US Weekly is sporting a cover this week with earth-shattering news: celebrities get plastic surgery! A-listers, even!!

Why anyone would be surprised by this– you mean people that make their living off of their looks get work done?– is really the only interesting thing about this cover.

Now I did spend almost 2 years living in LA– working in the entertainment industry even– so I may have a skewed view here.

But it really is just common sense.

Not to mention tax deductible (just like the cost of J-Lo’s butt insurance)! As it should be.

A commercial real estate broker gets a deduction for the face lift on his strip mall, right? Why shouldn’t Teri Hatcher be entitled to the same?

So if it’s just business, why do celebs consistently lie about having work done?

As any decent publicist will tell you, a celeb’s success or failure is determined by the public’s ability to relate to them.

Stars! They’re just like US!!

Except they get to write off the cost of tabloid subscriptions and plastic surgery come April 15.

But I digress.

Admitting to plastic surgery consumption is considered a no-no because of fears that said public will think a star is ‘fake’. Of course, if the work is obvious and not explainable otherwise (like Star Jones’s weight loss or Ashlee Simpson’s schozz) it becomes necessary to cop to it… but only as a last resort.

To wit: how long did we have to listen to Ms. Jones droll on about Pilates as she shrank before our eyes on The View? And we all know how that turned out.

Yes, she eventually copped to the gastro-bypass surgery… while trying to gain public goodwill in order to promote her talk show/book/whatever. Needless to say, whatever it was bombed.

After all, while it’s one thing to be ‘fake’, nothing inspires public hatred like being branded a liar. Michael Jackson, anyone?

In the end, if a celeb must cop to plastic surgery, said celeb is better off if he or she can manage to remain relate-able in the process.

Pseudo-celeb/publicity whore Heidi Montag did this beautifully: Revenge Plastic Surgery! She finagled a cover-story and maybe even elicited sympathy:

“The boys in high school made fun of my flat chest!”

Being the subject of ridicule in High School? Now who can’t relate to that?

“I hated my body!”

Hatred of one’s own body? The horror!  Pass the Kleenex!

Of course, everyone knows The Hills is fake… and Heidi’s ‘engagement’ is too (let’s hope- have you seen the ring?)

So maybe she figured she had nothing to lose and everything to gain here? Everyone already thought she was fake, and sort of felt sorry for her, because she’s engaged to a psychotic douche-bag.

And it’s much easier to relate to those you sympathize with. That, my friends, is another publicist’s maxim.

In closing, I’d like to share a little gem I learned whilst working in the Industry: If no one knows you had anything done, it is not plastic surgery. You are genetically blessed… with brains that told you to go to the subtle Plastic Surgeon. But still.

Ooh, and Kyra Sedgwick is right. Botox doesn’t count. It’s like coloring one’s hair.

No, really!!

‘Til next time…

Vapidly,

Jenna