The life of a celebrity has been sensationalized in countless films, depicting the glitz, the glamour, and the spotlight in the breathy air of a fairytale: everyone wants to be famous. Who wouldn’t want hordes of screaming fans and free trips to all the beautiful places in the world? Who wouldn’t want to walk into a store filled with jewels and walk out with the biggest one? Who wouldn’t want to known in every part of the globe, their name synonymous with luxury, opulence, and icons?

To be honest, it doesn’t sound as appealing to me nowadays as it used to. Don’t get me wrong, I would still love to be able to get an Hermés Birkin to match my Fendi bomber jacket and my Ferrari, and it would be great to fly in a first class flight to Japan without having the slightest worry about taking out a second mortgage on my home (I have no plans of owning a home anytime soon, but the thought of mortgage payments still haunts me). It’s wishful thinking, though, because while these luxuries may roll of the tongue beautifully, they are much more complicated in real life. Nothing comes for free, and most celebrities pay a dire price for their status: their privacy.

The age of social media and the advent of fandom culture has filled us all with the insatiable urge for information, whatever nature that information may be. Certainly though, the most widely traded information is definitely about the daily lives of the celebrities we hold dear. Dozens upon dozens of media outlets, from TMZ to the Daily Mail, have made it their mission statement to have the freshest, hottest gossip from Hollywood to feed their subscribers, who are constantly refreshing their Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Snapchat, Facebook feeds for anything new that makes their neurons fire just a little bit faster than usual. It is an addiction, and the media has made it their job to fulfill our addictions.

To a certain extent, celebrities make it their job as well. Reality TV stars like the Kardashians or the Real Housewives of Any Major Metroplex in the Continental United States have drama ingrained in every aspect of their lives; to live a mundane, private life is to lose their livelihood. Even for the stars whose personal lives are not the basis for their employment any publicity is good publicity, because to be a celebrity is to dedicate yourself to remaining relevant.

Is there ever a line, though? When does it become a breach of privacy? Do we draw the line when a celebrity is dealing with a personal loss or an illness? Do we leave their families out of it? How does one go about separating the person from the persona, and do the stars even have a right to ask for that distinction? If they get paid to simply show their face at an event, shouldn’t that mean that they be available to interact with fans at all times?

Such is the danger of committing oneself to a fantasy of unsurmountable riches. Debts always pile up.