Leaked emails show the bizarre demands Sarah Jessica Parker makes of her staff


It can't be easy being a celebrity. Not only are you entrenched in some of the most intense and draining professions in the world, but whenever you're not actively working, you're still working on maintaining a decent public image, all while you attempt to find love, raise a family and everything else that comes with being a functioning human.

With all of the insane pressure on them, it's not one bit surprising that celebrities can sometimes ask very strange things of us, and to be honest, a cursory glance at the replies to any celebrity Twitter post confirms that we kind of owe them at least that. That's why when it comes out that a celebrity has some very specific requests and preferences (think Nicolas Cage and his allegedly stolen dinosaur skull from Mongolia), I'm not too surprised.

That being said, one of the more stable-seeming celebrities out there is Sarah Jessica Parker. You or I know her best as Carrie on Sex and the City, and when she's not being amazing on the big screen, she's married to Matthew Broderick, star of the celebrated Ferris Bueller's Day Out or The Lion King, as well as the somewhat-less-celebrated Inspector Gadget. They do adorable couple-y stuff like stare at solar eclipses together. What's not to like?

Take a trip, however, to the Broderick-Parker household, and it may well be very, very different. Michelle Collins is a comedian, and for her special Magic Mich, the 36-year-old read aloud from e-mails she got from a friend of hers, who happens to work for Sarah Jessica Parker.

Parker and Broderick have three kids together; 14-year-old James Wilkie, as well as eight-year-old twins Marion and Tabitha. As loving and devoted parents, Sarah Jessica Parker (as well as Matthew Broderick) take their children's well-being very seriously, and that culminates in a very specific set of instructions for taking care of her kids while Parker and Broderick have to attend to their professional duties.

Take, for example, a recent outbreak of pinkeye that occurred in the Broderick-Parker house in New York. Parker sent the team instructions on administering eye drops, which included the frequency and intensity of the blinks. On a more regular basis, James has his face and body wash consistently replaced in his personal shower, but the strangest demand relates to taking care of Tabitha and Marion.

According to Collins, the 52-year-old instructs staffers to refill a tiny jar of Vaseline (around 1.75 ounces worth) with a small spoon or knife, which must be cleaned with a paper before being put in the dishwasher. Not only that, Parker stresses that the stuff can't be bought in bulk, and is only replenished when supplies of each substance have completely run out.

A spokesperson for Parker says that "we have no idea who Michelle Collins is", but I don't know if this is as big a deal as the comedy show is making out. After all, isn't our children's health and well-being the utmost priority, even if we aren't rich or famous? Yeah, the instructions are quite specific, but not unreasonably so; who wants to waste body wash, or clog up their dishwasher with Vaseline? Not me, that's for sure.

There are weirder celebrity demands out there, people, but considering the stress we put them under, we can allow Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica to be a bit more demanding when it comes to caring for their kids.