ONTD Original: A Deep Dive into Celebrity Body Part Insurance

[noodlecookie]

Do you like celebrities? Do you like insurance? No? Ok! While searching for the latest Rita Ora news, I found out surprisingly she hasn't taken out any body part insurance policies. It's definitely within her brand so why not, Rita??

But what I did find was there are far too many of these articles on the web. The aim of this research is to take power away from all the listicles, collate all the ‘crazy celebrity body part insurance policies’ together once and for all and maybe, just maybe, figure out why it keeps happening. I've made graphs. I've even put little watermarks on all the images. See? This is Definitive!!

Content advisory: word-heavy, weird conspiracy twists and turns ahead, grab your tin-foil hats

[Literature review - dive into the deep end]

Literature review - dive into the deep end

Ok so first off this was meant to be a shitpost. This was a lot more complicated than I expected.

Because this is such a lucrative clickbait topic, many policies are repeated across pages of articles, so I was stuck in clickbait purgatory for ages. Nobody can properly source their shit. I provided the most reliable sources I could find.

Before we get into the listicles, let's take a brief look at the origins of celebrity body part insurance.

According to Elizabeth Hubbart in her journal article (1), celebrity body part insurance can be traced back to cast insurance. The first body part insured by a motion picture company was for Douglas Fairbanks Sr in 1934, who had a ‘scarred face’ policy in case he damaged his good looks. There is one insurance claim I found that's a bit earlier than this, but it wasn't initiated by a film company. Presumably, it didn't become popular until film companies started doing this more often.



Figure 1 - research me obsessively
Selected quotes from Hubbart's research. I don't know why she says 'Banderos' not Banderas
Hubbart’s article is mainly a case study into Interview with a Vampire, but she does raise some relevant points:

1. Celebrity insurance was popularised by film companies before it became a publicity stunt, and mostly involved the whole body rather than body parts;
2. Insurance brokers could provide recommendations for alternative scenes, stunts etc. if they felt they were potentially in danger of giving a massive pay-out;
3. Some film companies have bought body part insurance for celebrities with pre-existing conditions.

This was a promising start, so I looked a bit deeper.

I searched Google Scholar because I have a degree and I need to make use of it - I put myself in debt for that fucking piece of paper - and there are a handful of discussions on celebrity insurance. I’m hesitant to use the term ‘research’ since, like this post, a lot of the sources are clickbait websites and most of the links have expired.

Still, I'm highlighting this quote from a paper because I love the strong creepypasta vibes:



Figure 2 - But who was phone
Select quote from Dr Yuvraj Patil's discussion essay on celebrity insurance (2012) (2)
As well as these studies, some studies looked at cast insurance when making a movie, insurance as part of a brand’s endorsement, or a brand taking out insurance in case a celebrity disgraces the brand’s reputation. While these were interesting, they're not part of my focus as they were all cases that involved the whole body.

So, according to the bits of history I found, there's likely many more body part insurance policies that haven't made it to listicle status. For the policies that are shared, they are shared again and again and again...

The listicles I consulted include Yahoo! News, Just Jared, Slate, TMZ, Newsweek, E! Online, Reuters, Time, BBC News, Evening Standard, Page Six, Goal.com, Hello Magazine, Mirror Online, Vogue, People Magazine and Vanity Fair. There is an infinite list of websites that posted the same content with hyperlinks that led to these sites or each other.

From my extensive research, I found exactly 41 celebrity body part insurance claims circulating on these listicles.
37 of these are either confirmed or currently undisputed.
The remaining claims are too dubious or 100% untrue. I explain those in the findings section.

The policies were mostly for North American, European and Australian celebrities. A small number were from India but those all stated the celebrity was only 'approached' or 'considering' a policy. I am sure that other continents have celebrities with body part insurance, but these aren’t reported (there's likely an English-speaking/"western" bias causing this... if you know some celebs in your country with body part insurance, let me know!).

One very surprising finding in my search was there was one listicle website where I couldn’t find a SINGLE article on this - Buzzfeed!

Lastly, I found a coffee-table book called Infographica (3) that summarises the same regurgitated celeb insurance policies, but the authors clearly did not have as much free time as I did, because a lot of the policies they included are lies! DON’T get a life! Do your research!!!

[Methods - how much time do you have]
Methods - how much time do you have

A shit ton of googling was my method. It brought up a whopping 19.9 million search results. After only a couple of pages, the listicles got very repetitive and I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone so I stopped.

I siphoned off all the celeb data into a spreadsheet under the following columns:



Figure 3 - did you know Rita is one of the Dick Clark NYE hosts this year
Visual example of how I organised the data

1. CELEBRITY NAME - I collected all the celebrities I found up until November 2023, so results may vary if anyone decides to replicate this in the future (lol. lmao even).
2. BODY PART INSURED - I ignored anyone who insured their whole body. This was always an actor getting insurance for a film. For example, Daniel Craig (a listicle fave) was discounted from this list as he insured his whole body, not a body part, for Quantum of Solace.
3. AMOUNT (in today’s money) - There's conflicting amounts for older policies, so to keep some level of professionalism in what is essentially a longform shitpost I only listed amounts as a) the most common ones shown, and b) equivalent to today’s inflation rates in USD.
4. BROKER - I wanted to see who’s responsible for these. This was the least interesting part to collect, but it turned out to be an iceberg of massive tinfoil-hat proportions. I'll explain this later. For now, just keep an eye on it.
5. AD/SPONSOR/REASON - most of the policies must have been publicised for a reason, so I figured they are either advertisements and/or part of a sponsorship deal.
6. YEAR - I was as accurate as possible; I used the earliest possible mention I could find. Some of them were blatantly incorrect, such as with actors who were long dead before Just Jared reported they had insurance, so to avoid messing up the data, I have stated the year for those kinds of entries as ‘unknown’.
7. SOURCE - a lot of listicles were written so the writer could pay their rent, so the sources aren't great... but they're the earliest ones I could find. They do not necessarily mean the source is correct. I explain more on this in the discussion section.

[Results - mythbusters and bullshit galore]
Results - mythbusters galore

For the ONTD Doesn’t Read section, I have graphs!



Figure 4 - Insufficient fuuuuunds! You ain't GOT no money! Woo
The body parts, their frequency of being insured, and the total amount of money in the policy (Douglas Fairbanks Sr is missing as his amount is unknown)



Figure 5 - I bruise easily so be gentle when you handle me
All the celebrities and their body parts in the listicles, listed



Figure 6 - We're all trying to find the guy who did this
The insurance brokers involved (the other 2.8% parts not labelled here are Harry Ritz and 'multiple companies for one policy')



Figure 7 - My mother's glamour lives on and on
The decades in which the insurance policies occurred (the other 2.8% parts not labelled are the 20s and 70s)



Figure 8 - I like some of the Kanye songs but what the FUCK does he know about insurance
A word cloud of some reasons why the body parts were insured
Full details of all of these can be found in the spreadsheet linked below.

One of the first things I noticed was that a significant number of these policies appear from nowhere, with no visible sponsors, reasons or brokers, so they could all be lies fed by PR that are now circulating the internet with nobody checking them. Here is a list of the most commonly shared celebrity policies that are lies, fairytales and fallacies:

1. LIES: DOLLY PARTON did NOT insure her breasts. (4)
2. LIES: JULIA ROBERTS did NOT insure her smile. She said, “I mean, if my smile was insured, there would be someone at my house on a nightly basis saying, ‘You need to floss longer.’” (5)
3. LIES: JENNIFER LOPEZ did NOT insure her buttocks. (6)
4. LIES: AMITABH BACHCHAN did NOT insure his voice. (7)
5. LIES: JOHN ABRAHAM did NOT insure his buttocks. He has reportedly been approached to do this. This has been twisted to say that he accepted it. He hasn't. (8)
6. LIES: TOM JONES did NOT insure his chest hair. His representatives say they “hope no one takes this kind of reporting seriously". TOO DAMN LATE. (9)
7. LIKELY LIES: KYLIE MINOGUE hasn’t spoken about insuring her buttocks, yet this is claimed to be true. Given the dates of the sources, it appears to be a publicity stunt in connection with her work with British artist Katerina Jebb. (10)

I also found a lot of sources that said yeah, this person has weird insurance! But the details were sus:

1. DOUBLE DUTY: DAVID BECKHAM claimed to have insured his legs multiple times - the first time was for $70 million according to Ripley’s Believe It Or Not (I'll choose 'Not'), and the second time was what I logged in the spreadsheet which was the record-breaking $195 million. Maybe next year we'll get a new amount. (11)
2. DO NOT FEMINIZE MY TONGUE: Despite GENE SIMMONS'S policy circulating with no evidence, I am inclined to believe it since he is very protective of it. When asked about Miley Cyrus’s tongue pose, he said, “It was okay. But that was a girl’s version. It’s like girls’ basketball. It’s as good as girls get at basketball. But you can’t play with the guys.” Ah yes the two genders, Kiss Tongue and Bangerz Tongue. (12)
3. WE'RE JUST NORMAL MEN: JEFF BECK got finger insurance after hacking off the tip of one of them. Seems to be a thing that he and his friends do. (13)

Probably the most disappointing finding was that UK celebrity Mr Methane, who performs hit songs with his farts, could not get his bottom insured by any broker despite trying. (Sad toot - 14)

Click here for the full spreadsheet of raw data with sources.

[Discussion - you (collective online media) sit on a throne of lies]

Discussion - you (collective online media) sit on a throne of lies

The tip of the iceberg

Despite these listicles being everyfuckingwhere, is surprisingly difficult to find reliable sources. Nearly all the sources are poor, and for a significant amount of them, there were no reliable sources at all. Many celebrities have varying amounts of money attached to them depending on which website you see.

Some policies were for different body parts depending on the listicle; for example, there was no unanimous decision on whether Keith Richards insured his whole hand or just his middle finger. The hand policy was the most common, so I listed that one. But yeah, many inconsistencies occurred which made this moment of hyperfixation research difficult.

Everyone can be split into roughly three categories:

1. THE ONLY THING BETTER THAN HAIRSPRAY: Procter & Gamble (who own Head & Shoulders, Braun and Gillette) seem to like taking out insurance policies for their celebrities as a publicity stunt.
2. NOTHING'S GONNA EVER KEEP YOU DOWN: Most sports celebrities seem to take out insurance policies because of the volatile nature of their job.
3. I WANNA WALK LIKE TYRA: The exception to these two categories started with Formula 1's Fernando Alonso, of course. He, like all the other celebs left over in this list, believe that their body parts are ICONIC! enough to be insured for millions. (stream Madison Rose)

Now... back to... this bitch that had a lot to say. Lloyd's of London, what's good

So Lloyd's of London came up a lot. Tin-foil hats on for this section.

Lloyd's seems like a creepy place. Where does all this money go? Are these claims even real? Who can never be sure? Further investigation was needed.



one of these people is responsible for a folder named 'david lee roth - penis'

First off, who are they: Lloyd's is an insurance marketplace that is governed by British law, specifically the Lloyd's Act 1871. It's been around in London since the 17th century and has offices in the USA. In all their business, there's brokers, underwriters and Names. Brokers act as the agencies of the policymakers and underwriters are liable for the claims. Anyone who takes out a policy at Lloyd's is called a Name.

For any boat stans out there, you may know Lloyd's as they used to insure lots of marine stuff, and they proudly say on their website they insured the Titanic. ALLEGEDLY however (don't sue me), they insured the Titanic AFTER it sank. A book written by an insider reported that a New York colleague sent a telegraph instructing them to quickly insure the ship, before the news spread across the UK (15).

The more that I read about Lloyd's, the weirder it got. I'll stick to the main events:

1. Lloyd's almost collapsed in the 1990s from fraud as they announced a record-breaking loss for them of at least $800 million (16). They had hidden their losses from Names and the rest of the market.
2. Lloyd's tried to protect their top Names by decreasing their assets, recruiting new Names to get more assets to absorb the losses while the top Names departed unharmed (a pyramid scheme). Lloyd's called existing Names to cover their losses, and thousands of Names were bankrupted because of this.[tw: suicide mention]At least 30 Names are believed to have taken their own lives because of the cost.
3. In 2012, it was reported that about 15,000 Names were linked to asbestos-related claims in the 70s, 80s and early 90s.
4. The US Senate set up legislation to deal with all the claims of asbestos poisoning and prevent bankrupting all the Names, descendants of Names and insurers (17).

In summary, they have a lot of shit to clean up and they've been cleaning for decades.

The only "scholarly" article I found on Lloyd's of London and its celebrity assets was in Executive Intelligence Review Magazine, which was founded by tinfoil-hat supreme Lyndon LaRouche. For those who aren’t up to date with the aluminium collective, the LaRouche movement was a massive driving force behind the conspiracy that Princess Diana was killed by the Royal Family and Queen Elizabeth II was behind 9/11 (I told you this would get weird). LaRouche is essentially the daddy of Alex Jones and every other conspiracy theorist today.

So, with that said, please can you all back up and give me 50 feet while I wheel in this giant tub of salt that you need to take pinches out of before reading further (18).



Figure 9 - This shit keep going like whoop, like it don't go doop
Graph showing the number of active Names over the years

A basic summary of the article is that it speculates who's behind the asbestos fraud. BUT I zoned in on this graph (Figure 9) that shows the number of Names in the 70s and 80s was very high (there were tax advantages before the asbestos fraud dropped), and then the Names dropped significantly in the early 90s from the reporting of the fraud.

Scroll back up to Figure 7 - the numbers of celebrity Names are most common in the 00s and 2010s. Hmm. Hmmmmm.

So wtf does asbestos have to do with celebrities?

You've already got your tin-foil hats on, so keep them on for a minute longer.

Is this Lloyd's way of rehabilitating their image via celebrity? There's hundreds of studies on the impact of celebrity on brand image and profits, and Lloyd's were desperate to recruit more Names. Rather than the companies taking out insurance to protect themselves against a celebrity’s damaged reputation, is it possible that this is just a popular way of Lloyd's using Names to promote itself to potential new Names AND protect itself against further damage? It's financially beneficial for the celebrity too: for example, becoming a Name means you can use capital twice (19).

So, as long as the celeb hasn't googled them, it's fine to take a silly little moneymaking policy, right? RIGHT?

The next celebrity to get out an insurance policy under Lloyd's is getting a bombastic side-eye from me. Providing I can find a reliable source for it.

Post Sources
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Spreadsheet of Data Sources


ONTD, which body part would you insure?