On the morning of Feb. 6, “Drake” was trending on X (formerly known as Twitter); not too unusual for one of the world’s most successful rappers. The reason, though, turned out to be extremely unusual for the pop star and reverberated across the internet for a week – what looked like a video of Drake engaged in a solo sex act was circulating. He hasn’t commented on the video or its veracity explicitly, but he seems to be taking the commotion in stride.
On Feb. 7, Drake’s first night in Nashville for his ongoing tour with J. Cole and Lil Durk, his football-themed set included a mock ESPN broadcast from real-anchor Stephen A. Smith and social media star BenDaDonnn where Ben asked, “And then, correct me if I’m wrong, Stephen A., but didn’t [Drake] start an OnlyFans yesterday?” Then, once onstage, Drake seemed to taunt the crowd a bit. “I know y’all probably waitin’ on me to address this; so the rumors are true,” he said, with a pause…”My dad is here! That’s what y’all were waitin’ for?”
On the day the alleged leak circulated, Kick streamer Adin Ross claimed to record a voice message to Drake while live (“You’re blessed with your voice, you’re blessed with performing, you’re blessed to be you, you’re blessed to be number one, but you’re also blessed to have a fucking missile,” the streamer fawned). According to Ross, Drake almost immediately responded with a flurry of laughing emojis and an idea: “He said ‘this might be my next album intro,’” Ross said.
This is just the latest installment in a series of leaks and questionable disclosures across the entertainment world, and they haven’t all been taken so lightly: Isaiah Rashad ducked from public life for a few months when a video of him being intimate with men leaked in February 2022, effectively and nonconsensually outing him. Sexyy Red appeared to be devastated last fall when an alleged sex tape of hers was posted to her own Instagram, seemingly without her consent as well. The intrusions aren’t always sexual.
Last month, SZA took to X in all-caps to express her frustrations with her music leaking: “LEAKING MY MUSIC IS STEALING,” she wrote, having also bemoaned the emotional impact of having her autonomy snatched by the release of unfinished songs. She promised to fight back legally.
On Feb. 6, the same day of the alleged Drake leak, it was reported that Taylor Swift’s lawyers threatened legal action against a college student using public flight data to track and post her private jet usage online.
Editor’s picks There has long been a tabloid industry devoted to salacious tell-alls and privacy invasions when it comes to celebrities; though, for a period of time – particularly after the New York Times’ Framing Brittany Spears documentary honed in on the way constant intrusion contributed to the pop star’s unraveling – there seemed to be a new sympathy for stars.
But technological advancement and social media have created even more insidious conditions than the tabloid industry as everyone now has the tools to spread private information, and even fewer ethical considerations to make. Even the seediest press outlets are too visible and institutional to test privacy or copyright laws by posting nudes or leaked albums. At its best, the press is engaging with things like dick vids and flight paths only to contextualize their role in the social fabric of our lives – to say not just that it happened, but why it matters.
Informal Insta-blogs and individual Tweeters don’t have any codes of conduct to adhere to and can gossip for gossip’s sake much more anonymously. Social media pages dedicated to petty tea-spilling have become more prevalent, content moderation on platforms like X and Instagram has historically been complicated (to say the least), and the new attention economy online has bred a culture where more people can be kinda famous than ever before. Think about all the prominent social media creators you know of, like Tiktoker-turned-podcast-host Bobbi Althoff, who saw a sexually explicit deepfake of herself trend on X for a day, despite violating the site’s non-consensual nudity policy (X did not respond to a request for comment);. Consider all the ordinary people whose most intimate or embarrassing moments have become memes.
Two academics with expertise in celebrity psychology, culture, and fandom tell Rolling Stone that when we use media to invade people’s privacy, we may be filling cognitive and emotional holes in our own lives – and especially when it comes to celebrities, it’s so rewarding that we lose sight of the humans in the icons’ shell.
Related Hilde Van Den Bulck is the Head of the Department of Communication at Drexel University’s College of Arts and Science. She researches celebrity, media, and fandom.
She says that celebrity gossip – from condemning a scandal to celebrating a birth – may make us feel closer to these bodies we’ve made celestial. “We may not know about being famous or being rich, but we do know about heartbreak or joy,” she says. Fans in particular may want to feel like a part of their favorite stars’ lives, which can easily and unintentionally become antagonistic, she explains.
In the case of leaking music, fans may be competing to prove how much access and information they can get, even at the expense of the artists themselves. “It’s very inconsistent,” says Van Den Bulck. “There’s incredible dissonance there.”
Fandom can also devolve into what Van Den Bulck names as schadenfreude, a German word for the pleasure found in someone else’s pain – perhaps feeling like all the access, wealth, and beauty celebrities have didn’t keep them from suffering just like you. And when a celebrity succumbs to a vice you think you’ve escaped, you might feel superior as they crumble.
However, Van Den Bulck is even more concerned with who she calls “anti-fans”: put simply, these are the unabashed haters. “The interesting thing is that they are as intense and as knowledgeable as the fan,” she says. These are the Taylor Swift denouncers who spend as much time online figuring everything out about her as the Swifties do. “It’s the sense that you still know more than anybody else and you can really see through them,” she explains.
While this may be fueled by jealousy or the pursuit of moral high ground, when anti-fans try to bring down a celebrity, they may also feel like they are taking on a system that often overwhelms or subjugates them. That drive to exert control and extract accountability extends from fans to anti-fans, to QAnon fanatics, she hypothesizes. “I think like the kid tracking the flight…” she says, “…to some extent, maybe it’s about calling out environmental hypocrisy. All these celebrities saying, ‘Oh save your environment,’ and then they fly with a private jet to go and tell us that we should not use plastic straws, that kind of thing. I think it gives people a sense of empowerment.”
But what are the real ramifications of this behavior, particularly on the celebrities themselves?
“I feel like for some people, fame is a trauma,” says William Todd Schultz, a professor of psychology at Pacific University Oregon. Schultz is a leading academic in the field of psychobiography, which applies psychological theory and research to the lives of important historical figures, from artists to politicians.
“I think their gifts and their talent results in them achieving fame and they probably, in some ways, wanted fame initially. Everybody wants their music to be listened to; they want their books to be read.” But the price of fame, of course, can run high. SZA expressed a similar sentiment to Rolling Stone as the cover star of October’s Grammy Preview.
“People always say shit like, ‘You signed up for this,’ ” she had said. “That scares me. Because like, no, we didn’t. We signed up to make music and share our art. Some of us didn’t even sign up to make grand millions. I didn’t think I would get rich making music. But I did want to be cool and get my shit off and be like, ‘Look, my ideas were as cool as I thought they were in my head.’ I failed out of college and, like, I can’t keep a job, but I am a smart, creative person, and have a purpose and function.”