Celebrities are constantly in the public eye, and when it comes to the legal system, it seems they somehow use their celebrity to their advantage. Take supermodel Naomi Campbell for example. Her housekeeper accused her of repeated physical abuse over a ten-year span. She faced a felony charge that could have sent her to prison for seven years, but instead, a judge sentenced her to a mere five days’ community service and ordered her to pay $363. She also had to take anger management classes according to The New York Post.

But what if a non-celebrity was in the same situation? Would the results be the same? My guess is no.

This special celebrity treatment is coming up again now that President Trump is in office.

At the Women’s March this year, singer, Madonna caused a major uproar in the crowds with her outrage when she admitted “I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House, but thought it would not change anything.” reported by YourNewsWire.com. Many believed her speech was more or less of a speech and more a call to action to fuel an idea” to “assassinate” Trump. The Secret Service would have clung themselves in the blink of an eye if any of the marchers in the crowd said what Madonna said on stage. Although the main argument is that Madonna never threatened to blow up the white house.

This is true, she did not give a “threat”  but only publicly expressed her fantasy that is idolized by millions of fans listening to every word she speaks. Madonna received zero punishment or backlash for her inappropriate physical fantasy.

“Every celebrity case I’ve been involved in – I’ve been involved in a great many – the one thing you can be sure of is they don’t get the same justice as everybody else. It could be worse, it could be better, it’s never the same,” said Alan Dershowitz to The New York Post, Harvard law professor and pugnacious lawyer. Depending on the case, a celebrity’s verdict will be different than that of the average citizen or criminal. Many similar issues involve a scale of “bad”, where a celebrity is judged by how out there and illegal their charge is. Whereas an average citizen will be sentenced major jail time, and treason for any sort of violence threat towards the government.

So while the famous are rich in terms of wealth, they are also rich in terms of the expensive legal defense they can afford. Unfortunately, this is not something we can change, but what we can change is the special treatment given in law. There is no person or circumstance that is above law. The law is absolute and final.