Celebrity Crisis Management: Our Complete Guide

In the entertainment industry, celebrity crisis management is an essential component to protect one’s online reputation. Learn how celebrities deal with crises in our comprehensive guide.

Public figures like sports professionals, musicians, and movie stars face outsized media attention in their daily lives. For the biggest celebrities, their likenesses and personalities represent some of the most recognizable brands in the entertainment industry.

And, with social media dominating the everyday lives of billions of people around the globe, one embarrassing incident can result in damage to those celebrity brands. Celebrity crises occur every day and in ways both predictable and unexpected.

One embarrassing story can derail years of hard work building a media brand. A single scandal can erode trust, damage a reputation, and create hardships in finding new projects.

How can entertainment professionals like celebrities overcome scandals, bad press, or other negative information in media and beyond? The answer is crisis management.

When Personal Lives Become Public

It can be argued that living in the public comes with the territory when you are a celebrity. You simply accept it, or you may not be in the entertainment business long.

Every action that a celebrity takes is reported in news media and online social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Entertainment professionals know that it only takes one misstep in public to damage a reputation built over years of hard work.

When celebrities’ brands are at stake, it takes a team of reputation management professionals and a comprehensive and good crisis management process to protect a reputation. Without a plan in place, it is only a matter of time when a scandal or otherwise unpleasant incident finds its way online.

Celebrity Crisis Management 101

Crisis management is the practice of hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. One scandal — a bad article about an ugly divorce, media focus on an arrest, or a single unflattering image on social media — can have the effect of damaging a celebrity’s brand and public image, sometimes permanently.

Even something as simple as personal information leaked to data broker sites like Whitepages can have a devastating effect on a celebrity’s life — and put them at risk of reputational damage, not to mention personal harm.

Celebrities gain strategic and reputational benefits from developing and maintaining a crisis plan. After all, without a positive reputation, these celebs may not be able to continue producing entertainment for their adoring fans.

Below, we’ll explore the main features and functions of a management plan. These features are used by reputation professionals to help celebrities and other public figures overcome the challenges posed by an embarrassing story on social media — or worse.

Developing the Management Plan

Celebrity crises can occur at any time, and it can also extend to become a company crisis. With personal lives lived in the public, an embarrassing incident can quickly spiral out of control, resulting in damage to the celebrity brand. To counteract the damage caused by social media comments, an unflattering news story, and unwanted media attention, a crisis management plan is essential.

When developing the plan, three aspects are at the heart of it:

• What risks could my brand experience in the wake of a celebrity crisis?
• What is the response posture if a crisis occurs?
• Who will take action in a crisis situation – is it the celebrities’ managers, or do they have a crisis management team?

The goal of a celebrity crisis plan is to mitigate the reputational risks faced by the public person. No matter what happens in those personal lives, the plan can be modified to fit emerging circumstances. Good celebrity crisis management plans cover four crucial areas:

• Analysis of threats
• Identification of roles and responsibilities before, during, and after crises
• Incident assessment and process management for dealing with crises
• Communication standards and strategies used when a crisis occurs

Three Phases of Managing a PR Crisis

Effective crisis management is divided into three distinct phases: pre-crisis, crisis response, and post-crisis.

Pre-Crisis

Pre-crisis is focused on identifying potential threats and preparing for them. With so much of celebrities’ lives taking place in the public eye — after all, our celebrities are public figures — being able to identify threats before they take place allows for a more speedy response if something were to occur.

Crisis Response

Crisis response takes place during a celebrity crisis, such as an ugly divorce, a personal scandal, or other factors, and involves public relations, stakeholder communication, and many other components. In the response phase, being able to act quickly is an essential tool, helping to protect the celebrity brand in the face of negative comments on social media, unflattering online news articles, and embarrassing images.

Post-Crisis

Post-crisis is focused on recovery efforts, allowing the celebrity to return to work and restore his or her reputation as soon as possible. As the celebrity crisis fades into the background, recovery puts its focus on key messages that help to reframe audience insights. These messages are often shared on social media, helping to spread the word quickly and efficiently. With the right plan and professionals in place, the latest Hollywood online scandal or troublesome story becomes easier than ever to overcome.

Benefits of Crisis Management

A celebrity PR crisis can erode trust between a public figure and his or her audience. A scandal or other damaging crisis event in the media can even prevent that celebrity from being hired for new film or TV projects.

With those factors in mind, the benefits of a celebrity crisis management plan include:

• Informing employees, companies’ stakeholders, and the general public with crisis communication strategies and public relations.
• Positioning crisis leadership where it is needed most, both during a crisis and after an incident has passed.
• A transparent and flexible messaging strategy, giving the celebrity and his or her management team the ability to respond to many different types of crises.
• Assigning roles and responsibilities well before a crisis occurs.
• Identification of threats or other emerging risks that can damage a celebrity’s reputation.

A Look at the Top Celebrity Public Relations Examples

Johnny Depp and Amber Heard

Johnny Depp is one of the most prominent and recognizable celebrities on the planet. A star of numerous blockbusters as well as an active musician, spokesperson, and public figure, Mr. Depp rocketed to superstardom as a result of the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise.

Amber Heard, although less of a household name, has also starred in a number of big-budget films, including the blockbuster hit Aquaman. She met Johnny Depp while filming The Rum Diary in 2011

Married in 2015, the celebrity couple powerhouse of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard soon faced scandal after scandal. Fueled by rumors of drug and physical abuse allegations against both actors, their relationship ended with a pair of defamation lawsuits. The suit was resolved in 2022, but not before both actors suffered significant blows to their digital reputations.

Lindsay Lohan

From child star to Hollywood embarrassment and back to media attention, Lindsay Lohan is a perfect example of a life coming full circle.

Lohan was signed to Ford Models at the age of three. Her first big role came in the Disney film The Parent Trap, which unleashed this child star onto the world. Numerous TV and film roles soon followed.

Unfortunately, personal struggles with drugs and alcohol soon plagued the star. Despite court-ordered rehab, Lohan tested positive for illicit substances on a seemingly weekly basis. Lohan also developed a reputation for being difficult to work with. She fell out of the public eye in terms of her acting and singing abilities, but she appeared in the news and on social media continually when one crisis after another made her reputation worse.

Wesley Snipes

In the 1990s, a Tinseltown blockbuster simply wasn’t complete without a star appearance by Wesley Snipes. He was the lead in the successful Blade film franchise as well as enjoying starring roles in U.S. Marshals, White Men Can’t Jump, and New Jack City.

His fame came crashing to a halt when Snipes and two other co-conspirators were convicted of tax evasion. In 2008, Snipes was sentenced to three years in federal prison. His fraudulent tax claims and failure to answer law enforcement charges eventually caught up with him, which helped to create an unfavorable brand image and a bad reputation for the actor.

Thanks to celebrity crisis management and a few lucky breaks, Wesley Snipes has returned to the film industry. It is unlikely that he will be as big a name as before, but he continues to land roles in smaller film productions.

J.K. Rowling

J.K. Rowling is, without a doubt, one of the most well-known authors on the planet. As the creator behind the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, she was beloved by millions of people around the globe.

The author was also a textbook case of how to destroy your reputation in a matter of months. After she made a number of controversial and offensive tweets on her Twitter account and a lengthy and weird article on her website that confirmed she is suffering from transphobia, her reputation tanked.

Reactions have been swift, too. Many fans of Harry Potter reacted with dismay, the cast of the film united to sentence her comments and there were campaigns against her organized by LGBTQ groups. Rather than accept defeat, Rowling doubled down on some of her statements.

Restoring her reputation and brands will take time, effort, and money. The jury’s still out on whether she will be able to overcome these challenges or if her brand is permanently altered.

Contact InternetReputation Today

There are many other bad crisis management examples, but you can prevent being one of them by taking matters into your hands.

To learn more about how to manage a reputation and protect it against emerging crises, call InternetReputation today at 941-259-4554, or check out our blog for even more ways to manage brands and reputations.