Time & Perspective Quote by Julian Clary

Fame, in Julian Clary's telling, isn’t a crown jewel so much as a party trick you got tired of doing. “The whole business” makes celebrity sound like admin: meetings, bookings, the machinery of visibility. That phrasing is the gag’s engine. It deflates the myth that fame is either a sacred calling or a lifelong identity. It’s just… business. And like most business, it’s only fun until it becomes routine.

“Good fun” is doing a lot of cultural work. Clary’s persona has long hinged on breezy, weaponized nonchalance: the raised eyebrow, the insinuation that the audience is in on something deliciously improper. Here, the understatement is protective and pointed. By treating the chase for fame as a past amusement, he sidesteps the needy confession people expect from celebrities (“I hated it,” “I miss it,” “It ruined me”) and replaces it with a shrug that doubles as control. If you can frame your public rise as a lark, you can also frame your public decline as irrelevant.

The killer turn is “but it was a long time ago.” It’s funny because it’s blunt, almost rude to the idea that fame should be current to matter. It also reads as a subtle dig at the attention economy’s demand that everyone stay relentlessly visible, forever “on.” For a comedian who came up in a pre-social-media era, the line carries generational context: notoriety used to arrive in bursts, not as a 24/7 maintenance job. Clary isn’t mourning the spotlight; he’s retiring the myth that it’s worth worshipping.