Celebrities And Suicide
June 15, 2008 by Alicia Sparks, Mental Health Notes
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
This post is part of Celebrity Health Week at the b5media Health & Wellness Channel. For more information about Celebrity Health Week posts here at Mental Health Notes, visit Introducing Celebrity Health Week: Celebrities And Mental Illness.
In this Celebrity Health Week post, we’ll take a look at some celebrities who have either reportedly attempted suicide, or who have completed suicide.
Please note that I am not an authority on celebrities and mental illness, nor am I an authority on celebrities who have committed suicide. For a celebrity to be on this list, he or she or a spouse or reliable family member must have publicly discussed – verbally or otherwise – his or her suicide attempt or completion, or, in the case of the deceased, professionals must have addressed it later on.
Read on.
Halle Berry, actress, discussed her attempt at suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning with Parade.
Drew Carey, comedian, actor, and game show host, discussed his depression and two suicide attempts – one at the age of 18 and another in his 20s – with Nancy O’Dell of Access Hollywood.
Robert Van Winkle, aka Vanilla Ice (Ice Ice Baby!), reportedly attempted suicide twice in 1994 after struggles with drug abuse, depression, and being dropped from his record label.
Drew Barrymore, former seriously troubled child star turned seriously successful actress and producer, attempted suicide during her early teenage years.
Gary Coleman, actor, disclosed two suicide attempts by sleeping pills in a 1993 Geraldo interview.
Brigitte Bardot, actress, reportedly attempted suicide twice.
Johnny Cash, country music singer, attempted suicide in 1967.
Walt Disney, Academy Award-winning film producer, screenwriter, director, animator, voice actor, and entrepreneur, reportedly attempted suicide in the early 1930s.
Eminem, aka Marshall Mathers, rapper, reportedly attempted suicide in the mid 1990s.
Kim Mathers, Eminem’s two-time ex, reportedly attempted suicide in 2000.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, author, reportedly attempted suicide.
Judy Garland, actress, reportedly attempted suicide in the early 1950s. Some speculate her accidental death by overdose was actually suicide.
Billy Joel, musician, reportedly attempted suicide in the early 1970s.
John McCain, the potential next President of the United States, reportedly attempted suicide during Vietnam.
Mindy McCready, country music singer, reportedly attempted suicide twice.
Sinead O’Connor, musician, reportedly attempted suicide in the late 1990s.
Yoko Ono, artist, musician, and John Lennon’s widow, reportedly attempted suicide in the 1960s.
Ozzy Osbourne, the Prince of F@&*#%g Darkness!, reportedly attempted suicide several times as a teenager.
Jack Osbourne, the Prince’s son, frankly discusses his depression, alcohol and substance abuse, and suicide attempt in his book 21 Years Gone: The Autobiography.
Lee Harvey Oswald, John F. Kennedy’s assassin, reportedly attempted suicide when he failed to gain Soviet citizenship.
Edgar Allan Poe, writer and poet, reportedly attempted suicide in the late 1840s.
Lou Reed, musician whose parents confined to a mental hospital to “ward off” homosexual behavior, reportedly attempted suicide.
Donna Summer, singer, reportedly attempted suicide.
Elizabeth Taylor, actress, reportedly attempted suicide.
Tina Turner, singer, reportedly attempted suicide in the late 1960s.
Sid Vicious, former Sex Pistols bassist, reportedly attempted suicide in 1978. Vicious died of a drug overdose in 1979.
Hank Williams, Jr., singer and son of Hank Williams, Sr., reportedly attempted suicide in the 1970s.
Owen Wilson, actor, reportedly attempted suicide in 2007.
Sadly, the following celebrities completed their suicides:
- Kurt Cobain, musician and lead singer of Nirvana.
- Ernest Hemingway, writer.
- Margaux Hemingway, actress and Ernest’s granddaughter.
- Terry L. Long, Pittsburgh Steelers offensive lineman.
- Marilyn Monroe, actress. (Though this is speculated.)
- Sylvia Plath, poet.
- Freddie Prinze, actor and father of Freddie Prinze, Jr.
- Anne Sexton, poet.
- Hunter S. Thompson, journalist and author.
- Vincent van Gogh, artist.
- Virginia Woolf, writer.
For more detailed lists, check out the NNDB’s lists of suicide attempts and suicide as causes of deaths.
In the meantime, stay tuned for more information about suicide, as well as my letters to a few of the people discussed during Celebrity Health Week.
Image: Newscom
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