Personal lives can make or break a star's brand name

By SAMANTHA ETTUS
Scripps Howard News Service
10-JUN-04

All in the celebrity world seem to be watching Jennifer Lopez' personal life this week. While many wonder whether she will become the modern-day Elizabeth Taylor, I am more intrigued by how she will manage her career amid the fanfare of her quickie marriage to Marc Anthony.

Yet, Jennifer isn't the only celebrity balancing a high-flying career with a personal life while living in the spotlight. Countless stars live a juggling act, and how they manage their personal lives can have deep ramifications on their careers. While in Jennifer's case the impact of her choices will likely be negative, many stars have used their personal lives to boost their careers.

This week we look at three celebrities, and how management of their private lives affects their careers and personal brands: Jennifer Lopez, Demi Moore and Star Jones.

Are their personal lives overshadowing their careers or enhancing them?

The brand-assets meter measures brand management and ranges from $ to $$$$.

Jennifer Lopez

Lopez is a mega-star with a coveted movie and music career and a successful fragrance and line of clothing. She came from a working-class background to achieve at the highest level in multiple industries.

Yet even a cursory glance reveals her utterly chaotic personal life. In the past 10 years, she has been married three times and engaged four, the most recent engagement to Ben Affleck ending less than six months before her wedding to singer Marc Anthony. At this point, her roller-coaster personal life threatens to overshadow her exceptional career.

Just as the hoopla from her broken engagement to Affleck was dying down, she thrust herself right back into the gossip columns with a suspiciously abrupt marriage to Anthony, overshadowing the film she is currently working on.

For her sake, let's hope she has the last laugh. Should her latest attempt at finding love prove lasting, she and Anthony will form one of the most powerful couples in entertainment _ he being the most luminous star in Latin America and she being the megastar that she is. If not, Jennifer's empire could be threatened by her puzzling personal choices. Stay tuned.

Brand: A$ets

Demi Moore

Who would have imagined that a relationship with a younger Hollywood hunk could resurrect Demi's career?

The combination of her comeback cameo in "Charlie's Angels" and a high-profile romance with 26-year-old Ashton Kutcher has propelled Demi Moore back into the Hollywood spotlight, and it seems to be paying off. Her romance has lasted a full year now (equivalent to a decade in Hollywood years), and she has been working again, too. Her involvement with a younger man _ an icon of MTV youth, no less _ has cast upon her a renewed sex appeal, which should strengthen her ability to secure roles opposite today's leading men. Demi just may have found the proverbial fountain of youth for the cadre of former female Hollywood leads.

Brand: A$$$ets

Star Jones

The energetic former-prosecutor-turned-"The View" co-host has enhanced her newfound fame by wisely managing her personal life. With a permanent seat on the sidelines at New York Knicks games, she's stolen camera time from the players and established herself as a fixture of the New York social scene.

Her marriage proposal by boyfriend Al Reynolds was appropriately attention-grabbing, taking place among hordes of cameras and celebrities at half-time of the NBA All-Star game in Los Angeles.

She continued to capitalize on the attention by welcoming her fiance on "The View" to talk about the engagement. By inviting her fans into the process rather than pushing them away, Star satisfied her fans' appetite by giving them the scoop directly. She has managed to increase her own stardom by living her personal life in the spotlight. And her upcoming nuptials will be star-worthy even without an equally famous fiance by her side.

Brand: A$$$ets

Remember: the most dependable road to the top is to treat your brand as your greatest asset.

(Samantha Ettus, president of Ettus Media Management, is a leading voice on personality-driven brands. Her first book, "The Experts' Guide to 100 Things Everyone Should Know How To Do" (Random House), will be published in September. For more information, go to www.theexpertsguideto.com.)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.shns.com)