Why are the personal failings, moral transgressions, and general views of celebrities newsworthy?
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People are social animals. We are adapted to care about the actions and opinions of high status individuals in our groups because those can have a big impact on our own lives.
Modern societies are much larger than hunter gatherer bands of 50 or so people, and to tie them together we tend to wind up with “celebrities” or similar individuals who fill the same sort of mental slot as high status individuals in smaller groups. Of course, their personal issues are now much less practically relevant to everyone else, but people still pay attention to them because they still fill the same role and that’s how people are wired to behave.
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