The role of a celebrity personal assistant is incredibly varied.
It’s a position that brings with it hard work and great rewards, often in equal measure.
It can be an exciting job and it can equally be incredibly stressful. Your client may bestow fantastic gifts and opportunities upon you, but there’s also a good chance they’ll be demanding and high-maintenance.
If you’re looking for a job where you’ll never be bored, a celebrity personal assistant certainly fits the bill!
Let us now take a closer at the tasks that a personal assistant to a celebrity is likely to be involved in…
Administrative tasks
All personal assistant positions involve a lot of admin work, and this applies to celebrity personal assistants just as much.
Fielding calls and correspondence
Celebrities get a lot of calls and emails! It could well be your job to deal with them all and determine what is actually important enough to warrant the attention of your VIP employer.
You’ll have to quickly get to know what level of priority they place on various contacts and opportunities.
Does a call from their BFF get put right through, or should you take a message?
If a news channel calls asking for an appearance on TV, is this something they’d love to do, or do you need to politely refuse on their behalf?
Organizing their calendar
Celebrities are busy people and they certainly have packed calendars!
It is highly likely that coordinating all their social and professional engagements is going to be down to you.
You’ll have to ensure that the magazine interview doesn’t clash with their birthday vacation and that you haven’t scheduled their Botox appointment ten minutes before an award show on live television.
You’ll get to know their preferences, which restaurants to book them into, and whether or not they’re a morning person or a night owl, in order to juggle their calendar and ensure every day runs smoothly.
Keeping accounts
Celebrities with a huge income and a lavish spending habit often have quite complex finances that you may need to keep track of.
Of course no doubt they will also have an accountant to deal with the details, but keeping track of day to day transactions would well fall within your remit.
Personal errands
The work of a celebrity personal assistant can often find you doing the unexpected.
You never quite know what a celebrity will want, but any good personal assistant will be ready with their excellent problem-solving skills to meet any request that is thrown at them.
You may have to run out and make purchases for them, perhaps an outfit for an important event, or a gift for a birthday party.
You may be asked to step in as chauffeur or even as a friend, to accompany them on a trip out.
Helping with the household
If you’re working closely with a celebrity in their own home, then you could well be charged with many household duties.
It’s unlikely you’ll be thrust into the world of cleaning or cooking, they’ll have other staff for that, but you could be expected to organize contractors for any work that needs doing, deal with hiring household staff, and allocating their duties, and undertaking home admin tasks such as purchasing insurance policies and paying the bills.
Arranging travel, and accompanying them on their journeys
Organizing travel is a common task of any personal assistant and most celebrities are frequent travellers.
A top business person will seek overseas opportunities, a rock star will go on tour, and an author will travel to promote their latest best seller.
It will be down to the celebrity personal assistant to ensure their travel experience is perfect.
With a high-profile client, this will involve an extra level of organization.
Of course, you’ll be booking the very best accommodation and class of air travel, but depending on how famous your employer is, you may have to liaise with airlines and hotels to ensure they are aware of the importance of their upcoming guest, to assure their safety and privacy, and be ready to accommodate their every request.
Celebrities can have very exacting requirements, and so registering their needs ahead of time can save a lot of hassle later. Making their vacation or business trip perfect is all part of the job of the celebrity personal assistant.
As their personal assistant, you could well be asked to travel with them, they’re as likely to need your skills while they’re away as they do when they are at home.
This can be exciting, a chance to see the world and mingle with the rich and famous. However, it can also be lonely.
You may be away from home a lot, away from your family, perhaps sitting alone in a hotel room while your employer enjoys a night out at a star-studded event.
You’ll have no say in when and where you go, but you’ll be expected to be there without question.
Being a celebrity personal assistant is all about putting the celebrity first, and that includes putting them above all aspects of your own personal life. Being a celebrity personal assistant is not well suited to homebodies, or people with young children or family commitments.
Always be discreet and professional
There’s one thing celebrities value above all else, and that is their privacy.
So the ultimate job of a celebrity personal assistant is to be discreet.
Discretion is the absolute key to being successful in this field. Letting slip one secret will result in you losing your job fast, and when word spreads, that pretty much signals the end of your career.
No one wants a personal assistant with loose lips.
Being discreet can actually be harder than you might think. Some secrets are obviously not to be repeated. If you find out your employer is having an illicit affair, or they’ve been chosen to be the next James Bond, it’s clear that this is massively newsworthy and will be all over the media should it get out.
However, you could simply let slip the location for their date night meal, and have it be totally spoilt by paparazzi or a hoard of fans. Then it’s your fault that their evening was ruined.
You also need to be wise. Reporters and investigative journalists can use sneaky tactics to try and wheedle information out of anyone who is connected to a celebrity they are interested in.
You need to be clever enough to never let anything slip out, and you should never tell a celebrity’s secrets to your friends and family. You’re giving them information they’ll be tempted to share, but it’s you who will suffer if they do.
