The distance separating most fans from their favorite stars — often the space between stadium seats to the football field or concert stage — is nonexistent for three University students.
One student attends family reunions with Carolina Panthers quarterback Jake Delhomme, and two sit exclusively backstage during Britney Spears’ concerts.
Personal relationships with celebrities might seem incredible, but it is reality for these family members and friends of some of the world’s most famous people.
For Brooke Delhomme, the Super Bowl-starting quarterback’s cousin, having a famous family member is a new experience — and one she says her cousin deserves.
Jake has only recently received high-profile status.
But Britney Spears’ cousin Laura Lynne Covington and close friend Jansen Fitzgerald have had a different experience from the Delhomme family.
Since Spears burst onto the national pop music scene in 1999, Covington and Fitzgerald have had to make some adjustments in their own lives because of Spears’ prominence.
For all three, close relationships with celebrities are just another part of everyday life at LSU.
MAKING A NAME
Brooke Delhomme, a chemistry freshman, was excited about Super Bowl XXXVIII when she talked to The Reveille during the days just before the big game.
Her cousin, Jake Delhomme, had a starring role in the saga that led his team to the NFL Championship. He is the 6-foot-2-inch, 215-pound starting quarterback for the Carolina Panthers.
This was the Panthers’ first Super Bowl appearance in its nine-year history. Jake threw 19 touchdowns during the team’s regular-season games.
Jake’s cousin smiled while talking about how proud she is of the Breaux Bridge-native and former four-year starter for the “Ragin’ Cajuns” of the University of Louisiana-Lafayette.
“He’s really starting to make a name for himself,” Brooke said.
After little media attention following stints with the NFL Europe — backing current St. Louis Rams’ quarterback Kurt Warner — and with the Saints, Jake finally has gotten what Brooke says is long overdue recognition.
ESPN.com writer Len Pasquarelli said Jake was “several notches below anonymous just five months ago” in a recent article. That has certainly changed.
The Delhomme name has been in headlines, on Web sites and on national TV segments daily since the Panthers took home the NFC Championship against the Philadelphia Eagles Jan. 18. Jake also appeared Friday in USA Today in a “got milk?” ad as a part of the Celebrity Milk Mustache campaign with New England Patriots cornerback Ty Law.
Recalling Jake’s time with the Saints, Brooke said she would look in stores for jerseys with her cousin’s name on them, She never found one.
Few would have problems finding Panthers jerseys with “Delhomme” on the back now.
“Now there are some on [bidding Web site] Ebay,” she said.
Breaux Bridge, “The Crawfish Capital of the World,” has had a boost in tourism because of Jake’s celebrity status, Brooke said.
“The Carolina fans are coming to Breaux Bridge on their way to the game,” she added.
Jake’s parents’ next-door neighbors told Brooke that Mayor Jack Delhomme, also Jake’s cousin, was giving honorary “keys to the city” to Panther fans passing through.
Brooke watched the Super Bowl on television with her parents at a party in New Orleans. She said her “football family,” sometimes jumps and screams even when they aren’t actually at the game.
She was hopeful for a Panthers victory.
“I’m definitely excited,” she said before the game. “He finally gets to play and show everybody the talent he has.”
All the attention seems to have had little effect on Jake. According to his comments at the official Panthers Web site, www.panthers.com, he is not looking for personal recognition.
“I could care less about statistics or individual accolades,” he said. “As long as I am doing my job as a quarterback and helping the team win, that’s fine with me.”
His cousin is happy for his individual accolades but says they have not changed him.
“He’s still down to earth,” Brooke said.
Jake’s parents are in the race horse business, and Brooke said he rides them when at home and works with horses just like when he grew up.
Brooke never has been overwhelmed with media questions or by curious University students.
Sometimes when people hear Brooke’s last name, they ask her if she’s related to Jake, but that is about as far as the questions go.
“As far as details — no,” she said. “They just ask the basic questions and leave it at that.”
But other students have not had such favorable experiences while dealing with the media.
No “Team Britney”
Laura Lynne Covington, a mass communication senior, and Jansen Fitzgerald, a kinesiology senior, were hesitant to talk to The Reveille.
They said they have been misquoted and misrepresented many times by national media about their relationships with pop icon Britney Spears, who they have known well since the three were in daycare together.
Covington and Spears are cousins, and Fitzgerald is a close friend of both.
“Everything we say is directed toward Britney,” Covington said.
Covington and her family have pulled their contact information from public directories.
Fitzgerald said life usually is calm, but reporters knock at her door “when something big happens.”
Photographers also have shown up trying to snap pictures, without giving any consideration to their personal lives or even their health, Covington said.
“Paparazzi would show up at the house,” she said. “I had a cold, and my mom has cancer.”
But Covington added she was comfortable talking to “credible” publications that can help clarify what she called “plagiarism” on the part of other media.
“In the Zone,” Spears’ latest album, just re-entered the top 10 of the Billboard 200 albums chart and has sold 1.8 million copies since its November release, but commercial success has not been the focus of her latest media attention.
Since Spears’ Jan. 3 Las Vegas wedding with Southeastern Louisiana University student Jason Alexander, she has been the point of media scrutiny — and her friends and family also have been hounded by media.
Alexander and Spears’ marriage ended two days later.
The Jan. 19 issue of People magazine quoted Fitzgerald as saying she, Covington and another close friend had “talked it over and decided we won’t say anything” about the short-lived marriage.
However, Fitzgerald said she never talked to anyone from People magazine. Reporters talked to other people from their hometown, Kentwood, La., and cited her as the source.
Covington said law suits could be in order because of the false information, but she said they would not be worth it.
“Because it was her, it would cause such a media spectacle,” she said.
People magazine also reported Fitzgerald and Covington are part of a “core group” that has been called “Team Britney” — which they said is also untrue.
“We’ve never been called that,” Fitzgerald said.
Aside from media hounding, college life with a friend or cousin who is world famous is peaceful — with a surprise now and then — for these two.
As Covington sits in her living room, where TV channel E! had filmed a special about Spears the night before, her favorite “surprise” from Spears bounds toward her.
Spears gave Covington a Yorkshire Terrier three years ago. Gabbi, wearing a 1-inch-wide hair bow to keep the shaggy hair out of its eyes, is a playful dog about the size and weight of a large TV remote control.
Other presents Spears has given to Covington and Fitzgerald have included holidays in the Caribbean and trips to New York, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The gifts are more expressive of Spears’ personality than what the media often portrays about her, Covington said.
“People think she’s this big-diva-bossy-pop star, but she’s not,” she said. “She’s just a normal person.”
Both enjoy occasionally traveling with their continent-hopping pal, but said the “strenuous” life and the “Hollywood scene” is not for them.
“It takes a special person to do what she does,” Fitzgerald said. “We’ll go off for a week with her, and when we come back we have to sleep.”
To Covington, Spears is still her cousin — the girl she used to ride with on wooden “sleds” pulled by four-wheelers in the Kentwood countryside. It’s difficult for Covington to think of Spears as anything other than a “normal, self-conscious college-aged girl.”
“I’ll say, ‘You looked good on that [magazine] cover,’ and she’s just like, ‘Thanks — What are you doing?'” Covington said.
But Covington and Fitzgerald still get “star struck” by other celebrities — including TV star Kelly Ripa of “Live with Regis and Kelly,” movie star Vin Diesel from “The Fast and the Furious,” and Spears’ former boyfriend Justin Timberlake.
“My favorite person was Kelly Ripa,” Covington said. “He [Justin] is a really nice guy.”
Fitzgerald, who usually talks to Spears a few times a week, said Spears rarely talks about her career.
“You have to get stuff out of her,” she said.
Knowing that, Covington said if Spears has any regrets about her career, she has not mentioned any.
“She is an entertainer — she’s always known she’s wanted to do that,” Covington said about Spears. “She’s said, ‘I wish I could just go to the mall.'”
Spears would like to have a “normal” lifestyle and still be an entertainer Covington said, but she can not have a high-profile career without the fame following her home.
Although Fitzgerald and Covington are often interviewed to talk about Spears, they said they do not just sit around and listen to her music a lot.
“We like the music, but it’s not like we just pop it in and [say], ‘Let’s jam to Britney!'” Fitzgerald said.
Covington and Fitzgerald want to just be “normal” like Spears does. They want to go to school and work without worrying about how their words — or words “put in their mouths” — could have public repercussions.
“We are not cool people,” Fitzgerald laughed and said. “None of us are.”