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4.2.12 WC: 191694 The most frequent misconception about celebrities is that they must be “so fascinating.” The opposite is often the case. Most of my famous clients, with some important exceptions, have been uninteresting. Some have been outright boring. We tend to confuse their public persona and surroundings, which fascinate us, with their private personalities, which are often banal, mundane and self-centered. Many of them have no ideas, no insights and little to say about matters outside the narrow spheres of their professional lives. Yet we listen to their often uninformed opinion on important issues of the day affecting the world, just because they have a handsome face, strong muscles or other talents or attributes that are irrelevant to their presumed credibility on matters about which they are opining. Celebrities may seem fascinating from a distance, but reality, viewed close up, it is often very different. Their cases and controversies may be fascinating, in part because of who they are, in part because of what they are accused of doing, and in part because the public obsesses over celebrity. The two cases on which I will now discuss received enormous media coverage. Both, not surprisingly, involve sex. Both involve world famous people who are accused of having inappropriate sexual contact with inappropriate young women. Unlike most celebrities, both of these were fascinating people. The paradigm of a famous person being tried under the Klieg lights of worldwide media coverage was, of course, the impeachment of President William Jefferson Clinton, in which I played several roles: witness, advocate, television commentator, book author and friend. A final category includes very famous celebrities who have hired me to keep their name and alleged wrongs out of the media. I have had several such cases, and for obvious reasons, I cannot disclose the names of these celebrity clients. Nor can I disclose the names of clients who have successfully used their celebrity to avoid the consequences of their actions. 264 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017351