Trashy People with Surprisingly Upscale Backgrounds

I wouldn't call Steve-O trashy. An attention-seeking goofball maybe. He refers to himself as a "professional idiot" LOL.

David Foster's sons - those spoiled shits are trashy.

Seriously? He studied at the University of Miami School of Communication…can’t get much more lowbrow than that.

His backstory is an entitled asshole who flailed, but for MTV. Hardly newsworthy.

Did Steve-O ghost you after a hookup, OP?

Kid Rock

I came here to say that, r4!

The Kardashians.

Kid Rock AKA Robert James Richey

R4 you beat me to it. Actually in the industry I am, I am exposed to a lot of them. Culturally trashy people who grew up upper middle class. It actually let me get a better understanding of America.

Look up Lady Victoria Hervey, if you don't know who she is. She owns this thread.

How does that work with Steve-O? Wondering if he has to Vaseline his teeth several times a day, wear lots of lip gloss? both?

R8 thanks for your self - actualization.

Are those dentures or caps? Wonder if it smells

Chet Hanks

[quote] Ronald Ray Cyrus (July 10, 1935 – February 28, 2006) was an American politician and public servant in Greenup County, Kentucky. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives for 11 consecutive terms, from 1975 until he retired in 1996.[2]

Harry.

[quote]Seriously? He studied at the University of Miami School of Communication…can’t get much more lowbrow than that.

You've never heard of the Columbia School of Broadcasting? Or Trump University?

ummm...they have a safety net and a wild bug up their asses, so wtf not?

Heidi Fleiss

I'm in shock. Kid Rock looks like he grew up in a trailer park in the Appalachian backwoods.

Humphrey Bogart generally played criminals and thugs but in real life he was from an upper class background- NYC 17th century.

I think, R19, part of it is the combination of acknowledging that they were inordinately lucky so cosplaying to fit in with their surrounding while simultaneously being pissed that an ever changing world, with level playing fields, renders that luck irrelevant and as such makes them downwardly mobile.

See also:

Sorbo, Kevin

Rose, Amber

Chachi

Courtney Love. I actually don’t really consider her trashy per se—I give credit where credit is due, and she is rather intelligent and very cultured—but her general behavior and drug addiction throughout her life has understandably led many people to deem her some sort of backwoods roadhouse whore. There is a misconception that she was raised in a trailer park or something, but her parents (particularly her mom) were well-off San Francisco counter culture people. Her mother was adopted by a wealthy family and inherited a lot of money when Courtney was a kid, and is a successful therapist. She’s a rich hippie bitch. Al of Courtney’s half-siblings are well-educated, successful people.

Jeff Foxworthy is another phony redneck like Kid Rock. He was actually raised in a wealthy suburb of Atlanta and his father was a top exec at IBM.

R23 he was also a FOX

There us no one mentioned in this thread so far that I ever think about.

Jon-Benet Ramsey

DojaCat

Dave Chapelle - well, UMC

Ed Sheeran

R23 These people wear it like a badge of honor. They and their working class red neck counterparts don’t see their financial standing as making them less authentic. As long as they’re a good low brow cultural idiot. It’s like ghetto fabulous with black people. Upward social mobility but still being “street”. Materialism and luxury thus becomes apart of the “culture.”

Helen Lawson.

Her ancestor slept with 3/4 of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

R27 There is nothing trashy about Dave Chapelle nor did he grow up upper middle class. He grew up working class in Washington DC. The man is a comedic and cultural genius.

R27 When was Dave Chapelle ever considered trashy?

Actually you are right he did grow up solidly middle class but he is definitely not trashy.

R30, once again: WRONG.

David Khari Webber Chappelle was born on August 24, 1973, in Washington, D.C. His father, William David Chappelle III, was a professor of vocal performance and the dean of students at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. His mother, Yvonne Seon (née Reed, formerly Chappelle) worked for Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba is a Unitarian Universalist minister and worked as a professor and university administrator at several institutions including Wright State University and Prince George's Community College.

Chappelle grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland. His parents were politically active, and family house visitors included Pete Seeger and Johnny Hartman.

R30 he was not trashy. He played lower-class several times. Get your shit together…it’s called acting, duh.

Meant for R20 he was not trashy. He played lower-class several times. Get your shit together…it’s called acting, duh.

Cameron Douglas, Michael Douglas' thuggy son.

Madonna. She headed to New York and ended-up sleeping in abandoned buildings and getting raped. It could very well have ended there. Now she dates thugs and shows her titties on the internet:

"[Silvio Ciccone] served in the Air Force and on completion of his enlistment earned a degree in Physics from Geneva College. Armed with his degree he gained employment with Chrysler and then General Dynamics in suburban Detroit, where he worked as an Optical Engineer."

"David Van Cortlandt Crosby was born on August 14, 1941, in Los Angeles, California, the second son of Academy Award-winning cinematographer Floyd Crosby, who formerly worked on Wall Street, and Aliph Van Cortlandt Whitehead, a salesperson at Macy's department store. His father was a relative of the Van Rensselaer family, and his mother—granddaughter of Bishop of Pittsburgh Cortlandt Whitehead—descended from the prominent Van Cortlandt family; they "regularly inhabited the New York society pages before their wedding".

well, he certainly needed a corset.

Amanda Lepore's father and mother are aristocrats, Italian and German respectively. He briefly attended the exclusive boarding school Le Rosey near Geneva and has an encyclopedic knowledge of French furniture and Italian and German opera.

[quote] I wouldn't call Steve-O trashy. An attention-seeking goofball maybe. He refers to himself as a "professional idiot" LOL.

This guy got a tattoo of an adult male fucking a literal baby. Here he is, around 2:00, trying to explain how that tattoo came about. He's since tattooed something over it. Goofball? More than that.

[quote]He's since tattooed something over it.

An adult rabbi fucking a literal baby?

Ryan O’Neal and Farrah Fawcett’s son

So many people who didn’t understand the prompt… no wonder SAT and AP scores have declined on a relative basis….

[quote]So many people who didn’t understand the prompt…

That's something of a DL tradition. See, for example, the "Worst songs recorded in the 20th century" thread.

Kid Rock is a big surprise. While Steve-O can at least carry on an intelligent conversation, Kid Rock seems like a certifiable idiot. It bears saying that, in my experience, most car dealership owners are certifiable trash, wealthy trash, but trash nonetheless.

I’m partnered with a man who inherited generational wealth started almost 200 years ago, however he has interests in decidedly low-brow things like diesel mechanics and dresses like Fred Sanford. Maybe that comes from growing up so sure of your social standing that you didn’t give a damn what people thought.

I think it stems from people born with silver spoons in their mouth wanting, like most other people, something they don’t have. Poor people want money and status, rich people want authenticity and friends not interested in their wealth and position.

46 posts and no one has mentioned Tori Spelling?

I just also realized that Bridgid Berlin and Edie Sedgwick are somewhat examples of this, though druggy doesn’t really equate to trashy. Bridgid at least had great taste.

Probably the best modern example is Chet Hanks. Born in the lap of luxury with every advantage, but who insists on wallowing in an assumed persona for whatever reason, but I expect it’s because he wants to be authentic and “real.”

Also, Edward II was a royal example. Besides being gay, he disliked the normal pastimes of the aristocracy like hunting or jousting, and didn’t even care to pretend to. He liked swimming and rowing, both decidedly lower class pursuits.

Maybe it is a function of having a very successful parent that you can’t hope to surpass monetarily or professionally. Rather than setting a course to always be the “child of” they, consciously or unconsciously, decide to go in the opposite direction out of rebellion or frustration.

Mother said you seemed easily surprised, OP.

She can be very obscure at times.

We’re seriously defending Dave Chappelle? His mouth is trashy enough.

Not upscale but middle class

cyndi lauper's rapper son.

I worked with Kid Rock's sister a billion years ago, and she told me that he was all an act, and laughed at him "playing the poor hick" But now it's probably it's probably not, sans the "poor".

R46 Upper middle class Jewish people from the northeast aren’t like that though. Even when they don’t come form generational wealth. But they are usually Uber educated at the finest private universities or state schools.

What’s even more unfortunate about Kid Rock being a Maga is that his baby mama is black.

Ye (Kanye West) comes from a cultured, educated background

Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top), although he could be more of a case of nepo baby, can’t decide.

Billy Joel

I know a couple of guys who qualify.

[quote]Jeff Foxworthy is another phony redneck like Kid Rock. He was actually raised in a wealthy suburb of Atlanta and his father was a top exec at IBM.

He never denies this. Foxworthy has said that even though his father was an exec at IBM, one of his favorite things to do was to sit in the backyard after work and watch the bug zapper.

I don’t consider Jeff Foxworthy trashy. He is just a well to do redneck. Some of you are snobs.

R15- Like I've said many time here on the datalounge-

Harry is average AND stupid.

RFK Jr.

Miley Cyrus. Even her own father called her a skank.

R51, the thread is titled Trashy People with Surprisingly Upscale Backgrounds. Dave Chappelle fits the bill. One poster said he came from a working-class background. Not true.

Neither was it surprisingly upscale. Get real.

I know all about Chappelle and his bullshit.

R65 no he didn’t. He called her mom that.

Marjorie Taylor Greene

The Hiltons, the Trumps and the Kushners are all generational wealth who are as vulgar, trashy and shitty as the day is long.

The Hiltons are not trashy. Only Paris because she was young and fkin photographed all the time. That’s not trashy though. The Hiltons aren’t trashy.

They are Texas white trash who made good.

R72, the Hiltons have been trashy for generations.

Fucked-out, nasty, piggish trash.

R71 Bullshit …the Kushner family and the Trump families are in their 2nd generation…don’t make them out to be Rockefellers.

I don't think Kayne is trashy. Crazy but not particularly trashy.

The Trumps are in their fourth generation what are you talking about. The DJT Trump children have kids in their teens

Trumps father was a millionaire when Trump was growing up.

R77 do his children have a true ownership interest in the controlling partnership—they do not (they are employees or nominal equity holders in specific investments). Do his grandchildren have any role in the business? They do not.

The only “generational wealth” is from father Fred to his orange son.

No fucking clue who any of these losers are

R79 Like I said. The Trump dynasty is a family with generational wealth now in their 4th generation. Carry on.

Not what you said. Not true.

Carry on? I’m sure you don’t know the meaning of carried interest.

The Hancock Family of Western Australia are human garbage.

The Murdochs are shockingly trashy, given their wealth and power.

Let's not forget Grace Kelly! No not that one, I'm talking about Wynonna Judd's daughter.

R84, I was about to say: "Are you out of your fucking mind" or words to that effect.

James Brolin's son Jess. Nothing more trashier than being a fat whore digging through trash. I'm sure his dad, brother Josh, or stepmother Barbra Streisand could get him a job.

[quote] The Hiltons are not trashy. Only Paris because she was young and fkin photographed all the time. That’s not trashy though. The Hiltons aren’t trashy.

IMO, yes they are trashy. Mom Kathy and Aunt Kyle on Real Housewives reality show. Public rift between the families over "stolen" real estate clients.

Brother Conrad Hilton spent time in prison. Paris also spent time in a jail cell.

^ That’s like the worst picture of Paris

Anderson Cooper

I think 'trashy' is too exclusive. It's more of people who act like they grew up with nothing but were actually UMC or well-off. Or people who you're surprised grew up in much better circumstances than you imagined.

[quote] I'm sure his dad, brother Josh, or stepmother Barbra Streisand could get him a job.

Babs wanted to hire him as a mall cop, but they coudn't find a uniform big enough to fit him.

Courtney Love

R91 if that's in her underground mall, then you know he would eat all the ice cream.

Christa Päffgen AKA Nico

What's "trashy" about Nico and what's "upscale" about her background? Her persona, life, and art reflect her disordered, complex, eccentric, dysfunctional, bohemian upbringing, completely marked by World War II. As a kid in postwar Berlin, she saw dead bodies lying in the rubble at the end of the street where she lived. She had lifelong PTSD symptoms. Her father's family was wealthy, sure, but her mother was raised working class and, as a single mother to Nico, took up work as a seamstress.

She may have left school at 13 (not uncommon at the time) and been an addict for many years, but she had her own interesting style and her "The Marble Index" is considered a classic and admired by countless musicians. At least two biographies have been written about her. Do you find her "trashy" because of her drug abuse and out-of-wedlock child? Do you not see her, rather, as a tragic figure?

[quote]We think of Nico as German, but although she spent much of her childhood in Germany, her parents were Spanish and Yugoslav. Depending on the account, her birthplace and birth date were either Cologne in 1938 or Budapest in 1943, while her father is variously said to have died in a concentration camp or faded away after suffering shellshock during the war. Nico herself experienced the second world war as a primal trauma, spending her earliest years sheltering from British bombing raids and witnessing the conquest of Germany by Soviet troops. She grew up as a rootless cosmopolitan (her passport read "ohne festen Wohnsitz", meaning no fixed address), receiving education in France and Italy as well as Germany, and eventually becoming fluent in seven languages. From the age of 15, she flitted across Europe (and soon between Europe and America), never staying any place for long, pursuing multiple careers as the original model-stroke-actress-stroke-singer. One minute she was in a Fellini movie, the next recording a single under the guidance of Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham. Along the way she became the lover of the French movie star Alain Delon and had a baby son, Ari.

Drea De Matteo, Adriana on Sopranos: mother a playwright and teacher; father a CEO of a furniture company. Drea looks hard and seedy and does Only Fans, which her son helps her with. Ugh! One of her kids' names is Alabama, like Travis Barker's daughter.

[quote] De Matteo was born in Whitestone, Queens, New York City. Her mother Donna is a playwright and playwriting teacher who has been on faculty at HB Studio,[2] and her father, Albert, was a furniture manufacturer who was owner and CEO of Avery Boardman and Carlyle.[3]

Nico's father is the upscale background, dear. It was all down hill from bourgeois Hanseatic respectability for Nico, who was a true artist AND complete junkie trash. My rented house in Ibiza was right next to Nico's that summer of 1988 when she died and we had chatted many times.

Well, in that case, R97 (dear): as Madonna would say, what a terribly *reductive* way of looking at a person with such a complex background: neither "trashy" nor "upscale" remotely suffice to describe Nico or her life and background. You might as well call Marianne Faithfull, with her Austro-Hungarian aristrocratic credentials and Italian professor/intelligence officer father, trashy as well, for having lived her life unconventionally and on her own terms.

Marianne Faithfull is quite trashy but she didn't burn out and live like a bum for as long as Nico.

I love both of them, you fucking idiot, and I don't need your biographical outlines.

If Marianne Faithfull and Nico are "trashy," what are Kerry Katona and Katie "Jordan" Price? (You're likely too addle-brained to even follow this thread, as witnessed by your tenuous grasp of the meaning of "trashy"). Anyway, to each their own.

We clearly have different meanings for trashy. Marianne 'I lived on a wall and shot drugs' Faithful is the epitome of sullied class, e.g. trashy. In my book. And I say that with love.

I'm often struck by how trashy the kids of people like the Beckhams are. Sure, their parents were from lower middle-class backgrounds, but they went to good private schools yet never managed to go to university or train as anything and don't seem particularly interesting or intelligent despite having grown up in a fascinating environment, meeting lots of important people, travelling the world, etc.

They all seem to have that vacant look in their eyes too, R102. According to the review linked below of a recent biography of the Beckhams, David once confessed that he's never even read one book in his life, not even his own ghostwritten ones.

That's David, though, an upper-working class/lower middle-class boy who didn't have much schooling yet always tried to dress well (despite the nasty tattoos) and has achieved a lot in life. Why are his kids, who went to private schools, so trashy though?

I fucking despise the new Steve O.

Adam Levine - ok, not super trashy.

OK, I just don’t like him…

Shirley Temple's daughter ran away to Aberdeen and became the bassist of Melvins (the legendary proto-grunge act that inspired nirvana) and a heroin addict living rough. When King Buzzo dumped her, she moved back in with mom and got clean. She's a photographer or something now.

My god look at his teefs, they are pure trash…

While he grew up poor, Johnny Rotten married a German publishing heiress in 1979 and lived a very wealthy lifestyle for the majority of his adult life - besides his popularity. He went on to support Trump and said he voted for him - twice.

I remember him saying in an interview in the 90's once that he wanted to be a millionaire - HE WAS ALREADY and his wife had millions and multiple homes.

So, r109, his heiress wife is the one who qualifies for this thread?

R109 a lot of that was blarney. John lives in a very average house in an area of California with a large Mexican community. He is actually broke now as he has mentioned in several interviews, so none of the family money came his way. He even appeared on the tacky reality show I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, and appeared in a tv commercial for butter as he said he needed the money.

"John Waters was born on April 22, 1946, in Baltimore, Maryland, one of four children born to Patricia Ann (née Whitaker) and John Samuel Waters, a manufacturer of fire-protection equipment. He was raised Catholic by his mother, though his father was not Catholic. Through his mother, who immigrated to the United States from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, as a child, he is the great-great-great-grandson of George P. Whitaker of the Whitaker iron family. Waters grew up in Lutherville, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore.... Waters was privately educated at the Calvert School in Baltimore. After attending Towson Jr. High School in nearby Towson, and Calvert Hall College High School, he graduated from Boys' Latin School of Maryland"

R109 He was very devoted to caring for her while she struggled with Alzheimer's. He's a blowhard attention seeker, but I'll always love PiL.

Chelsea Handler was studying for the BAR exam when she got her own talk show.

John Waters is a purveyor of trash.

I bring my trash out on Mondays and Thursdays.

B.D. Hyman, Bette Davis' daughter. Looks like one of those religious hillbilly fanatics.

Chelsea Handler's dad was a used car salesman. She definitely didn't come from an upscale background just because she was thinking about taking a test, r114.

The posters who understood the criteria petered out before the 50th poster.

Rob Zombie!

He has this white trash / redneck / hillbilly persona and imagery throughout his music and films and he was born and raised in Haverhill, Massachusetts. There are absolutely no hillbillies in Haverhill. It’s a small middle class city about 45 minutes outside of Boston.

And Zombie might not be upscale but Haverhill is upscale compared to where most people would think he came from.

And again, not upscale but Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are from Cambridge, not Boston. They put these personas on that they were dirty Southies but they were affluent. Unlike Marky Mark who is from Dorchester. His trashy persona is accurate.

Wikipedia only says that Chelsea Handler "attended" high school, not graduated. No further education listed. Yes, her father was a used car salesman.