My Celebrity

I must have been very young; the family hadn’t moved to Spain yet and we still lived in a house in London. I remember my mother turning her head towards me and separated her eyes from the television. The TV was getting louder as the crowd on it cheered and cried at a young handsome singer stepping out of a limousine.

“Do you know who that is?” she asked me, squinting her eyes slightly as she smiled, like she always did.

My mother was the kind of woman that tended to show her feelings through body language. If she would laugh, she wouldn’t simply open her mouth and make a noise; she would laugh with her whole body. She didn’t simply smile with her mouth; her eyes, eyebrows, cheeks and shoulders would also join in. And I found this the warmest and most fantastic thing on Earth.

I looked at the television with a puzzled expression. She immediately went back to the TV into the world of gossip and fashion, as if she forgot she had asked me a question in the first place.

After several seconds of silence, she looked at me again.

“Who’s your favourite celebrity, Maff?”

I looked back at her again. She was probably just expecting a funny reaction to her question, but I took it as a challenge.

A few minutes later, my mother turned the TV off and walked out of the living room to start making dinner. I instantly picked up the control and flicked through the channels. I wasn’t looking for cartoon or plasticine programs like I normally did (programs which I now find so bizarre and discomforting). I was searching through the ‘boring’ channels, looking for someone famous I could start to like, and claim to be my favourite celebrity.

I quickly realized that I didn’t actually know any of the handsome people in front of me, and my hand automatically found a children’s channel to watch until dinner.

I remember hearing three or four footsteps getting close, and then the sound of the front door opening wide. A draft would rush into the living room, along with a feint warming and calming smell.

My dad dropped his bag and sat down on the stairs to take his boots off. I ran to the living room door to greet him.

“Hi mate, how are you doing?” he said to me.

You could always tell he was tired from a long day on his market stalls, but that just added more calmness to the household.

Recently I looked back and felt like I owed my old eight year old self an answer to the challenge I proposed myself all those years ago: who is my favourite celebrity?

I’ve always found myself detesting the rich and famous: I never did get to know any of them, and I hope I never will. So I decided that it would be stupid to look through a list of celebrities on the internet to decide which one I liked the most.

But then it hit me.

A celebrity is someone who you talk about, think about and wonder about every day. Your favourite celebrity is probably someone you look up to, and hope to be, someday in the future. Right?

When it comes down to it celebrities can really make a difference in who you are, in how you dress, speak and react to different situations. I’m constantly seeing teenagers dress, talk and act like the people they see on TV!

You look forwards to seeing your celebrity, normally on TV or in a magazine, but obviously seeing them face to face would be perfect. I can remember looking forwards to seeing my celebrity every day.

And even though most of them are extremely rich and famous, I don’t think it’s compulsory to be so in order to be called a celebrity.

I know who my celebrity is now. I realize, since I can remember, that I’ve always dressed, talked, walked and acted like him. I’ve always hoped to be like him when I’m older.

My favourite celebrity is my Dad.