Christine Baranski Roasts Katy Perry and Lauren Sánchez Over Blue Origin Space Flight
Elena West here, and this is your rallying cry: lean in, because public fame and private priorities just collided in orbit.
Get ready — this is BIG. Actress Christine Baranski publicly criticized the celebrity-packed Blue Origin flight that included Katy Perry and Lauren Sánchez, calling the mission a “grotesque display of wealth” at a Gilded Age panel on August 11, according to The Daily Mail. The Golden Globe nominee, known for speaking plainly about class and privilege on HBO’s hit series, did not mince words when she asked what sending well-known women into space accomplishes and quipped that maybe it was “so they can do their makeup.” Baranski, 73, added, “Don’t get me started,” underscoring that her frustration is as much about optics as it is about distribution of resources.
There is method to her outrage. Blue Origin, founded by Jeff Bezos in 2000 and based in Kent, Washington, positions itself as a company working to reduce launch costs through reusable rockets and to open space for future living and economic activity. The New Shepard vehicle, named for astronaut Alan Shepard, is a suborbital system that holds six passengers in a pressurized capsule and operates autonomously. Blue Origin’s site lists a $150,000 deposit requirement for seats, while past auction winners paid millions; Bezos and his brother Mark rode New Shepard in 2021, and the company has logged multiple test and human flights since its 2015 debut.
Baranski’s critique joins other celebrity voices who questioned the optics and ethics of a star-studded trip to the edge of space. Actress Olivia Munn told Today With Jenna & Friends in April that she found the flight “a bit gluttonous,” noting that “a lot of resources” were poured into an experience that, in her view, did little to advance humanity’s practical needs back on Earth. Munn specifically highlighted economic inequality, saying some people cannot afford basic food items while celebrities pay vast sums for suborbital thrills. Those comments supply corroborating cultural context to Baranski’s blunt condemnation.
On the other side, Katy Perry appeared unbothered by the critics. During an April concert she addressed detractors by asking fans if anyone had ever called their dreams “crazy,” signaling that the singer frames her spaceflight as a personal milestone rather than a public provocation. The April mission included not only Perry and Sánchez but also Gayle King, producer Kerianne Flynn, and rocket scientist Aisha Bowe. That mix—media, entertainment, and a scientist—fed the debate about whether such flights are mere status symbols or meaningful steps toward civilian access to space.
Blue Origin emphasizes a long-term vision of “millions of people living and working in space,” and Bezos has repeatedly framed reusability as the key to dramatically lowering launch costs. Yet the company’s expensive, high-profile flights prompt recurring questions: Are early celebrity passengers helping normalize commercial spaceflight, or are they reinforcing inequality by turning a technological frontier into a luxury experience? Past human flights included high-profile passengers such as William Shatner and Michael Strahan, and New Shepard’s NS-31 mission would mark another milestone in the company’s program, building on 16 test successes completed by 2021.
Here’s the takeaway for your daily momentum: celebrities’ choices in public arenas will continue to produce headlines and honest debates about priorities, progress, and privilege. Whether you side with Baranski’s moral ire or Perry’s pursuit of dreams, the conversation is doing important cultural work: it forces us to interrogate how emerging technologies are distributed and who gets to define their value.
Now take what you’ve learned and make something practical of it: keep your ambitions sky-high, and keep asking whether those ambitions lift everyone up.
Sources: Celebrity Storm and The Daily Mail, Today With Jenna & Friends, Blue Origin website, E! Online
Attribution: Creative Commons Licensed
