Learn Italian: Molte celebrità sono diventate famose per aver scioccato il pubblico. - Many celebrities became famous for having shocked the audience.

We use aver scioccato, which is the past infinitive, to show that the cause happened before the result. They shocked the audience first, and as a result, they became famous. Because the celebrities are the subject of both actions, we can use per + past infinitive instead of a longer phrase like perché hanno scioccato.

Why does "celebrità" end in "à" even though it is plural here?

In Italian, nouns that end in an accented vowel (like celebrità, città, or università) are invariable, meaning their spelling does not change in the plural. We can tell it is plural in this sentence because the adjective molte and the verb sono diventate are in the feminine plural form.

Why is it "sono diventate" and not "hanno diventato"?

The verb diventare (to become) describes a change of state, so it requires essere as its helper verb in the past tense, rather than avere. Whenever a verb uses essere in the past tense, its past participle must agree with the subject in gender and number, which is why we use the feminine plural diventate to match celebrità.

The word "scioccato" looks a lot like the English word "shocked". Is that a coincidence?