I’ve known a secret about a celebrity for a long time. I knew his lies — the quiet kind that build a public image while covering up what’s missing underneath.

He presented himself as a glamorous outlier, polished and original, but there was nothing particularly remarkable deep inside. It was the kind of industry gossip you tuck into your back pocket — a mix of moral judgement and quiet amusement. I used to laugh about it quietly for years — sharing it only with a few close friends, always in low tones, brushing it off as just another example of the hypocrisy in fame and power.

Until one day last year, I met him at a party.

He was smaller in person, quieter, generous and almost awkward. Not the smooth-talking showman I’d seen in public. We made small talk over drinks and joked about mutual acquaintances. He didn’t seem to recognise me, and I didn’t let on that I knew what I knew. Something shifted in me that night. Not sympathy. Not forgiveness. Just a pause — the recognition that people are often more fragile, and more ordinary, than the myths they sell.

In my mid-20s, I worked in China’s arts industry — a messy, glitzy world where fame and wealth often distorted everything else. I saw too much foolishness excused just because someone was rich or popular. Mediocre talent inflated by connections. Abuses of power swept aside in the name of success. Millions could be spent on a vanity project just to return a favour or protect someone’s pride. I learned early how easily charm and charisma can camouflage emptiness — and how much damage that can do when left unchecked.

This particular celebrity has millions of fans — mostly young women, from all walks of life. Many of them genuinely believe in the image he crafted. They saw him as bold, free-thinking, even noble. They had no idea the dream he built for them was constructed on the foundation of a few big lies. Watching that unfold over the years, quietly, was like watching someone sell a beautiful illusion with counterfeit currency.

Our mutual friends here in Australia had no idea. Most of them don’t speak Chinese, so they never saw the full picture — or perhaps they simply didn’t realise how they, too, were being used to help sell that dream. A dream that earned him wealth and fame while the rest played along, unaware.

I had struggled with whether I should tell our mutual friends. Once said, it couldn’t be unsaid — and I knew how easily it could be misread. That I was trying to tear down a successful man to elevate myself. That I was being petty, or jealous, or bitter. I had no intention of doing that. But knowing he was, in many ways, a good person — and that his success was built on top of his lies — left me in hesitation. I started thinking more deeply about the complications of truth, and the utility of lies. Not to excuse him, but to make sense of my own confusion: who should I care more about — his reputation, or the friends unknowingly helping him maintain it?

This year, I’ve been thinking a lot about honesty — in journalism, in relationships, in everyday life. We often speak of truth as a virtue, but truth can be used just like a lie: to control, to protect, to elevate oneself at someone else’s expense. Sometimes, speaking the truth becomes its own performance — calculated, strategic, even cruel. It can do more harm than silence. But a lie is simply a lie. It doesn’t need to cause harm to be a lie. It doesn’t beautify reality — it muddies it.

A good person can do bad things, make a terrible choice. That person can be anyone. We want morality to be clean, but life rarely is. And that’s where it gets difficult — when truth and judgement blur, when silence feels complicit but speech feels destructive.

In journalism, we carry a professional obligation to the truth. But I’ve come to believe truth in our personal lives is more layered. It’s not always about confession. Sometimes, it’s about restraint. Sometimes, it’s about knowing what silence means — and what it costs.

That night at the party didn’t make me forget who that man was or what he did. But it made me stop laughing about it. It reminded me that people are not only what they’ve done, but what they carry — including their own illusions, public or private.

To the man and his friends, truth only lies in his presentation. I’m not breaking the secret for the sake of being honest to myself.

And maybe the most difficult truth is this: we’re all a mix of honesty and performance. The question is whether we’re willing to live with that knowledge — and take responsibility for the stories we choose to tell, or withhold.