Why Are Celebrities Suicidal?

By Imelda Priveta  •  in Features
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When I was younger, I loved being the centre of attention. I wanted to be a star and have my very own reality TV show but as I grew into a young adult, my dreams started to change. Looking at the life of one of my favourite artistes, Justin Bieber, go downhill from being confident and funny in interviews to now getting anxious and even appalling everywhere, life as a superstar suddenly doesn’t seem as appealing.

What we see or hear on social media and TV are just snippets of what the reality of being famous is like. They own luxury cars, mansions and thousands of die-hard fans, but why do they still end up depressed with some ending their lives?

Depression is the criminal that leads someone into being suicidal which can be an unnoticeable illness. People don’t realise sometimes how badly someone is fighting internally with their own thoughts as not even a tad bit of their inner thoughts will be shown to the world.

That is what happened with lead singer, Chester Bennington of Linkin Park who died by hanging himself on July 20, 2017. His wife, Talinda tweeted:

Just months after this incident, a Kpop boy band member, Kim Jong-hyun took away his life leaving a suicide note that read: “I am broken from inside. The depression that had been slowly eating me up finally devoured me and I couldn’t defeat it.”

He continued: “It wasn’t my path to become world-famous. That’s why they say it‘s hard to go against the world and to become famous. Why did I choose this path? It’s quite funny now that I think about it. It‘s a miracle that I endured through it all this time.”

(Source: Vogue)

It is nerve-racking when you have the world’s eyes tracking your every action, all the judgments from outsiders get overwhelming. I mean they are humans too. If the little things can get to us, it can get to them. These stars are torn between what they love to do and what society wants of them. So, they slowly begin to lose their purpose in life and are left to deal with it silently.

Justin Bieber who went through depression himself said: “It has gotten to the point that people won’t even say ‘hi’ to me or recognise me as a human. I feel like a zoo animal and I want to be able to keep my sanity.”

(Source: Capital FM)

Pressure from society to be a certain way affects celebrities as they feel like they don’t want to let their fans down and thus overworking themselves without proper breaks to appear for events or a whole 2 years of non-stop touring. They’re afraid of failure.

Selena Gomez opened up to Vogue about the mental demands while touring: “My self-esteem was shot. I was depressed, anxious. I started to have panic attacks right before getting onstage, or right after leaving the stage. Basically I felt I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t capable. I felt I wasn’t giving my fans anything, and they could see it which, I think, was a complete distortion.”

(Source: J-14)

On top of that, the lack of freedom of so-called ‘manufactured pop stars’ to make their own decisions and choices on what music to put out, how many tour shows to do and even who to date in the industry is up to their publicist and manager. It’s as if they have no control over their own lives and are forced to do whatever their management asks of them.

While Western boybands and girlbands have been through this in the past, one only has to look to Japan’s and Korea’s pop scenes for a more disturbing take on entertainment management and talent grooming–where young girls and boys are trained from as early as 7 years old to be the country’s next big pop export. Being programmed to please audiences at such a young age can only have a negative effect in a young person’s life when they reach adulthood.

(Source: PK Baseline)

The latest shocking news to hit us was that the death of Swedish DJ Avicii, who recently passed away, was classified as suicide. According to CNN, family members mentioned: “He really struggled with thoughts about Meaning, Life, Happiness. He could not go on any longer. He wanted to find peace. He was not made for the business machine he found himself in; he was a sensitive guy who loved his fans but shunned the spotlight.”

The young 28 year old was known to be an introvert but as his career required him to perform in clubs and festivals, he had no choice and in time suffered from health problems due to his drinking habit.

As much as it sounds exciting to be popular, there are actually many behind the scene issues that can break ones’ soul into pieces. Not everything we hear in the news are the full truths though we all still have that vicarious side that needs to know what’s going on in our fave celebs’ lives, perhaps residue from our younger days of stargazing.

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