Professional athletes are paid millions of dollars because they do their jobs uniquely well and have such value to their teams, which then charge exorbitant ticket prices to ordinary, working slobs to watch them ply their trades. When sports stars show up on the field out of shape and their performances suffer, they get called out on it, as they should. Performers performing when they are not in excellent shape is like, oh, say, a legislator showing up drunk for a public meeting, just to pick a wild hypothetical out of the air.

I chose Elvis for the graphic here because he is perhaps the most famous example of a singer who “let himself go.” The King was a great performer and a spectacular vocalist and stylist, but much of his entertainment value in concerts was his physical performance and his presence. In Presley’s latter years, when he often resembled a rhinestone sausage, he was relying on his audience’s fond memories and good will, and fortunately, as a generational talent, he had a lot of that stored up. Nevertheless he looked ridiculous, and his irresponsible diet hurt his performances and his fans’ enjoyment of them.

Performers deserve to be criticized when they are out of shape. A couple generations ago, Elizabeth Taylor was frequently body-shamed for being fat. Slim and at her best (as in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”) Taylor was every bit the sex siren she was famous for being. When she starred in “Cleopatra,” however, which ended up being one of the biggest high budget bombs in Hollywood history, critics savaged taylor for playing the iconic beauty with rolls of fat protruding over parts of her elaborate costumes.

I’m sure the “body-shaming” hurt. Good. She let everyone down: the studio, her fellow performers, her fans, film-goers, and Cleopatra. Liz was paid an unprecedented $1,000,000 in guaranteed salary up front for the1963 film, making her the first actress to break that salary barrier. Her total earnings ultimately reached approximately $7 million, roughly $60-$70 million in today’s money. Don’t tell me that poor Liz was cruelly ly treated for failing her obligations to the project and, as my father liked to say, “crying all the way to the bank.”

Female pop singers’ appearances are always a big part of their shows, their images and their popularity. When they all start performing in HAZMAT suits, then I won’t roll my eyes when they say, “talk about the music.” Tell me another: Linda Ronstadt and Judy Garland had such splendid pipes that they could get away with some extra weight as their careers went on. Britney Spears? Madonna? They sold sex with their music, such as it was. Ann Wilson of the “Heart” sister act could really belt it out, but “Heart’s” fame was also built on having two gorgeous women delivering pounding rock anthems like “Barracuda.” Ann’s weight kept climbing to the point where the best way to enjoy Heart’s concerts was to keep your eyes closed.

These celebrities are paid too much and promise too much to complain when they fail to live up to fans expectations. Last year, singing star Nelly Furtado announced she would take a hiatus from live performing because the mean body-shamers were too much to bear. But Furtado’s before and after shots…

made her seem like an aspiring female Elvis. If she doesn’t want to work to keep in shape, swell: then she should make recordings and stay off the stage.

Oh: and if social media upsets you, then stay off social media. Complaining about that is like deliberately jumping in a pool of piranha and being indignant that you were bitten.