-clean image. Most fans become let down by this type of behavior and are becoming frustrated with the behavior of celebrities who should know better.

Celebrities lose TV Contracts because of DWI

Just like in the case of Tiger Woods and Michael Phelps, no sponsor wants to be associated with any celebrity who has been associated with anything negative or has a bad image. We have seen this pattern also emerging in the movie industry where as soon as an actor runs afoul of the law especially DWIs, some way is found to remove them from the set. Examples of this trend exist in TV hit sitcoms such as LOST where actor Daniel Dae Kim who plays a Korean officer will soon be killed, thus removing him from the show as a result of him being pulled over on suspicion of drinking and driving.

Another TV hit that followed the same trend was Hawaii 5-0. Anna Lucia, Adinnuoye Agbaje and Libby were all removed from the set due to DWI arrest in 2005. Although various reasons were given before they were shot and killed in a hit and run TV accident respectively, insiders will tell you that their demise was due to the bad publicity they had brought to the show.

DWIs bring many Sports Stars to their Knees

Many sports enthusiast would have been aware of the exploits of football star Paul Gascoigne with alcohol consumption. Gazza, as he is affectionately known by his fans, was one of England’s most talented footballers, feared by most goalkeepers and played a vital role in England reaching the world cup semifinals in 1990. However, he was unable to control his drinking habits. Constantly being pulled over by police on the suspicion of DWI, he started to miss training due to either being too drunk or being locked up for driving while drunk. All this continued until his club managers became frustrated and released him out of his contract. This lead to a complete downhill slide that resulted Gazza admitted into rehab.

DWI the Image Breaker

While a few celebrities such as Paris Hilton, Mel Gibson or Shia Lebeouf may have somehow found a way to be not affected seriously in the public’s eye and may seem to get away get away with DWI, most are not afforded that luxury. Many fall from grace just a s fast as they went up and drives home the point that celebrity DWI is more of an image breaker than an than an image maker.

Tags: Celebrity DWI, DWI Crashes

This entry was posted on Monday, May 10th, 2010 at 5:13 am and is filed under Celebrity DWI . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.