Public misbehavior by the famous is a powerful teaching tool.

The remark suggests that celebrity culture has an unintended civic function: when well-known people behave badly in public, the visibility of their actions can serve as a cautionary example. Because fame amplifies consequences—media coverage, public condemnation, professional fallout—such incidents can illustrate social norms and the costs of violating them more vividly than private misbehavior would. The quote also implies a moral pedagogy rooted in spectacle: the public learns not only from admirable role models but from notorious ones, and the famous, by virtue of their platform, become involuntary instructors in ethics and accountability.