2020 vision: With the Hollywood A-list in their desert compound, the UK rejects the Gwynification of the high street

(LYNDON HAYES)

As the Noughties drew to a close and we welcomed in the 2010s, the celebrity world found itself teetering on the edge of a precipice. Rumours were rife about the impending Jolie-Pitt divorce, squeaky-clean Tiger had been exposed as a dirty dog, even Jude Law's hair was refusing to have anything to do with him, and 98 per cent of the celeb world was still reeling from the loss of Michael Jackson, the man who had inspired them to dance/sing/act/cook/design handbags.

Back then, of course, personal crises were the norm. From life-threatening illness to a patch of mid-thigh cellulite, it was celebrities' misfortunes big and small we were interested in. But the real crisis was building around the notion of celebrity itself. Like a broiler chicken unnaturally forced to maturity, the brand of celebrity we inherited from the decade seemed incapable of supporting its own weight.

By 2010, reality TV and a dedicated celebrity press had meant we knew more about even the dullest individuals than we wanted to. Nevertheless, however much we bemoaned it, the status quo limped on for the first few years of the new decade. How many of us recall the short-lived digital channel carrying rolling news about Cheryl Cole's hair? Or the Gwynification of the high street as Ms Paltrow, ploughing on in her role as self-styled spiritual leader, opened a string of yogic-macrobiotic-ayurvedic gyms, cafés and bookshops?

At least we were able to have a laugh at the PR disasters that put paid to her enterprises, including revelations of poor working conditions on Paltrow's goji berry plantations and the release of mobile-phone footage showing her knocking back Strongbow in a pub, slurring "and the funny thing is, Madge and Stella believe I eat that macrobiotic crap!"

The crunch came at the end of 2013, when viewing figures for The X Factor, now chewing up contestants and spitting them out on an accelerated four-week cycle to revive flagging interest, dwindled to an all-time low and the last bastion of the celeb-trash sector, Heat, closed. Our appetite for the average British celebrity had slumped, to the extent that the OED edition of the same year added derog. to the word's definition.

Across the Atlantic, however, a small band of A-list stars have continued to exercise a fascination upon the world. In 2014, at that now-infamous press conference, Tom Cruise announced that the construction of a maximum-security compound in the Atacama desert, accommodating a full-size town with all amenities and recording and film studios, and staffed by security-checked robots, was almost complete.

Twelve months later, six billion viewers around the globe watched live footage of a group of 25 Hollywood heavyweights entering their new home. Alongside TomKat and Suri were Angelina and the Jolie-Pitt offspring (sans Brad, now famously residing in George Clooney's Lake Como retreat for confirmed bachelors) and the Jackson junior clan – all now devout Scientology converts. The Beckhams, whose star has waned considerably since the Noughties, were given honorary admission in view of David's new role as Cruise's personal trainer.

In the second half of the decade, the stars have rarely been seen in person, venturing out only for appearances at the Oscars and UN photocalls. Rumours of body doubles made headlines in 2017 when Jolie appeared to be simultaneously at the Oscars and a UN event, although her publicist still insists this was merely an illusory time-zone difference.

Things took a more startling turn at the beginning of this year when Suri Cruise, 13, and Blanket Jackson, 17, neither of whom have been seen since 2015, escaped the compound as stowaways in the boot of visitor Elton John's car. Taking refuge at the Jennifer Aniston Home for Unmarried Women, Suri made the widely believed claim that her mother Katie was declared clinically dead after a car crash in 2005, but underwent a cutting-edge transplant that replaced all her organs with Scientology body parts. The decision to build the compound had come to her father, she said, when Cruise noted that Holmes was exhibiting signs of cellular memory with subversive acts such as wearing jeans in public.

And so our strange obsession with celebrities remains partly intact. But, if nothing else, this decade has proved that some of them are still capable of doing something more interesting than changing their outfit.