Talent Management and Celebrity PR

The onslaught of reality tv has produced a whole raft of fame hungry enthusiasts whose sole purpose – and talent – seems to be to just keep themselves in the public eye.

How very different it is at the other end of the scale. Actors, actresses, entertainers, performers, writers – while they accept that promoting their latest film, tv series or book is part of the project, and often written into their contracts, they still deserve to lead their private lives away from media intrusion.

While we await any controls impressed on the media from the Leveson Enquiry into odious phone hacking, once your name is up in lights how can you prevent yourself becoming a target for your life to be displayed to the general public?

There are obvious things that can be done. Create a network of friends you can trust, don’t turn up at every red carpet event and don’t convince yourself for a minute that the friendly journalists want anything other than a good story.

In over 30 years of working with famous people I have briefed journalists so many times on what the interviewee will and won’t discuss. A good publicist will brief the artist or writer and ensure that they can give the journalist a story and some good quotes, without revealing anything they don’t want to. Yet a good journalist can get the trickiest people to relax and after half an hour it’s almost as if the famous interviewee is in a therapist’s office having a confessional, opening their hearts for all to read about.

I have had so many panicked interview follow up calls saying ‘can you get them to take out all references to…’. This is possible, I’ve managed to kill many unfavourable stories because of my relationships with the media, but sometimes it can backfire and the story becomes even bigger by trying to cover it up once it’s out in the open. You need an expert professional to decide on the best course of action.

The key to really protecting anyone who is famous is to ensure that the person doing the interview is as trustworthy as you can be assured and unlikely to ‘stitch up’ the interviewee if they don’t like them or their work.

The power of the media when you are promoting your film, tv programme or book can make all the difference to its success. The key is the management and implementation of any publicity campaign that does a great job in promoting the star concerned while protecting them at the same time.

To view the many artists I have worked with click here