No Room for Fun: Why We Need to Revive Celebrity Home Tours

Who likes limes? Who’s all about fresh produce? What’s up, Dakota? The actress responded to the buzz by admitting that the house was professionally decorated for filming, limes and all. And that she’s actually allergic to the fruit. Sigh. Crew 1, viewers 0.

Now, let’s move on to another Architectural Digest photoshoot in 2022. Ashley Tisdale’s living room featured a large, well-stocked bookcase. She admitted to the camera, “Those shelves, I have to be honest, didn’t really have any books on them until a few days ago. I had my husband go to a bookstore and I said, ‘You need to buy 400 books.’” Again, why pretend and admit it?

It’s like celebrities are trolling us. Kim Kardashian’s house used to have a stripper pole. Now it shows off a sink with no drain. After her house tour aired, she had to upload Insta stories showing people her real fridge and the spaces her kids actually use. So what was the point of the house tour, Kim?

Are we to believe that Gwyneth Paltrow uses her Oscar statuette to prop open her garden gate? Why are all the houses black, white and chrome, with no sign of occupancy? Where is the storage space? Where do celebrities put their suitcases and winter clothes? Who needs that much storage space for their handbags? Why are the interiors so over-styled that they become boring?

That’s why we miss Cribs (2000-2010), MTV’s stubbornly unsung hero. It filmed celebrity homes in a documentary-style way, but it was high-energy, funny, and usually ended with sexy people hanging out by the pool. We knew it was staged. But at least it was fun.

All the Cribs celebrities reveled in their excesses: In the Destiny’s Child episode, Beyoncé’s bedroom overlooked a pool and the site’s lake. Rapper 50 Cent’s house had 19 bedrooms, 35 bathrooms, and a refrigerator stocked with about 300 bottles of Vitamin Water. Lil Wayne’s living room had a Jacuzzi instead of a couch. Josh Hutcherson and Carmelo Anthony had mind-blowing sneaker collections. Missy Elliot’s bed looked like a Ferrari; her fish tank was also a chair. Robbie Williams’s house? He just rented it to Jane Seymour. Mariah Carey walked on her treadmill and elliptical in her high heels—ridicule was the goal.

Find online the bonus features of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette (2006) DVD. The film is about the 18th-century French court. The video is a parody of Cribs, with Jason Schwartzman (who plays Louis XVI) in full costume, pretending that the Palace of Versailles is his apartment. “This chandelier is crystal, not crystal!” he says. “My friends,” he says, pointing to historical royal portraits.

Some more of that, please. Where’s the fun in lemons and sinks? And bring back the stripper pole!

Excerpt from the HT Brunch of July 6, 2024

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