It’s official: fame really does mess you up.
A new study that has been published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health has shown that famous singers have a 33% higher mortality risk compared with those who live outside the public eye.
The study looked at 324 famous solo artists or lead singers and compared them with less famous musicians of a similar age, gender and nationality, ethnicity and musical genre. It showed that those singers that found fame died on average at the age of 75, but those who lived less celebrated lives lived until the age of 79 – an extra four years.
Interestingly, band membership helps. Singers who front groups have a 26% lower risk of early death compared to their solo counterparts.
The results are not that surprising. The often sudden change from living a private life to one in which you are constantly scrutinised and under pressure to perform is something some artists never truly adjust to. As we know, many use drugs and drink as coping mechanisms, which invariably makes things worse.
It should also be pointed out that the study looked at musicians who were active between 1950 and 1990, in other words the ‘heroic’ era of pop/rock, when music was the world’s dominant art form. The artists who rose to fame between those years shaped the landscape we know so well, but often at the expense of their own mental health. They possessed no map. They (and the managers and record companies who worked alongside them) were making it up as they went along.
Announcing the results of the study, its senior author Michael Dufner, Professor of Personality, Psychology and Diagnostics at Witten/Herdecke University in Germany, said: “It’s worrying because it indicates that famous musicians are indeed at risk of a premature death,”
Asked what today’s artists should do, he said it was important to appreciate how unhealthy the touring lifestyle could be, with easily available drugs and deep isolation from close friends and family. “A good measure against these could be to take a step back regularly,” meet family and old friends, and “critically evaluate one’s lifestyle”.
Speaking to the Guardian, Dr Sally Anne Gross, author of the 2020 book Can Music Make You Sick? backed up the study’s findings: “Fame, it would seem, is toxic,” she said. It “operates to isolate the individual”.
So what can be done to alleviate that toxicity? “There are many people working within the music industry, from music managers to music executives, who are genuinely trying to improve the working conditions and environment. However, fame presents different challenges. You can’t just go to rehab to give up the habit – it is not in the control of the artist themselves.”
