Celebrity hero skinned snake (5)
I believe the answer is:
viper
'snake' is the definition.
(viper is a kind of snake)
'celebrity hero skinned' is the wordplay.
'celebrity' becomes 'vip' (Very Important Person).
'skinned' means to look at the middle letters.
The central letters of 'hero' are 'er'.
'vip'+'er'='VIPER'
(Other definitions for viper that I've seen before include "Adder" , "treacherous type" , "A small poisonous snake" , "spiteful person" , "crawler" .)