I play with opportunities turned off, my towns don't include the movie lot and I rarely play the music career. I've found that my Sims achieve celeb status simply by having a lot of friends. The one thing that really annoys me is the "Impress so and so" wish.
I bought the cow plant because I thought it might take care of the paparazzi problem ( and lazy maids), but no luck. The NPCs just ignore it. Now what I do is when a paparazzi shows up I just add the them to my family until my cow plant wants a meal. The cow plant gets a meal, my Sim gets to milk the plant and I get my tiny revenge until the game creates a new NPC for the job. That's not a big deal though, cow plants always want a next meal.