What it’s Like to be a Celebrity Personal Assistant

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a celebrity personal assistant?

Perhaps it’s a career you’d love to embark on?

We’ve been gathering the goss from former and current personal assistants to the rich and famous, to get the real lowdown on what it is actually like to work as a celebrity personal assistant for the stars.

While everyone spoke to us in confidence, so we won’t be naming any celeb names, we can pass on the tips and the honest truth to anyone looking to break into this fascinating industry.

It can be exhausting

Most celebrity personal assistants tell us that they’ve never known hard work quite like it, reporting weekly workloads of 50 hours plus on occasion.

Long nights seem to be par for the course, and when you do get some time off, you invariably get a call about something.

There’s no real time away from this job, you’re always on call. One celeb personal assistant us that they would regularly get messages from their employer on their day off for something trivial like they’d mislaid their sunglasses or couldn’t find a friend’s cell phone number.

You’re often on the move

Celebs tend to travel a lot, for work or for vacation, and their assistant is quite likely to go with them.

This has its positives and its negatives.

You’ll get to travel the world, but perhaps not truly get to enjoy it.

You may get to fly first class and stay in some of the finest hotels, but you won’t get to choose when and where you go. One celebrity personal assistant found herself alone in a hotel room in Thailand on her 30^th birthday while her employer was at a star-studded event.

You could get some lavish gifts

One of the plus sides of being a celebrity personal assistant is that you may get some expensive presents.

One personal assistant reported that their boss would quickly grow tired of their expensive designer handbags and would give them to their personal assistant on a regular basis. Quite a perk of the job!

In addition, the pay rate for a celebrity personal assistant is usually somewhat higher than that of a regular personal assistant.

Celebs can be demanding and unreasonable

Any boss can be a nightmare for a personal assistant, but the odds are stacked against you when that boss is a celebrity.

Celebs are notorious for their diva behavior, and while you may get lucky and find yourself working for a calm and reasonable celebrity, chances are, over the course of your career as a personal assistant to the famous, you’re going to have your fair share of bad behavior to deal with.

One personal assistant tells us the tale of how their rock star employer would call them up and demand they bring them chocolate cake with whipped cream in the middle of the night.

You might have to turn a blind eye

If your celeb is one that does misbehave, it’s not your place to judge, and it’s likely you’ll have to learn the art of discretion pretty quickly.

You may even be contacted by the press and have to deny something that you know to be true.

Your allegiances lie with your employer. If it’s you who lets slip that a celeb is having surgery, or their marriage is failing, and it ends up on the front page of a newspaper, you’ll soon be out of a job.

It can be very stressful

You need the patience of a saint, the ability to remain calm in a crisis, and be totally unfazed when the stress levels are rising.

This work is hectic and can get overwhelming for even the most proficient multi-tasker.

You may have to relocate

Celebrities may move where the work is, and so, you must too.

If your employer scores a role in a movie or on the stage, they could spend months in another state, or even another country.

They’re likely to want their invaluable assistant by their side, so being flexible and adaptable is very important for celebrity personal assistants.

You never know what you’ll be doing next

If you love a challenge, and a job that changes from one minute to the next, then becoming a celebrity personal assistant could be a great option.

You’ll rarely hear a celebrity personal assistant say their job is dull!

One personal assistant tells us that they would get to work in the morning planning to do some filing, only to find themselves taking the celeb’s kids on rides at Disney World a few hours later, or booking a last-minute trip to an awards ceremony in London. They just went with the flow and had some exciting adventures.   

You might get to meet other famous people

Celebs love to hang around with other famous people, so one of the benefits of being a personal assistant to a celebrity is getting to meet some other high-profile stars.

You mustn’t get starstruck though, even if you meet your idol!

You may also get to dress up to the nines and attend some glitzy events, opportunities that ordinary folk just don’t get.

This job is hard work, but it certainly gives you some fun memories to look back on.

You have little time for a life of your own

Perhaps the most common complaint we’ve heard from celebrity personal assistants is how little time you get to live your own life.

This is a tough career for someone with a partner or children. This can be an exciting and rewarding job for someone single, but if you decide to marry, settle down, and start a family, there will be little choice but to change your career.

The hours are long, you could be jetting off around the world at a moment’s notice, and you’ll usually be required to be on hand whenever needed, either in person or via phone.

This lifestyle just doesn’t work if you’re a parent with young children to look after or you have caring responsibilities for elderly parents or even pets.

If you can’t just drop everything to tend to your employer’s needs, the job is not for you.