What's funny is that, for all the criticism about celebrity culture directed at the left, conservatives, and evangelicals in particular, do this super hard, so much so that it's often pretty cringey and kind of embarrassing. Some celebrity will mumble something that kind of rhymes with "jesus" and immediately evangelical circles will light up with hopeful gasps about whether so-and-so is a Christian. It's wild how much adoration the evangelical crowd has showered on Brian Welch for converting despite most of them being unable to identify a single Korn song. Conservatism more generally also has its own little cadre of d-listers over whom the rank-and-file loves to fawn: Scott Baio, James Woods, Antonio Sobato Jr, etc.
