![]() For example, one of the most closely watched public breakdowns at the start of 2008 was that of singer Britney Spears, which (could be said) to have peaked in February 2007 when she shaved her head in front of scores of paparazzi photographers who spread the news worldwide overnight. The trainwrecks that received scrutinized attention were often suspected of suffering from mental health challenges. Su Holmes and Diane Negra have pointed to the “intensely and negatively scrutinizing public gaze was trained so often on female celebrities in a practice that reached fever pitch in 2008.” Footnote 9 A fever pitch that was not an “accident of historical timing” but a way of misdirecting anxieties and blame for the global financial crisis and instead position “female celebrity as itself an overvalued and depreciating asset.” Footnote 10 In this way, famous women took the heat for the public’s anxieties about the financial system and the tabloidized press used its investigative functions to examine female “trainwrecks” rather than economic institutions. This creates a different kind of celebrity health narrative than when the star herself speaks out, since speculations from others always can be denied, but firsthand statements tend to be carefully crafted to fit within the celebrity’s overall brand. Looking at celebrity reporting around 2008–2009, a lot of it was dedicated to female stars who seemed to go through mental distress, but they rarely came forward themselves to speak about what they were dealing with instead, it was the media speculating about what particular diagnosis someone might have had. Some also happened in memoirs (that were subsequently reported on by media covering celebrities), first-person essays in the popular press, press statements in relation to a rehab or hospital stay, participation in mental health awareness campaigns, on personal apps, and on reality television shows. These confessions primarily took place in interviews with magazines, but also at times on social media, with stars revealing diagnoses directly to their fans on their personal accounts, like the case of Cara Delevingne discussed in the previous chapter. The stars included here have all spoken firsthand about their own experiences of depression, anxiety, or other diagnoses. The majority of these celebrity confessions took place toward the end of the decade, with a clear increase in 2015 and onwards. So is Lady Gaga’s statement in conjunction with revealing that she lives with PTSD that “the most inexpensive and perhaps the best medicine in the world is words.” Footnote 2 Other scholars have added that celebrity health narratives also do ideological work in that they present “images and ideas about how we should interpret, manage and value mental illness as well as the identities of those who suffer from it.” Footnote 3 Teen Vogue’s insistence on the importance of speaking out and fighting the stigma discussed in the previous chapter is an example of this. Footnote 1 This is the logic presented at face value by celebrities themselves and those actively telling their stories-that when a famous person comes out and reveals that they are suffering, they communicate to fans that it is okay to feel that way and ideally inspire them to seek help. ![]() When celebrities share their personal health struggles, scholars have argued that they serve three main functions: education, inspiration, and activism/advocacy. While magazines directly (and indirectly) tell us what to do, celebrity reporting functions in a similar pedagogical way by showing audiences how famous people act in certain situations. The analysis of these health narratives shows how a profitable vulnerability and supportive conversations around mental distress exist in tension with each other in the world of celebrity media. The primary focus is on the celebrity health narratives of Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez, but I also discuss Lana del Rey, Britney Spears, and the spate of “trainwreck”- celebrity coverage of 2007-2008. Part of this was a changing media landscape broaching increasingly intimate topics as authenticity has become one of the most valued aspects of celebrity branding. I delineate the shift in celebrity media from outside speculation about what ailments a star might suffer from to a climate where celebrities themselves speak firsthand about their painful experiences. This chapter explores how mental illness has been talked about in celebrity discourse during the 2010s. Celebrities are an important part of the pop cultural landscape and the ways they approach mental health function as models for how to think about such issues in culture at large.
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