Every coin has its two sides and fame is no exception. Being a famous personality is surely tempting to many out there yet those who achieve it, encounter the unshared dark side of it. Rashida Jones shares the side effects of gaining early fame which turned her life upside down. Jones was born in a house where both her parents came from social minorities yet both of them managed to become renowned celebrities of their time. Jones’s father, Quincy Jones, is a black American composer and musician. Rashida Jones’ mother, Peggy Lipton, is an actress-model and singer from Jewish background.
Rashida Jones is a well-known American actress who rose to fame by playing Anna Perkins in the hit NBC comedy series, Parks and Recreation. Parks and Recreation comprise a total of 7 seasons which ran between 2009 and 2015. Rashida Jones opens up about her difficult last years when the actress went through a lot within a short period as explains the dark side of early fame which distanced the Our Idiot Brother star from her mother.
Rashida Jones On Toxic Fame
Rashida Jones who had initially planned to become a lawyer/judge was completing her studies at Harvard but ended up on stage because of the company of her friends who have become comedy writers. Jones explained that being in the company of witty friends made her feel she too wanted to do it as her career.
But who would have thought that Jones’ decision to enter the fame business will cost her, her own mother. Jones shared that because of the early fame, she could feel getting distant from her late mother, Peggy Lipton, who died on May 11, 2019. #blackAF actress explained the unshared toxicity of being famous which carries the potential to deteriorate the best of your relations.
“It changed the dynamic of our household. People think [fame is] this wonderful, magical heal-all, and it’s actually the opposite. It can be a poison. It can be intoxicating and destructive.”
Rashida Jones On Losing Her Mother
Jones explained how she lost her mother and became a mother herself in the same period. The Social Network star added that going through so many changes one after the other gave her no time to adjust to the immense sadness as she explained the similarity between birth and death.
“This has been a very emotionally intense couple of years. … It was sort of like back-to-back-to-back-to-back, just wrenching, pulling my heart in all different directions. I was in grief shock. I don’t even know if that’s a word, but I was just not in my body at all and just had a baby. I was doubly not in my body. The thing that’s the craziest about birth and death is just the utter rawness of feeling. I still feel this way, I think.”
Jones, who co-wrote Toy Story 4 tried her best to describe the gloomy life experiences that she went through in the past few years. The Office star went through a lot as Jones added that she neither can surpass it nor can run from her past.
“It’s like something cracks in you. It’s very binary, both things — becoming a mother and losing my mother — like, there’s my life before and there’s my life after. And strangely, there’s something that’s not recognizable before those two things happened. And it’s just this utter rawness of emotion where it doesn’t matter where I am, what I’m doing. If I’m overwhelmed by that grief or that joy, that’s it. I have to feel that thing. I can’t suppress it. I can’t run away from it. It’s just there.”
Rashida Jones definitely deserves applause for opening up about the toxicity of fame and the pain of losing someone dear. Her story will surely inspire many out there who are struggling to keep their relations smooth and healthy. Everyone encounters difficult times and phases but it’s up to the individual to fight back and carve their own pathways out of the dark phases of life.
Source: npr.org
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