20 career lessons from celebrities

#6: Kate Moss

Lesson: Be discreet about your “extracurricular activities.” And please, stick to the legal kind.

The English supermodel came onto the scene in the early 90s. Since then she’s become the face of numerous beauty products, launched her own clothing line and dated just about every scruffy man in Britain. But of all her high-profile love interests, none has been more controversial than Libertines front man and known drug addict Pete Doherty. In 2005, photos of her snorting cocaine were all over Britain’s Daily Mirror. Allegedly, one of Doherty’s friends snapped the footage with a cell phone and sold it to the tabloid.

Drug use in the modeling industry isn’t exactly breaking news. But stills of Moss ingesting copious amounts of cocaine were rattling — especially after she’d vehemently denied drug use throughout her career. She lost several multi-million dollar modeling contracts and checked into rehab shortly after. She bounced back, but she’ll always be remembered as “Cocaine Kate.”

While Kate’s example is a bit extreme, it does remind us that any questionable activity we engage in off the clock — even binge drinking — can come back to bite us. Brush up on your nursing etiquette know-how as often as possible!

#7: George Lucas →