Fame comes and goes, celebrities rise and fall — and they do everything they can to hold on to whatever remnants of the spotlight remain.
Soulja Boy, Lindsay Lohan, Rebecca Black, Vanilla Ice, the list drags on, but there’s one name who has taken a strange route to cling to her cultural relevance: Nikki Blonsky.
Blonsky, an actress who starred in the 2007 film “Hairspray” pushed her way into the spotlight during this film’s campaign, and rightfully so.
The movie is set in 1960s racially-segregated Baltimore and reflects counterculture movements with themes of joy and acceptance. Blonsky’s character, Tracy Turnblad, plays a large part in challenging racism and body standards at the time through music and dance.
Throughout the film, Blonsky showcases her singing talent and is praised for having a lot of soul for being white.
Her screen debut, “Hairspray,” awarded her two Critics’ Choice Awards and nominations at the Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards. Once the hype passed, Hollywood didn’t know quite what to do with her. The attention was short-lived, and thanks to an airport brawl in 2008, Blonsky was banished to the sidelines despite her promising talent.
Blonsky and her parents were waiting for a flight home from the Caribbean when they got into an argument with ex-“Next Top Model” contestant Bianca Golden’s family.
Golden told host and producer of “Next Top Model” Tyra Banks that Blonsky kicked Golden’s mother in the groin and Blonsky’s father, Carl, had punched her in the face. Blonsky stated these were “absolute lies,” however, Blonsky and her father were arrested on assault charges, according to People.
The lack of substantial roles after a hit movie or TV show is a common occurrence for many actors, especially those who face the cruel reality of type-casting and assault charges. After “Hairspray,” Blonsky’s bubbly, larger-than-life personality and role as a plus-size character boxed her into a narrow range of characters.
For example, in 2008, Blonsky starred in “Queen Sized,” a film about a plus-size high schooler winning homecoming queen because people nominated her as part of a joke. The role seemed to further cement her as a token “plus size” actress.
Now, over the past few years, Blonsky has turned to social media as a means to stay visible and hopefully reconnect with her fans. While this doesn’t sound like something out of the ordinary, or like something that could backfire, it did.
Many people didn’t take her seriously as a former actress just trying to reclaim her space in the public eye. Instead, these attempts were viewed as a desperate plea to stay relevant as a celebrity past her prime. Users reduced her efforts to a cry for attention and overshadowed them with snarky comments about her being stuck in the past, or trying too hard.
However, Blonsky persisted.
As a result, long compilations of her Cameos, personalized videos from a celebrity to a fan, went viral on social media. I’ll admit they’re pretty funny, but it’s also sad to see a once widely recognized celebrity still chasing scraps of fame.
These Cameos were intended to be a fun way to engage with her fanbase, but they’ve taken on a much more somber tone as they’ve surfaced online. The attention the videos are getting is far from flattering.
Some people found it amusing at first, metaphorically pointing fingers and laughing. But now that it has sunk in, the videos highlight the sad truth of her career: a discarded actress sending messages to fans for a $20 fee.
The videos themselves are filled with personality, Blonsky wishing her fans happy birthdays and the like. Each one begins with something along the lines of, “Hey! It’s Nikki Blonsky from ‘Hairspray,’” followed by her singing a few lines of a song from the movie.
Blonsky is a reminder that when people in the entertainment industry don’t maintain their stardom, they risk downgrading to these strange, sometimes humiliating corners of fame.
The sad irony is that while she’s trying to carve out this space for herself to stay relevant, the platform she’s relying on is only amplifying her decline.
Instead of reclaiming her spot on the big screen, she’s become a symbol of a washed-up actress pleading for attention.
