Identity Rupture in Celebrity‐Driven Crisis Communication: A Longitudinal Framing Analysis of the Mohamed Salah–Liverpool Conflict

ABSTRACT Celebrity employees pose a growing challenge for crisis communication. They act as organizational representatives, personal brands, and public symbols whose audiences often extend beyond the organization. This study introduces the concept of identity rupture, defined as a process in which a previously stable symbolic identity becomes publicly destabilized, morally contested, and later reconstructed during a crisis. Through a multi‐phase longitudinal framing analysis of elite sports‐media coverage of the Mohamed Salah–Liverpool conflict, the study examines how a managerial dispute and public grievance became a wider contest over loyalty, authority, professionalism, and legacy. The corpus traces coverage across baseline, acute rupture, post‐rupture reconstruction, and late post‐crisis phases. This design distinguishes short‐term controversy from sustained identity contestation. The findings show that pre‐crisis coverage mainly stabilized Salah as an elite performer, club icon, and “Egyptian King.” During the rupture phase, coverage shifted toward moral judgments about ego, betrayal, discipline, and loyalty. Later coverage did not simply close the episode. It reconstructed Salah's identity through competing roles, including betrayed icon, disruptive challenger, declining legend, redeemed professional, and departing club symbol. The study extends crisis communication research by moving beyond organizational reputation repair to examine identity destabilization, moral‐emotional escalation, and symbolic reconstruction in celebrity‐driven crises.