A Very Important Person, or VIP is a person who is accorded special privileges due to his or her status or importance.

Examples include celebrities, heads of state/heads of government, major employers, high rollers, politicians, high-level corporate officers, wealthy individuals, or any other notable person who receives special treatment for some reason. In some cases, such as tickets to events, VIP may be used as a title in a similar way to premium, and these "VIP tickets" can be purchased by anyone. The term was coined between 1930 and 1940.

VIP syndrome is a term used to describe a situation when a perceived VIP uses his/her status to influence a given professional to make unorthodox decisions under the pressure or presence of the individual.

The term can be applied to any profession which has relationships with wealthy, famous and/or powerful clients or patients, particularly medical or airline professions...

A person is a being, such as a human, that has certain capacities or attributes constituting personhood, the precise definition of which is the subject of much controversy.^{[vague language]} The common plural of "person", "people", is often used to refer to an entire nation or ethnic group (as in "a people"), so the plural "persons" is often used in contexts which require precision such as philosophical and legal writing.

In ancient Rome, the word "persona" (Latin) or "prosopon" (πρόσωπον: Greek) originally referred to the masks worn by actors on stage. The various masks represented the various "personae" in the stage play, while the masks themselves helped the actor's voice resonate and made it easier for the audience to hear.

In Roman law, the word "persona" became used to refer to a role played in court, and it became established that it was the role rather than the actor that could have rights, powers, and duties, because different individuals could assume the same roles, the rights, powers, and duties followed the role rather than the actor, and each individual could act in more than one role, each a different "person" in law.^{[tortured english][citation needed]}