system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why is it acceptable for celebrities to receive millions of dollars in salary while a CEO of a billion dollar company is often criticized for that?
gpt
Because despite their big salaries, the celebrities are often not the top dog in the chain, they're just employees of someone making even more money. 

It might seem crazy that an NFL player is getting paid $14 million for a year, but in the current agreement with the owners, all of the players combined only get 47% of the league revenue. The other 53% goes to the 32 owners. Sure the owners have to pay a bunch of costs out of that, but they're almost certainly all pocketing at least 10's of millions of dollars per year, and all without sacrificing their bodies the way that the athletes do. 

It might seem crazy for someone to pay Brad Pitt $20 million to star in a movie, but if the movie grosses $350 million just in box office receipts, there are people making way more than $20 million from it.