When the pandemic shut the world down, it also stripped away the illusions of celebrity. As millions struggled with illness, isolation, and lost income, famous figures posting from vast homes and urging solidarity exposed the widening gap between wealth and reality—and sparked a furious backlash. In this episode, we explore how COVID-19 accelerated the unraveling of celebrity culture, from tone-deaf messages and viral hashtags calling out inequality to a broader questioning of meritocracy itself. Yet the story also asks what, if anything, remains valuable about fame, pointing to moments of genuine self-awareness and entertainment that still resonate. In a crisis that made inequality impossible to ignore, celebrity was forced to reckon with its own limits—and its meaning.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/30/arts/virus-celebrities.html