The Triumph of the Celebrity Endorsement

Shilling stars used to be accused of “selling out.” Now they’re hailed as savvy investors and giving the performances of their careers.

When I learned that Catherine Zeta-Jones would be appearing on a website called TalkShopLive to launch a new product line under her Casa Zeta-Jones label, I was not sold. I loved watching Zeta-Jones ooze charisma across a movie screen, in “Chicago,” in “High Fidelity,” even in “America’s Sweethearts.” But recently I had mostly seen her featured in gross clickbait slide shows stuck to the bottoms of articles — the kind with dire headlines like “What Happened to Catherine Zeta-Jones?” — and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer. Still, I swiped unthinkingly over to Instagram, where she had posted a video teasing to her appearance. Zeta-Jones materialized amid a seemingly endless kitchen arranged with voluptuous glassware and lit like a near-death experience. “Well, hello there,” she purred. Zeta-Jones presented the mundane details of her advertorial livestream as if languidly ushering the viewer into a posh society event. “I shall be launching my very own Casa Zeta-Jones coffee line,” she said. “With you. Live. On my TalkShopLive channel. Monday, March the 22nd. Six o’clock Eastern Standard Time. So it will be coffee with Catherine. Chat. Coffee. Chat. A few mugs thrown in there.” She said this last part, about the mugs, with such a charmingly insouciant shrug that by the time she signed off — “Can’t wait to see you, cheers” — I felt, actually, happy for her.