Is the Celebrity brand of Fame Bad for your Health?

[Paulclem]

Whitney Houston, Marvin Gaye, Elvis Presley, Jim Morrison, Michael Jackson, Phil Lynott, Bird... and there must be lots more who died young. Whitney Houston was my current age, and I was shocked to discover last year that I had passed Elvis' age at his death. All the above are in the music business that I reeled off the top of my head. There others in other celebrity fields though.

Are these examples just anomolies, or is there something about celebrity that is bad for the health?

[iamnobody]

Being a celebrity very often means no one ever tells you "no". The average person can't get their doctor to give them any drugs they want, but celebrities can. Being surrounded by people who are always willing to get you anything you want, no matter how harmful it may be, does terrible things to people.

[Calidore]

Celebrity brings money and power, which people can use to strengthen or weaken themselves. It starts with what's already in them.

[Maximilianus]

A few famous names come to mind. They haven't died because of drug or alcohol abuse, but are said to have been into heavy consumption especially during their young age. Dave Mustaine and Ozzy Osbourne, just to name two who survived the 50-year-old barrier after a lifestyle of much excess, are supposed to be healed now, although there are occasions when they are reported to be been seen taking heavy loads of alcohol.

I think it depends on how fortune and fame impact on every person and, like it was said above, on what you are inside as a person. I believe weak people will eventually fall in the hole, for one reason or another, regardless of their public exposure, although standing in the spotlight seems a quicker detonator than others.

I think it also depends on what we have inside whether we are going to recover or die of it at some point when the body yells it can endure no more poison. Some people, like the two I mentioned, seem to have reconsidered before it was too late to pull back, but they were lucky to have had a stronger resistance to substances than other people have. I also know cases of very weak biological systems who have endured strong periods of substance abuse and surprisingly they are still breathing. Believers may call it a miracle. I think it's a matter of biological strength.

[MarkBastable]

Are these examples just anomolies, or is there something about celebrity that is bad for the health?

No, there's something about drugs that's bad for the health. And fame gives you access to a lot of drugs.

[prendrelemick]

No, there's something about drugs that's bad for the health. And fame gives you access to a lot of drugs.


I think there may be something a little more than that. We all have access to drugs if we want them. I think paul's question is about fame (in the field of entertainment) and it's affect on the individual.

[MarkBastable]

I think there may be something a little more than that. We all have access to drugs if we want them. I think paul's question is about fame (in the field of entertainment) and it's affect on the individual.

If you were going to do that analysis, I think you'd have to get comparative mortality rates for other professions across a similar period of time. (Some of the people Paul cites have been dead a long while.)

Also, you'd have to figure out whether the tendency to self-destruction was a result of fame or whether the drive to fame and the tendency to self-destruction might spring from the same aspects of personality.

(Which is not to say that all ambitious people have that trait - there are likely to be multiple drivers to fame. But one of them, I think, is the sort of irresolvable insecurity that also drives self-destruction.)

My point was that, all other things being equal - distribution of personality types, tendency to self-destruction, appetite for drugs - it's a damn sight easier to get hold of drugs in show business than in most other professions. Unless, of course, every time you show up for work, someone sidles up to you and says, "Hey, Mick - you wanna little of this, man? Like, just to give you some edge when you're feeding the sheep? Hey - don't worry. Give me the money anytime you have it, man. Just get your head right, man. For the sheep, you know?"

[Helga]

I think it has a lot to do with the individual, some can handle fame and some can't. I could mention a few people around me who couldn't handle the pressure of 'life' and started using drugs and died because of it.

Most celebrities handle it differently, maybe not in a way we would consider normal but without drugs and alcohol. Just like everybody else, some handle life and all it brings you and some can't.

I do think all the magazines and the internet can make it more difficult, every bad thing that happens in their life is news for the world.

[BookBeauty]

There are drugs, yes. That's the obvious issue.

Then take a look at modelling, for both male and females.

Actors have similar weight issues.

Men eat so little that they are in a constant, drunken stupor, just so they can get their abs to show.

Little known fact is that the majority of actors you see in film are taking steroids. Their muscles are unnatural. The other half of them just starve themselves so the fat comes off, and shows off their muscles, making them look muscular, but they're actually just quite skinny.

It's actually tougher for a man in that industry to get into the shape for films and photography than it is for women. Most women can get away with just having a flat stomach, they don't need to show abs.

The lack of nutrition, fitness and general health is astounding. And little boys and girls aspire to this.

Then there's plastic surgery.

It's all about image, and profit for production of everything. It's all a game to keep people entertained, but everyone suffers blindly.

The image we see is unrealistic, and disgustingly unhealthy.

[Darcy88]

I think part of it is that since they are celebrities we know when they die. The humble person dies and only those he or she knows get word of it. A celebrity dies and its on the front page of newspapers and broadcast on CNN. Celebrity death therefore seems more common than it might actually be.

[Paulclem]

I was wondering if the fame aspect contributed to the state of minds of those who die young. Clearly drugs, fast cars, (Bam Marghera and James Dean), flight, (John Denver and others), boats, (Natalie Wood - though there is a bit of a dispute about this), help them along the way. Is there something about fame that poisons the mind, or is it just the access to deadly ways that being rich gives you?

Clearly beng rich isn't the whole story. There are plenty of rich people who don't die young. Does egotism make you more vulnerable, or is there an unstable creative streak that puts a celeb at risk?

[JuniperWoolf]

Hmm? Is Bam Marghera dead? My stupid friends liked him a lot in the early '00s.

[Paulclem]

Hmm? Is Bam Marghera dead? My stupid friends liked him a lot in the early '00s.

Yes - last year I think. His car went off the road and burst into flames. Pity that. I liked the Jackass stuff too. It appeals to my puerile self. I don't suppose they'll do another.

[kasie]

Watched a bit of a tv prog about Whitney Houston's sad death - not my usual fare but that's what happens when you fall asleep in front of the tv...

The bit I saw seemed to be saying that her problems stemmed from her early youth, from the pressure on her to be not the person she was but the person those around her wanted her to be. She was groomed first by her mother, then by agents/recording managers: her recording success took her in a new direction, causing friction between herself and her mother, so she turned to the 'relief' offered by a convenient family so-called friend who just happened to have the stuff she needed right there in his pocket. I was appalled by the callous cynicism of this 'friend' and switched off at that point but it seemed to me the poor woman exhibited an extreme case of depression caused by the lack of control over one's own life - 'stardom' seems to me a roundabout that it's impossible to leave without severe damage, especially when those who should care for you the most, family and friends, are not providing solid reality checks and support.