Are Celebrities more unhappy than everyday people (on average)

[Matthew Mussolini]

I'm reminded of all the drug addiction that runs rampant among celebrities. They also seem to be constantly in miserable relationships and getting divorces.

Especially in the adult entertainment Industry there is no question that the emptiness and misery is greater than the average person.

I honor and pray for such people because the average woman lives to be 79, but in the adult entertainment Industry dies in her mid thirties, usually from suicide or drug overdose.

I'm reminded of Chris Farley, John Belushi, Michael Jackson, and the lead singer of sublime.

Then there is Kurt Cobain, (suicide with a shot gun when he was young and had screaming fans like it was Beatle Mania). He had it all.


@PacificDude ,
regarding your comment that I could potentially be a vocalist or song writer of some sort, I have managed to cheer people up in correctional facilities, crisis centers, and psyche wards with rhymes I wrote, and had a few people in real life tell me I could potentially have a career doing that, but to be honest, it would kill me.

"Fortune and fame are disguised as your friend but I'm lonelier than I've ever been, this pain in my stomach won't go away" are some lyrics from Fred Durst. It stuck with me when I heard him say that.

"Celebrities are in prison" was something a Psychiatrist told me when I went to my first Psyche ward, age 10, and it stuck with me.

There seems to be this darkness everyone feels when they reach fortune and fame. I don't think I would ever reach fortune or fame, but even pursuing a career like that would cause me even worse addictions than I already have.

]I was an actor in College and it really would have seemed like I was having a good time, but I still cringe to think of how loaded with drugs I was virtually every time I was on stage and vomiting at parties after plays.

The actors and actresses drank heavily and popped pills and did all kinds of stuff and it was all complete moral bankruptcy. Everyone is basically selfish, narcissistic, relying on an audience for affirmation, scared of what everyone thinks.

Then if you get successful , you can't actually trust anyone, and if you get really big you will have no freedom always swarmed by paparazzi, everyone gossips about the details of your life, your face winds up on all kinds of magazine covers if you go to jail, rehab, or screw up in some way.

People pretend to be friends with celebrities and they often don't have a trusted circle or healthy social life[/PHP][/PHP]. Mother Teresa of Calcutta was a lot more happy before she became famous. She couldn't stand all the cameras flashing and being in the spotlight all the time.

Everyone was hypercritical of her every fault. She was a human being and people want to believe otherwise. I wouldn't call her a celebrity, but she had that kind of publicity , and people talked shit about her and gossipped non stop.

Supposedly her homes for the dying smelled funny (no shit sherlock) weren't absolutely perfect or the most sanitary of places, or the patients weren't given addictive lethal morphine (probably because none was available) but to so many literal lepers,( or lepers of society), lonely, dying, forgotten, and poorest of the poor, no one else would have been there to hold them and dry the tears from their faces, rescue them from the mice that were eating them alive, clean the maggots out of their wounds, love and console them etc., were Mother Teresa and her missionairies of charity not there for them.

I don't see Mother Teresa's harsh critics lifting a finger to help such people.

It's a stupid world.

Let me know your thoughts though. God bless!

[6-eyed]

I don't feel sorry for celebrities. They chose that career path and made it. Lots of people strive to be famous and it isn't easy road to the top. Fame is a choice. Although fame has its disadvantages, the perks are abundant.

[PacificDude]

I don't feel sorry for celebrities. They chose that career path and made it. Lots of people strive to be famous and it isn't easy road to the top. Fame is a choice. Although fame has its disadvantages, the perks are abundant.

I'm curious about these perks you speak of? Do you mean material gain? That often leads to moral/spiritual bankruptcy. And I think that is the point of what Matthew Mussolini is saying here.

[Undies]

OP is again too long, but i noticed drug abuse was mentioned. i think a part of that would probably just be easy access. i do suspect the celebrity life comes with a lot of pressure though, which could also lead to drug abuse. i don't know if that means they're inherently less happy though.

[6-eyed]

I'm curious about these perks you speak of? Do you mean material gain? That often leads to moral/spiritual bankruptcy. And I think that is the point of what Matthew Mussolini is saying here.

Money is freedom. They can do what most people dream of doing without worrying about finances. For every single jealous, angry, creepy, hater a celebrity has. They’ve got several fans and supporters.

The OP mentions that they don’t know who they can trust and many of their friends are fake. Well same with us common people. I’ve had friends and lovers betray me, as I’m sure you have too. No different being famous.

Personally I would prefer to be semi famous and wealthy, than be super famous and super wealthy.

[PacificDude]

Money is freedom. They can do what most people dream of doing without worrying about finances. For every single jealous, angry, creepy, hater a celebrity has. They’ve got several fans and supporters.

The OP mentions that they don’t know who they can trust and many of their friends are fake. Well same with us common people. I’ve had friends and lovers betray me, as I’m sure you have too. No different being famous.

Personally I would prefer to be semi famous and wealthy, than be super famous and super wealthy.

6-eyed I prefer solitude and poverty big time. Keeping it simple works best for me.

[Matthew Mussolini]

I'm curious about these perks you speak of? Do you mean material gain? That often leads to moral/spiritual bankruptcy. And I think that is the point of what Matthew Mussolini is saying here.

Amen!
Not just is the material gain going to be very dangerous for countless people on a psychological, moral, and spiritual level, but the constant praise is actually dangerous because it can lead to pride and worship of oneself , which creates enormous misery.

I don't think Scripture is always right, but one thing it says is that pride was the fall of the Devil and we are tested by the praises we receive.

Praise can be really helpful if someone has a low self-esteem and they need help believing in themselves, but it can be a very hazardous thing to receive a lot of.

When I was a devout Catholic and trying to be a monk or priest, I received flattery often, including people telling me I am going to be a Saint. People placed enormous confidence in me and it was very terrible for me, especially when things didn't go according to their expectations.

The guy that got me to go back to College for the second time was often telling me I'd do great and cut through my LPN courses like a knife through butter. When I discovered it was hell and too much (especially with mathematics) I wished that guy would have simply told me the truth and not gotten my hopes up.

Thing is, even with drugs, some of the things people told me lead to my drug addiction being as bad as it was. I'm not to blame anyone but myself for my choices, but I know that all the promises people made about how wonderful my destiny was going to be , motivated me to abuse myself even more than I would have, because I believed "I have destiny. Therefore, I don't have to worry about all these drugs I'm putting into myself".

I also, kept going back to drugs trying to live up to expectations that I knew were impossible. These people were not seeing the real me, which made me want to be what they saw, which wasn't genuine.

People aren't seeing celebrities (and Saints) for what they are (fragile human beings with human weaknesses like everyone else [despite excelling in some areas more].

I couldn't survive if I ever became wealthy or famous. Some people could handle it, but the money and material possessions + all the fans would cause little time for the inward journey of prayer and meditation, increase in vices, temptations from loose + fake women, loss of virtue, more money to use (over ten times as many ) drugs as I currently use, and chronic attachment to reputation and pride.

Congratulations that you prefer solitude and poverty. That is a precious gift that created a lot of Saints, and two virtue creating luxuries that many of the canonized Saints write about as being crucial for good Spiritual health.

Sadly, solitude and poverty are two luxuries that would make certain people more wise and happy, but they are stuck in a constant rat race trying to avoid both of them.

Francis of Assisi referred to poverty as "Lady poverty", and found his relationship with her to be romantic.

[PacificDude]

OP is again too long, but i noticed drug abuse was mentioned. i think a part of that would probably just be easy access. i do suspect the celebrity life comes with a lot of pressure though, which could also lead to drug abuse. i don't know if that means they're inherently less happy though.

Undies What I just put in bold in your quote. It does seem to me that many famous people have a great hunger for approval and acceptance that began while they were still unknown: Janis Joplin especially comes to mind. She was treated like trash in Texas, so she hitchhiked to San Francisco, and despite all odds became a rock/blues superstar. This still was not enough for her. She attended her 10th annual high school reunion hoping to finally validate herself at home. They still treated her like trash. 6 weeks later she was found dead from a heroin OD. Welcome to the 27 Club.

[PacificDude]

Amen!
Not just is the material gain going to be very dangerous for countless people on a psychological, moral, and spiritual level, but the constant praise is actually dangerous because it can lead to pride and worship of oneself , which creates enormous misery...

Congratulations that you prefer solitude and poverty. That is a precious gift that created a lot of Saints, and two virtue creating luxuries that many of the canonized Saints write about as being crucial for good Spiritual health.

Sadly, solitude and poverty are two luxuries that would make certain people more wise and happy, but they are stuck in a constant rat race trying to avoid both of them.

Francis of Assisi referred to poverty as "Lady poverty", and found his relationship with her to be romantic.

Thanks big time, but it was not a choice at the start... haha. I tried to become a success story and only managed to fail too many times to count. Then it dawned on me that maybe failure was something I was quite good at, so why not make the most of it? It was actually Kurt Cobain's death that opened my eyes to just how self-destructive the pursuit of riches and fame can be. He never wanted it, and was thinking about leaving the music industry up until the moment he picked up that needle and shot gun.

Sadly, he married the worst possible person in the world (for him). Courtney may not have pulled the trigger in a literal sense, but she did it by demanding that he NOT be a loser in life. Her definition of a winner was the opposite of everything he believed in. So all that pressure - fame, fortune, and a quite materialistic wife - proved too much for him.

I think the sickest thing she did to him was to use their baby daughter as a weapon. Courtney Love made Yoko Ono look like Mother Teresa big time.... haha. Anyway, all of her ruthless ambition paid off in riches, but she will ultimately be remembered as the wife of Kurt Cobain. He was 100 times more talented and genuine than she was capable of being. Billy Joel had it right: Only the Good Die Young.

[Matthew Mussolini]

Thanks big time, but it was not a choice at the start... haha. I tried to become a success story and only managed to fail too many times to count. Then it dawned on me that maybe failure was something I was quite good at, so why not make the most of it? It was actually Kurt Cobain's death that opened my eyes to just how self-destructive the pursuit of riches and fame can be. He never wanted it, and was thinking about leaving the music industry up until the moment he picked up that needle and shot gun.

Sadly, he married the worst possible person in the world (for him). Courtney may not have pulled the trigger in a literal sense, but she did it by demanding that he NOT be a loser in life. Her definition of a winner was the opposite of everything he believed in. So all that pressure - fame, fortune, and a quite materialistic wife - proved to much for him.

I think the sickest thing she did to him was to use their baby daughter as a weapon. Courtney Love made Yoko Ono look like Mother Teresa big time.... haha. Anyway, all of her ruthless ambition paid off in riches, but she will ultimately be remembered as the wife of Kurt Cobain. He was 100 times more talented and genuine than she was capable of being. Billy Joel had it right: Only the Good Die Young.

Yeah...it's crazy how certain people ever get married. I would think prior to marriage there has to truly be something Kurt saw in her that made her appear amazing, because he had so many screaming female fans, he could have found a better wife than that (if she appeared to be a major piece of work any time prior to the marriage).

So, you're pretty sure it was Courtney that was the primary cause of the suicide? I didn't realize she was placing those demands on him. I heard she was responsible for his death, but wasn't aware that she was shaming his ideas of what it means to be a good person (and accusing him of being a loser).

It reminds me of when I asked a friend, "have you ever considered suicide"? He responded, "not before I got married".

I'm just glad I never got a girl pregnant (to my knowledge), and that I'm not married.

There is one girl I asked to marry me in 2017, and I jumped off a building over her response. I'm still convinced though that she was the person I was called to be married to, and if I had stayed sober, remained morally sound, would have seen it become a reality.

I almost died as a result of meeting her, but there are reasons I'm still very much in love with her , and believe that Providence, the Kami, or some supernatural entity is responsible for my falling in love with her (and the conviction that we were called to marriage). I just took it way to fast and with too much passion and zeal.

So attached to her am I mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, that I'm actually not motivated to even desire marriage with anyone else, and am quite content remaining celibate for the rest of my life (hopefully a rather short life I pray).

I have broken bones that never healed right, walk on two torn meniscuses and a fractured knee that couldn't be operated on due to dwindling cartilage, and the chronic pain and scars from surgery constantly remind me of her.

Mussolini means Jacob, and both Mussolini and Jacob married Rachel, but Jacob also married Lia (Leah). Rachel was loved and Lia rejected, so spiritual writers say that Lia represents rejection and the cross.

People nicknamed me "Matthew Mussolini" and it just seemed it was meant to be that she become my greatest cross and source of rejection.

Spiritual writers have said things like "We must carry Lia (Leah) daily, suffer with Lia, die with Lia (our cross). So I named my cross that I must carry: "Lia". In Scripture, the moon represented Lia, and the sun represented her husband, so I named the moon Lia. When I shared this information with Lia, it was clear I was Idolizing her and practically worshipping the ground she walked on.

This of course will make almost any female uncomfortable. I've been single since 2017 with the exception of a brief relationship with a prostitute.

Thanks for reminding me through Courtney love and Kurt why I'm single and never want to get married though. . My mom and Dad have been divorced since I was 4 and still hate each other. My Dad kidnapped us after my mother won custody and took us to Fatima Portugal to try to raise us there.

Were it not for my Dad going to Portugal , I never would have met Lia. This also makes me feel connected to her. I attempted suicide May 23, 2017, the 100 year anniversary of the apparitions and miracle of the sun at Fatima Portugal 1917. My Pin number was always 1917 on any card prior to the suicide attempt (so , now you know how to use my EBT card hahaha :-)

It's kind of a bizzare set of coincidences.

[6-eyed]

6-eyed I prefer solitude and poverty big time. Keeping it simple works best for me.

No judgment toward you personally, but fighting for basic survival every day in major poverty sounds crazy to me. Especially in solitude with no friends, family, or network for help.

I get you seem to be implying that people who find meaning in materialism are shallow. Which I can agree to some extent, but a little bit of materialistic desires doesn’t exactly corrupt a person.

[SpaceMan]

cobain didnt kill himself

[Amerijuanican]

I'm betting celebs are less happy than the regular people.
More is expected of them in many ways, by managers, etc.
I'm sure they have access to more recreational substances but prob. need them just to cope.
Judging from the high divorce/remarriage rate I'm guessing there's more turbulence due to affairs
I would love to give it a try though Lol!!

[PacificDude]

No judgment toward you personally, but fighting for basic survival every day in major poverty sounds crazy to me. Especially in solitude with no friends, family, or network for help.

I get you seem to be implying that people who find meaning in materialism are shallow. Which I can agree to some extent, but a little bit of materialistic desires doesn’t exactly corrupt a person.

6-eyed The trouble with materialism is that it can become quite addictive - much worse than any drug. As long as there's moderation, I really don't have a problem with it. Regarding my poverty stricken/solitary status - I've never understood why people place so much importance in things? That's why there's so much debt in the world - too many people measure their worth by what they own. In truth (if one is not vigilant) cars, houses, fancy clothes (fashion), etc. become more of a burden than a blessing in life.

And I do not see my solitary life as an especially insane one. As Matthew Mussolini stated - many religious people in history embraced solitude in their lives so they could be more spiritual and less materialistic. For me, it was not a deliberate choice, but more like an accidental awakening. Don't get me wrong, I do share quality time w/people. I do a lot of volunteer work at soup kitchens/homeless shelters and such.

Also, I taught a creative writing group for the homeless, and helped them to publish their work in the homeless newspaper they sold to earn a living and get off the streets. It was a much more rewarding experience for me than climbing up a corporate ladder and stepping on people in a sad attempt to make it to the top. That (to me) seemed totally crazy. But if you can do it, then by all means go for it. That's pretty much a choice most people make, without ever trying to find a less stressful and more spiritual way to exist. We're really not that different, 6-eyed :-)

[Jessica]

I don't think you can categorize neatly into "celebrities" and "regular people" and say one group is happier than the other. There is such a massive difference between people who achieve fame as an adult and children who grow up famous, for instance. I think that group often is particularly prone to issues because they don't fit in with the majority of their peers.. Can't relate to the normal milestones of growing up, etc. And also if they were kids they didn't choose it, their adult guardians did.. Which has taken away a certain amount of their autonomy over their life and how it goes. They lack freedom, and I think freedom is often what divides the happy from the unhappy.

For example, you can love material things and be happy.. It's only when the fear of not having those things means you have to do things (like jobs) that you don't get any pleasure out of, purely for the money, purely for the material things money buys.. Then you are not FREE, so you cannot be happy.