David LaChapelle Quotes

Madonna, as we know, is very difficult.

I say more power to [Madonna], though I don't know how much more power is out there.

When I first became famous in the United Kingdom it was helpful because it meant there wasn't a spite of 'this bloke's a drug addict,' 'this bloke f**ks all these women' because I was just making jokes about all those things already, so it made me some kind of incorruptible indefatigable, indestructible force.

Actors are seen as celebrities, but they're just real people with families.

Madonna is a pro. I don't like her and have no respect for her but- I don't think she should be called a musician or a dancer or whatever you know, but I do have, well I do have respect for her ability to completely manipulate the media and have them work for her.

The press don't like to say nice things because nice is boring. It's much better to label me the devil. What we do is not brain surgery. We are entertainers, plain and simple, and we're responsible to bring that money back, to make a profit.

I suppose my look, the way I play - you combine all that sort of stuff and that makes people interested in what I actually do. So then, when off-the-field stuff happens... I suppose it's one of those cocktail mixes.

In a very real sense, I represent pop culture in an iconic way. It's been very good to me, so anything I can do to help the fans to tumble along - it's good.

I published my first book, 'Drinking & Tweeting,' when I first started 'Housewives' and was being portrayed as a fun girl who spoke the truth.

I'm one of those controversial celebs or whatever you want to call it, but I am actually a musician - people forget this.

There's a lot of difference between being well known and being notorious and the black paintings didn't make me well known - they made me notorious.

The hero is known for achievements; the celebrity for well-knowns. The hero reveals the possibilities of human nature. The celebrity reveals the possibilities of the press and media. Celebrities are people who make news, but heroes are people who make history. Time makes heroes but dissolves celebrities.

fame is merely the fact of being misunderstood by millions of people.

You tellin' me people don't look at Kanye West like the Glitch.

First of all, I'm not a heartthrob. If you saw me in high school, you wouldn't say I'm a heartthrob. Having a hit song, the minute you're famous, you're a heartthrob. I know you don't believe me, but I honestly don't consider myself a heartthrob.

As far as the illusion of the fame, yes, I can definitely appreciate it.

The personal antics have overshadowed the music. I never wanted that but I knew what I was getting into when I got into everything I got into.

Some people believe that they should have two different lives, and one is what they show on TV and one is their personal life. I am not that person.

Getting on the cover of TIME guarantees the existence of opposition in the future.

Do you remember when Marilyn Monroe died? Everybody stopped work, and you could see all that day the same expressions on their faces, the same thought: ‘How can a girl with success, fame, youth, money, beauty . . . how could she kill herself?’ Nobody could understand it because those are the things that everybody wants, and they can’t believe that life wasn’t important to Marilyn Monroe, or that her life was elsewhere

It's not too bad to be a sort of pop icon, you know? It's not too tough to handle.

Rebellion, just to be clear, can mean holding onto some of your own integrity, of not playing into the idea of sensationalism. We all have our moments, and that's your guys' job - to take those moments and make them turgid, gaseous, make them big, and it's bigger than the person is. When you start believing your own press, that's when it gets really sad.

Listen: People are always saying, 'Rickey says Rickey.' But it's been blown way out of proportion. People might catch me, when they know I'm ticked off, saying, 'Rickey, what the heck are you doing, Rickey?' They say, 'Darn, Rickey, what are you saying Rickey for? Why don't you just say, 'I?' But I never did. I always said, 'Rickey,' and it become something for people to joke about.

The celebrity syndrome. When people forget who they are and start to believe what other people say about them.

I don’t even think of myself as a quote, unquote star - that’s really douchey. I think of myself as just like . . . a dance commander.