Association

Now days you see celebrities hanging out together like they're madly in love with each other. Country "stars" with rockers and movie stars and hip hop "artists" including rappers. On rare occasion, I get a behind the scenes look at that world. Trust me, just because people play together doesn't mean they necessarily have any degree of respect for one another as "artists."
I really love it when I suspect that a given person in the public eye is the creep I think they are. There's one, I will refrain from giving any further publicity who goes by a stage name rather than his given one who turned out to be just as I suspected.
There are other things I've learned about certain artists that, while I've never particularly thought of them as way above average, I have gained respect knowing about his character. I won't name him, either, but a very athletic rocker has a knee replacement. Yeah. He referred to the other as a, well, shall we say, south bound end of a north bound mule!
Dead giveaways to these creeps are things like writing songs about themselves and how great they think they are. Another one of my pet peeves is the artist who yells, "Come on!" continuously to the audience like some sort of worship leader at a Charismaniac "church." Clyde, if you have to do that, you're not doing a good job with the song. If the performance is good enough, you don't have to resort to that cheap trick!
Were I recording in this environment (or any other for that matter) I would not be out clubbing and being seen with the people necessary to promote my career. (Maybe that's one of the reasons I don't have one)
Musicians, with few exceptions, are egotistical, misogynistic poor excuses for humanity. That's not a hard and fast rule. I actually have some friends who are quite talented and also have a personality.
One thing I have learned from the country singers is their innate sense of appreciating their "fan base" and showing it. In my little small world of people who seem to appreciate my vocalizing and singing, I try to always take time to show my appreciation if someone takes their time to compliment me. When my Mom used to compliment me, I took it with a grain of salt, because I figured that's kind of what her job was, and I pay a lot of attention to people who make positive comments. Granted, sometimes, later behavior indicates that they're tone deaf, when I see them compliment someone who has zero talent, and then I have to gain a lot of perspective from that.
I hope I NEVER get like a few people I know who will never be as good as they THINK they are.
Any more, I totally understand Elvis and his close circle of friends. The Beatles came to visit Elvis and they hung out at his Bellare home. They invited him to come visit them and one of his closest friends asked him if he'd reciprocate and he just said, "Nah."
I don't think that it was that he was trying to be cool (he couldn't HELP that) It was just that he'd been around swollen egos before. They're really very boring!