A friend of mine who now flies for a major airline used to work for a private airline that flies celebrities.
When you fly for a major airline they back you up if you decide that it’s too dangerous to take the plane up. No passenger, celebrity or not, is going to overrule the pilot.
It’s a whole different situation with a small private service that caters to the rich. And the smaller the airline the more that they feel the pressure from their elite passengers.
I would expect preflight activities will be looked into by the NTSB. If they were going to have to drive, a call would have needed to placed by ~7:30 AM so all the passengers could make separate plans. The helicopter took off a bit after 9:00 AM. The drive is about 95 miles between airports. It will be interesting to find out what if any phones calls were made between passengers, Kobe and the pilot.