"Privacy is not something that I'm merely entitled to, it's an absolute prerequisite"
About this Quote
Coming from Brando, the statement lands with extra voltage because his career helped invent modern stardom even as he spent decades resisting it. He cultivated mystique, then watched the culture turn mystique into a commodity: tabloids, paparazzi, late-night jokes, the appetite for access disguised as admiration. His insistence on privacy reads less like retreat than counterattack - a refusal to let public consumption define the terms of his humanity.
The subtext is about control. An actor’s job is to be looked at, judged, interpreted; the audience feels licensed to treat the performer’s off-screen life as a behind-the-scenes featurette. Brando punctures that entitlement. He’s arguing that constant visibility doesn’t just annoy you; it rewires you. Without a protected interior life, you become a performance even when you’re alone - a person edited in real time for an imagined crowd.
In a pre-social-media era, it’s also eerily predictive. Brando’s “prerequisite” sounds like a warning about what happens when surveillance becomes normal and self-exposure becomes the price of relevance.
Quote Details
| Topic | Privacy & Cybersecurity |
|---|---|
| Source | Later attribution: Data Privacy and GDPR Handbook (Sanjay Sharma, 2019) modern compilationISBN: 9781119594192 · ID: 1vPADwAAQBAJ
Evidence:
... Privacy is not something that I'm merely entitled to, it's an absolute prerequisite. — Marlon Brando We generate enormous amounts of personal data and give it away without caring about our privacy. Before the wake-up alarm rings on our ... |
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Brando, Marlon. (2026, February 8). Privacy is not something that I'm merely entitled to, it's an absolute prerequisite. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/privacy-is-not-something-that-im-merely-entitled-114514/
Chicago Style
Brando, Marlon. "Privacy is not something that I'm merely entitled to, it's an absolute prerequisite." FixQuotes. February 8, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/privacy-is-not-something-that-im-merely-entitled-114514/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Privacy is not something that I'm merely entitled to, it's an absolute prerequisite." FixQuotes, 8 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/privacy-is-not-something-that-im-merely-entitled-114514/. Accessed 25 Feb. 2026.










