During yesterday's Golden Globes acceptance speech for best supporting actor, Robert Downey Jr. ("Oppenheimer") seemed to be referencing stage fright when he said "Yeah, yeah, I took a beta-blocker so this will be a breeze."
Let's ignore that he is pretending he has stage fright, and certainly that accepting an award would give him high blood pressure or heart palpitations, and discuss what we know it really means; celebrities have jumped on the beta blocker fad for social anxiety or depression. Unlike fentanyl or xanax, no one will judge you if you keel over while on beta blockers. No one is worried your propranolol habit is out of hand.
And your face won't cave in, as we saw with celebrities who got a doctor to pretend they had diabetes so they could take Ozempic for crash diet purposes.
What it will mean now that Iron Man made it cool for people who take their health guidance from celebrities (a lot of California) is that people who actually need it will face shortages and higher costs.
But Downey can remind us he converted some of his classic cars to run on vegetable oil to save the world, and that should make it okay.
