"In every area of life, there are always layers or strata: the top performers, the middle class, and the bottom dwellers. If you're a doctor, there will be one doctor making a lot more than you - except you're the highest paid doctor in the world. It's the same for actors, athletes and artistes or whatever field you chose to beam your searchlight on."
There was a time when I used to marvel at the ridiculous wages some footballers earn on a weekly basis. Once I see a transfer deal completed and announced, one of the first things I checked is the weekly wage the player gets. I quickly get a calculator to convert it to our local currency and spend the next few minutes soliloquizing on how these athletes get paid ridiculous wages.
Now, are celebrity entertainers getting paid way too much money?
Just this morning I was discussing how much gospel musicians charge just to perform some worship songs on stage. My colleague quoted me a number and told me it was too high. Immediately, I reminded him of a point most people tend to overlook : these artistes are also employers. A celebrity artistes has a couple of people on his payroll, from backup singers to instrumentalists to DJs and engineers. Won't they pay their wages?
Asides the fact these celebrities have employees to pay, every sector has those who get well paid and those who do not. While we have some footballers getting paid as high as £400,000 per week, we have another in the same first team getting paid £50,000. The one that gets paid £50,000 is a celebrity compared to those plying their trades in the National League or Sunday League. For context, Gabriel Jesus' weekly take home is £265,000. Arthur Okonkwo gets paid about £1,500 just to play for the same Arsenal team.
So, to answer the question, celebrities are not making too much money. Those top performing actors, athletes and artistes are not making too much money compared to top performing doctors or professors or engineers or pilots. The only reason why it seems so is because these celebrities are being followed with cameras; everything they do or earn is on the Internet. I can bet there are doctors out there who make several millions of dollars every year from what they do. There are professors/scientists holed up in a research lab for several months with some serious amount of money streaming into their account on a regular basis. How will you know about it when you can't even see them around?
As of the last time I checked Forbes rich list, I can't see any of the top 10 being a celebrity entertainer. Most of them are into either tech or financial investment. Should we now say those in the tech niche are unfairly well paid compared to science or art teachers out there? The point is, there are so many tech guys down here who are actually talented but can't grind out $200 for a whole month worth of work. So also we have footballers here whose weekly wage is about $50. Guess what? They are talented and have been playing football for years. When you watch some of them play you can argue they will play better than those earning £100,000 on a weekly basis. Yet, they'll spend the important part of their youthful life playing football, retire after some injury that wouldn't heal and go back to the street hustling for what to eat because they have no savings or investment.
In conclusion, celebrity entertainers are the very few ones who managed to get to the top of their niche. It took them a lot of time and effort to get there. Whatever they're paid now is well deserved because for every billionaire Rihanna, there are a million and one female singers out there who are incredibly talented but can't even get enough money to eat. And, every sector has some very few people who get paid ridiculous amounts. The only reason you don't know them is because they don't have their faces in the camera at all times.
