Regarding Celebrity Gone Awry

Talent, or the lack thereof, has also been a factor in many of these [celebrity] meltdowns. The songwriter Joni Mitchell long ago complained that Madonna had "knocked the importance of talent out of the arena." That's true of more than a few present-day celebrities, who, like travelers bumped up to business class on an overbooked flight, seem to owe their success less to any virtue or effort of their own than to whatever combination of accidents put them there. (de gustibus column in today's Wall Street Journal).