Mischa Barton, Thora Birch, Kaley Cuoco, Elisha Cuthbert, Kirsten Dunst, Scarlett Johansson, Keira Knightley, Lindsay Lohan, Jena Malone, Mandy Moore, Hayden Panettiere, Natalie Portman, Brittany Snow and Michelle Trachtenberg. Those are the names linked on starletlinks.com that are proven to be smokers. This means that of the names linked on the site in the age category over 16, 35% smokes. This is higher than the average in the normal population, the normal number for women in the United States is 22%.

Some things I have to say before going further into this is that these are the people that are proven to smoke. There might be others that do a very good job of hiding it. And of course I also don’t know how much these people smoke, they could be social smokers. But one thing is certain, they do smoke. Personally I think it’s a horrible habit; though I have personal reasons for that. But I don’t think any less of people that do smoke.

But why is the percentage of smokers so high in Hollywood? And why do they start so young? I think there are multiple reasons, I remember an interview with Shannon Doherty, she’s way past the starlet age but it does show a point. She once had to smoke in a role; she liked it so she kept doing it. I don’t know how often this happens but it shows it does happen.

At first she denied it but these days she can be spotted holding a cigarette quite frequently.

Sometimes they are forced to smoke in a role even if they’re still young. Even if they smoke herbal cigarettes they still have to inhale. And something a lot of people don’t know is that herbal cigarettes can be more harmful than normal ones because of the high tar content. The other obvious one is peer pressure of course, but that facto applies to normal teenagers. But maybe the pressure is even higher in that group of people. Smoking is also expensive; these people have enough money to afford it. But just because you can afford it would be quite strange as a reason.

Then there’s the stress reason of course, people that smoke to relieve stress. The business might be stressful but smokers need to smoke to be calmed down, non-smokers don’t. So it comes down to that I just don’t know why, I probably don’t know enough about the exact social situation in Hollywood.

But one thing I don’t get is why deny it? Someone either smokes or not, but celebrities seem to try to hide it in a lot of cases. There are plenty of interviews where a celebrity denies that they smoke; when they’re spotted by the paparazzi holding a cigarette a week later it’s not that convincing. So what other things are they lying about? Kirsten Dunst is a good example of that, she still denies it but is spotted smoking frequently.

Kirsten Dunst doesn’t smoke.

Of course there are also cases where it’s the opposite; Scarlett Johansson openly admits she smokes. Even to keep down the hungry feeling at times, it’s not a healthy thing to do but at least she’s being honest about it. And I’ve actually never seen a picture of her smoking in public.

But it’s not only the stars themselves that are being weird about smoking; the stars also are being accused that they’re smokers while they’re not. As soon as someone has a raspy voice it seems that certain fans, media or haters believe that someone is a smoker. Sometimes people just have a naturally raspy voice.

But I can understand they try to deny that they do smoke. For a lot of their fans celebrities are perfect, if they turn out to smoke that’s one less thing that’s perfect about them. If you look at the other extreme they might end up doing everything their idol does. Or they’re just ashamed that they smoke, but in any case I just hope they wouldn’t. Doesn’t mean that I think less of any of them, it just means we might not be able to enjoy for very long. So just quit.

Written by bvang

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 3rd, 2007 at 9:13 am and is filed under Brittany Snow, Editorials, Elisha Cuthbert, Jena Malone, Kaley Cuoco, Keira Knightley, Kirsten Dunst, Lindsay Lohan, Mandy Moore, Michelle Trachtenberg, Mischa Barton, Scarlett Johansson, Thora Birch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.