Athletes/Celebrities and DUIs

With all the stuff with Josh Hancock and Paris "I'm a ridiculous whore with no self-respect" Hilton, I think it begs for the discussion of why does this happen? Obviously, lack of money is not a problem, so why can't these dumb mopes cal for a taxi/car/limo? Is it an ego thing? Do they feel that they're above the law? An accident can't happen to them? Or do people like these suffer from just plain bad judgement and idiocy?

 

i would guess all of the above.

 

I think you'll get a lot of responses at about 3 a.m., when the drunks get home and post.

 

I too think it's all of the above. With Hilton, it's probably mostly stupidity. You can tell that just by watching her.
But we had a columnist years ago who made a great point. He wrote that athletes busted with drugs were especially stupid -- why did they need to alter their reality? They have great lives. We should be the ones using drugs.

 

Sweeeeeeeeeeet.

 

Same reason anyone else gets a DUI. Really poor judgment... made worse by the fact that you're drunk.

 

The feeling of invincibiity and being bullet-proof.
"I'm a star. I can get away with it."

 

My line of thinking is this: these people KNOW they're under the microscope. Some reporters (not including ANY of us, of course ) live in wait for some famous person to make a bone-headed mistake like this and bring them down in the muck... yet they apparently just don't give a fuck. Maybe it's just me, but I can't grasp that possible reasoning.

Oh yeah, you could potentially die in an accident or kill someone else, too. Forgot about that small little detail.

 

PC got it when he said they get them for the same reason any other person gets them - not that there's always just one reason. Some people might feel above it, celebrity or not. Some people get them because they think they're not that drunk. Some know they're taking a chance, and take it anyway.
Then, like PhilaYank said, some celebrities just don't give a gosh darn because they really are that stupid. But I can't imagine a non-celebrity person saying, "Well, nobody's really going to CARE if I get caught, so what the hell? I can take the punishment."

 

I wasn't going to name names

 

That could be my favorite Chris Berman nickname.