No, The Los Angeles Wildfires Aren’t The Great Equaliser
If you stumbled upon Khloé Kardashian’s Instagram account in the last week, you may have sensed a feeling of frustration from the reality TV star. Kardashian, the youngest of Robert Kardashian and Kris Jenner’s daughters, has been praising her 304 million followers on the app for their humanity. She’s been encouraging people to employ empathy towards others as Los Angeles continues to face the most destructive wildfire in its history, having claimed the lives of 25 so far, with many concerned that the real figure could actually be much higher.
In many ways, as looters and suspected arsonists have run rampant across the city as the flames continue to engulf large swathes of the City of Angels, Kardashian is right — now is indeed a time for humanity and empathy. The real question though is where Kardashian's own humanity and empathy has been for, not only the state of our planet, but also for L.A. mayor Karen Bass, who the Good American co-founder has blasted as a ‘joke’ for approving cuts to the city’s fire-department budget?
It didn’t take long before Kardashian was challenged on her comments. Actor Yvette Nicole Brown posted to her Instagram a screenshot of a Rolling Stone article from 2022 that reported that Khloé and her sister Kim Kardashian’s homes had used hundreds of thousands of gallons more water than their allotted monthly limit. 'This is from 2022 when Los Angeles was in the midst of a drought,' Brown wrote under the screenshot. 'Every citizen was asked to conserve for the good of everyone else. Y’know because of fires? This is how some citizens responded to the ask. Is THIS a joke @khloekardashian?'
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Here’s the thing: Kardashian might have escaped the flames threatening her Hidden Hills home to a place free from fire. Removed from the heat, she might have found herself full of humanity and empathy (and understandably so for the estimated 140,000 displaced people who have been forced to evacuate) but until she extends that same attention to the care of the planet amid a critical moment for climate change, she might as well be fanning the flames with her bare hands. Perhaps the most humanitarian and empathetic thing that Kardashian could do would be to engage with actively finding — and engaging with — solutions to the climate crisis? It's unknown how many private jet flights Kardashian took in 2024 (she's understood not to own one herself), but her sister Kim's Gulfstream G650 private jet, which she has openly admitted to sharing with her family, took 236 flights in 2024, travelling 419,532 miles. Private jets are five to 14 times more polluting per passenger than commercial flights and 50 times more polluting than trains. Kardashian has worked with fast fashion retailers, Shein and Boohoo, previously, too. I wonder where her humanity or empathy was for the workers of both of those brands who have experienced exploitation at the hands of their employers. Now perhaps isn't the time to blast leaders as 'jokes' when, as somebody who wields a considerable amount of influence herself and is therein something of a leader herself, she has lead with such disregard for our planet.
As is often the case, this is far from an isolated incident. Leonardo DiCaprio, the vocal and vehement climate activist, was photographed exiting his private jet this week after reportedly decamping from his Los Angeles home to Los Cabos, Mexico. ‘Climate change is real,' DiCaprio famously said as he accepted an award at the Academy Awards in 2016. 'It is happening right now, it is the most urgent threat facing our entire species and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating.'
The flames of these fires can't differentiate between rich and poor. They're blind to the privilege we see around us every day. When they first erupted, they burned a roster of celebrity homes down. It felt strange to see embers flickering where multi-million dollar estates once stood in the Pacific Palisades. It felt strange to see celebrities' homes burned to the ground, nothing but a pool of ashes splaying across the ground. Yet, their houses might have gone up in their flames, but their wealth hasn't — and that's the difference. The real chasm, as always, begins to appear as time goes on.
Natural disasters don’t discriminate, but wealth does. Reports emerged over the weekend that, amid evacuations from across Los Angeles, residents had fled to the city's stable of five-star hotels, including L'Ermitage, Four Seasons and the storied Beverly Hills Hotel, which, according to the Los Angeles Times, graduated from 40% full to entirely booked as soon as the fires had started burning. Millionaires are, according to reports, attempting to outbid each other to bag the biggest rooms as they seek refuge in the confines of a luxury lair.
In many ways, none of this ought to come as a great surprise. Celebrity culture in the digital age is an assault on our senses. It’s in the air we breathe, the content we consume, it’s entirely inescapable. It’s the same celebrity culture that's facilitated the rabid proliferation of overconsumption that has contributed to the decimation of planet Earth. Yet once again, it’s taken a natural disaster to prove that these occurrences are not equalisers. So long as the rich stay rich, they never will be. Gal Gadot's orchestrated virtual recording of 'Imagine' during the pandemic was a veritable tone-deaf example of celebrities attempting to show their humility. Celebrities sang, ensconced in physical embodiments of their wealth, and now, amid the wildfires, they flee to their second, third and fourth homes. They have places to seek refuge in, so many don't. They board private jets to flee the country. They have the means to escape that so many don't, and therein lies the difference.
In many ways, blame can be laid at our door for anointing these cultural deities to the vertiginous heights of fame (and the Pacific Palisades). We’ve worshipped at the altar of celebrity for so long that many of these figures have monetised our support, amassing vast amounts of wealth that have lined them with a sense of infallibility. The juxtaposition between the rich and poor is in many ways more pronounced in Los Angeles than anywhere else — the city has the second highest homeless rate in America — and one can’t help but wonder where, if the wealthy were indeed as abundant in humanity and empathy as they are in financial resources, we might be. The flames of the wildfires might be blind to the privilege we see around us every day, yet from the ashes, it will be the wealthy who rise first.
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