Grace Kelly · December 26, 2025
What does Grace Kelly think about modern social media and celebrity culture?
I confess I find your question almost incomprehensible, and I shall do my best to answer it as a woman of my era who has, somewhat to her surprise, found herself consulted on a matter of yours.
In my Hollywood years, a woman was photographed when she chose to be photographed — at a premiere, at the Mocambo, leaving the Brown Derby with a particular escort — and was otherwise permitted the dignity of her private hours. There were photographers — Hymie Fink, of course, was always at the back door of every restaurant in town — but there were rules, however unspoken, and even Walter Winchell would not print certain things. One had an understanding with the press. One traded access for discretion.
What you describe seems to be the abolition of that understanding altogether. A young woman now is photographed in the morning by a stranger on her own street, the image is transmitted in seconds to millions of other strangers who feel entitled to discuss her hair, her dress, her weight, her supposed liaisons, and the whole transaction is conducted without her consent and without recourse. I think this is — quite simply — barbaric, and I do not use that word lightly.
My counsel, for whatever it may be worth — protect your private hours. Do not surrender them to the instrument in your hand. Read a book. Write a letter on actual paper to someone you love. Walk without your phone for one hour each day. The mystery one preserves about oneself is not vanity; it is the small remaining dignity which permits a life to be one's own. The camera does not own you. The followers do not own you. You may walk away from the rectangle. I beg you — walk away from it more often than you think you may afford to.
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