Think you’d like to play the supporting role in a celebrity household? Here’s what some insiders think you should know:
1. You can make a lot of money.
Celebrity assistants are always in demand. “We’re busy, even in this economy,” says Rachel Zaslansky Sheer, cofounder of the Grapevine Agency, an L.A.–based staffing company that matches assistants to high net-worth individuals and celebrities such as Tom Cruise, Angelina Jolie, Arianna Huffington, Jennifer Aniston, and George Clooney. “People won’t give up their personal assistants in a recession. They have such big careers and lives, it’s too much,” she says.
And if you can tough it out on a 24/7 schedule, you’ll be handsomely rewarded. “You can make up to $200,000 a year if you’re an assistant who literally travels on tour with someone and never goes home,” says Zaslansky Sheer.
(Then again, some of the assistants we spoke to were making $15 an hour and working long days. Read about Lisa Rinna’s assistant.)
2. You may have to relocate to another continent on a moment’s notice.
It’s unrealistic to plan for any kind of life of your own when you work for a star, say the experts. Some celebrities don’t know where they’ll be in the next twelve hours, and the same goes for their personal assistants.
“You have to be prepared for literally everything and anything,” Zaslansky Sheer emphasizes. “One assistant I placed had to pop on a plane going to Europe at midnight that day, and stay in Europe for three months, with no advance notice,” she recalls. That assistant had been called to work on the set of a movie for her employer, a popular, young singer.
3. Not everyone is as nice as George Clooney.
George Clooney is famously beloved by fans, and the same is true of the staff that caters to his every whim. According to Zaslansky Sheer, “George Clooney is the one person every single celebrity person assistant wants to work for. His last assistant was so happy that she stayed was with him for eight years.
