As a big fan of Cara Delevingne, it's no surprise that I've taken my time to do a background check on her. She grew up in a very wealthy British family and was born and raised in the Belgrave mansion. Her great grandfather was English Heritage boss Sir Jocelyn Stevens and the founder of radio station, Radio Caroline. Cara's father is a property developer, and Cara's older sister, Poppy is also part of the fashion world and even shared a flat with actress Sienna Miller. With all these blessings in miss Delevingne's life, several anonymous comments have been made about her success. Along the lines of, "she's only famous because of her family," or calling her out on her seemingly perfect life, as if she doesn't deserve her place in the fashion industry.
Let's get to it:
What I find extremely irritating is that people have the audacity to negate Cara Delevingne's hard work. They only see her as a little rich white girl who has everything handed to her, including her status as a top model. Yes, she was raised wealthy, but what does that have to do with her independent success? Her sister helped her out a bit in the modeling industry but it's her raw natural talent that got her to where she is now. No amount of daddy's money can buy out Karl Lagerfeld and put her in the show.
This doesn't just apply to Cara Delevingne. Other celebrities that were born with a silver spoon are often bashed for their wealth, including Lana Del Rey, Eddie Redmayne, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Adam Levine. You can find rude anonymous comments regarding their undeserving success all over the web. "Oh he/she was born rich. Must've been easy cracking in show business when you have the money and connections." Well, no shit. If you have millions of dollars, I'm sure you'd help out your own child with his dream, too. Don't annul someone's success just because they had a leg up in the competition.
Now, there's a difference between buying your way in to success (like winning competitions) and helping your child achieve their dream. The former is abusing your privilege, and is a completely douchey thing to do. However, patronizing a successful person just because they were born well-off is just equally as douchey. You can't help where you were born. Some are born rich, some are born alright, and some are born less privileged. You wouldn't condemn a poor man, so why is it totally okay to castigate a successful person for using old money to get where he is now?
Family money can help you out in the beginning, but the rest is up to you. Think of it as an easy kickstart to your career. It doesn't mean you can be successful, because there are tons of rich kids who are unsuccessful (cough, Paris Hilton, cough). Granted, they can always fall back on daddy's money if things go wrong, but they're not going to make a good name for themselves, that's for sure.
The thing is, people who know that Adam Levine or Benedict Cumberbatch were born wealthy will think that they have it all; that they've never experienced suffering. But pain knows no class. They might never have to think about mortgages or finding scraps of food from garbage bins, but that doesn't mean that they've never felt pain. It's a different kind of pain they've experienced altogether. It may be psychological, like a deceased family member or a mental disorder, or it may be their health. Cancer doesn't care if you have a Porsche.
So if I see one more negative comment regarding a celebrity's childhood wealth, I'm going to flip out. Because it is extremely inconsiderate to invalidate someone's success or pain just because they were born more privileged than you are.
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