Ask any celeb – you know you’ve made it when you get a star on Hollywood Boulevard’s Walk of Fame. At least that’s what we’re told right?

Turns out you don’t have to be a celebrity to get memorialised on the famous walkway – but more on that later.

The walkway has been in the news a lot lately after Trump’s star was destroyed with a pickaxe  – the last in a series of star-related protests aimed at the current US president. The Guardian reports that:

The president’s terrazzo plaque, which was unveiled on 17 January 2007, has been scrawled on, and sledgehammered by protesterssince he began his White House campaign. In 2016, an artist called Plastic Jesus built a 6in wall, complete with razor wire, around the star in a response to Trump’s aggressive policies on immigration. Last month, a man was arrested in Hollywood for all but demolishing the president’s star with a pickaxe.

Following this, the West Hollywood City Council voted unanimously to have the star removed, but it turns out it’s not that easy.

The council has no jurisdiction over the tributes, which are owned and overseen instead by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

Trump is not the only politician to have a star on the Walk of Fame – former president Ronald Reagan has been celebrated there since the first plaques were unveiled in February 1960, and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger earned his place in 1987.

Neither plaque seems to have attracted the same vitriol and hands-on protest as Trump’s, although Reagan’s star was circled by peaceful animal rights activists in 1981, and in 1987 director Julien Temple removed a shot of it being urinated on from his video for David Bowie’s Day-In Day-Out, before it was accepted for rotation on MTV. Bowie was granted his own star a decade later.

And it’s not only American presidents that get their stars vandalised. Following his conviction for sexual assault earlier this year, Bill Cosby’s star was graffitied with the word ‘rapist’. When the Council was approached to remove the star,

“The answer is no,” said Leron Gubler, president and chief executive of the chamber. “Once a star has been added to the Walk, it is considered a part of the historic fabric of the Hollywood Walk of Fame.” That hardline refusal goes for other celebrities facing #MeToo accusations of sexual misconduct too, including Kevin Spacey and Brett Ratner.

The ‘historic fabric’ in question contains a number of other problematic names, including Morgan Freeman and Sylvester Stallone, both of whom have been accused of sexual assault. Even Gig Youngs star remains despite the NYPD’s conclusion that he brutally murdered his wife in 1978.

So if it’s virtually impossible to get a star removed, what does it take to get one in the first place?

Presence on the Walk of Fame is by no means an automatic honor – a celebrity has to be nominated, then they have to accept it and someone has to cough up $40,000. The money goes to the upkeep of the plaques, and the unveiling ceremony, livestreamed around the world.

…The Walk of Fame is both wildly inconsistent (Henry and Peter Fonda, but not Jane; no Madonna or Prince) and predictably biased. Analysis reveals that the Walk of Fame is overwhelmingly white, with just 5.1% of stars belonging to African American celebrities. And corporations are taking up space that could be given to those who are missing out. Brands including Absolut Vodka and L’Oreal have bought their own stars, for $1m apiece.

Hold up – vodka gets a star? By that logic, if  you have $1 million (That’s roughly R13.8 million) lying around, could you also be memorialised on the walk of fame?

Nope, sorry – you have to be a super-rich corporation or a celebrity willing to jump through financial and administration hoops.

You can check out the criteria HERE if you don’t believe me.

[source:guardian]