How much do those Lindsay pics really cost?

"We all know he's a fucking drama queen. If you've got a problem, why do you want the whole world to know about it?" Fair do's Liam Gallagher. His erudite opinion on Robbie Williams' decision to announce his latest spell in rehab on the eve of the Brits, appears in an excellent article by Stephen Armstrong in this month's Q Magazine.

Rehab is an expanding business. More and more celebrities seem to require a dependency of some sort, simply to maintain that most addictive substance of them all - publicity. And now that almost all forms of plankton have the right to call themselves celebrity, that means the competition for the column inch is getting tougher each day. Sicker stunts, more and more genital flashing - the voyeur has never had it so good. You're going to have to book early to avoid disappointment at the rehab houses.

Celebrities are treading a dangerous path. Thin, waif-like models are the media's punch bag in the US right now, courtesy of my client Dove and a collection of agit media figures. Stick-thin models and unrealistic portayals of women have been blamed for low self-esteem and the rising numbers of eating disorders amongst young girls.

I'm quite happy to continue looking at pics of Lindsay Lohan looking fit without a bra on, (if you need to see them they're here), but I suspect there's a price to pay for all this. After eating disorders, the next badge of honour for young girls will be a spell in rehab or detention for procatively wearing no knickers in class. Oh the cred to be earned from disappearing from school for a week or two, only to announce via your MySpace page that your parents have checked you into rehab. And then to announce a couple of days later that you've checked yourself out. Publicity and respect to die for.

My instincts tell me that we should prepare for backlash against celebrity excess and celebrity manipulation. Sure, paparazzi and tabloids are responding to demand - but the spotlight can quite easily shift from demand to supply. Why don't agents buy knickers for actresses? Why isn't Britney tucked away out of harm's way by the same army of gifted publicists who made her famous? Why does Robbie need to share his woes with the world?

Whilst celebrities and their publicists continue to exploit misery and pain for publicity, the impressionable look on. The longer those queues of nonentity celebrities at the rehab door gets, the more it becomes an aspiration for a kid.