People who couldn't handle stardom and crumpled

Dave Chappelle

Elon Musk

Dave Chapelle took a break from public life and then came back with some of his most popular shows ever.

He never had a major meltdown and “crumpled” (crumbled?) like OP’s poster boy. He got fed up with being pigeonholed and getting interference from execs wanting to make his projects less black. And then rumors about him having a breakdown made him stay out of the limelight even longer. He’s now as famous as he ever was.

Kristi McNichol; Emily Lloyd

Jennifer Lawrence.

Amanda Bynes

Barbara Harris

This little piggie...

Perhaps he doesn’t qualify but I think Chalamet has no idea how to use fame effectively.

Macaulay Culkin

R3 And he licks Musk’s asshole. Wish he’d stayed away.

Jennifer Lawrence? Timothee Chalamet? Ridiculous. Now people are just naming stars they don't like.

Shia LaBoeuf has had a few crack-ups, including that art installation he did where he later claims he was raped.

Truman Capote.

It wasn’t quick, but it was tragic.

Gene Tierney

Chapell Roan. She'll quit music soon over "bullying" and then reveal she was never a lesbian and then become a commentator on Fox News.

R6 I agree. Barbara Harris owns this thread. Maybe shares it with Catherine Burns.

Does anybody know what the story was with Barbara Harris?

Chris Tucker

Katherine Heigl

Miscia Barton

Andy Dick

Brad renfro

Lindsay Lohan

Sean Young

Bai Ling

Macauley Culkin, River Phoenix, Balthazar Getty, Fergie, Joyce DeWitt, Alicia Silverstone

[quote] Does anybody know what the story was with Barbara Harris?

Harris was enormously talented. But according to her she didn't like actually performing, much less anything that had to do with fame; what she loved was rehearsing and making different choices for a role--she said she was always disappointed when a show opened because she couldn't keep experimenting as much as she could during rehearsal. Once she fully realized this, she decided she'd be happier being a drama teacher, and so she went off to teach at some university in the American Southwest.

Jean-Michel Basquiat, sadly.

I can't believe Shia LaBeouf hasn't been named yet.

Frances Farmer

You mean all the closeted men like Timothee, Bradley and Tom Holland. They can’t be themselves so their fame is an illusion.

[quote]I can't believe Shia LaBeouf hasn't been named yet.

Do you have r11 blocked? Shia was mentioned.

Indeed I do, r26. Blocked by accident.

Barbara Harris?

Kim Stanley.

She had many chances and pretty much blew them all. Too crazy. Too drunk. But one of the best actors of all time.

Britney Spears?

Lindsay Lohan.

[quote]Jennifer Lawrence.

Jennifer Lawrence is a fabrication of Harvey Weinstein.

Kurt Cobain

Fame isn't for everyone.

Evangeline Lilly

The Olsen twins

Jan Michael Vincent

Deanna Durbin

Virginia Weidler (The Women, The Philadelphia Story, Babes on Broadway)

Michael Schoeffling

Michael St. Gerard (Elvis, Hairspray)

Oh good Lord, Frances Farmer is R38?

Edward Furlong. Basically had a career handed to him on a silver platter and fucked it all up.

I'm not sure what happened to Cuba Gooding Jr. He won an Oscar and then...nothing.

Definitely Amy Winehouse, Margot Kidder, and Patty Duke.

Azealia Banks. Seems like she has unmedicated bipolar disorder. Has released one album since she first gained fame over a decade ago, and is known mainly for picking fights with other celebrities on the internet. She also slaughters chickens in her house to perform Santeria. A heinous bitch.

I would never want to be famous. Rich, yes.

Mischa Barton

Some people like Schoeffling just decided they didn't care for it. A lot different from flipping out on drugs and alcohol.

R38 I don't get it

I think Luke Hemmings from 5 Seconds of Summer was really mind-fucked by crazy Arzaylea. I think their song Lie to Me is about her.

Bowen Yang will end up like this someday.

Brittany Murphy.

Bowen Yang will only ever think he’s famous enough to not handle fame.

You guys are confusing people who are mentally ill, drug addicts, or washed up people for people who couldn’t handle fame. Most of these people didn’t crash because they couldn’t handle fame, they crashed cause they were crazy.

Susan Boyle is an example of someone who couldn’t handle fame. She had a nervous breakdown from being so overwhelmed by the work and the attention.

Nick Stahl, Michael Pitt

Lisa Nicole Carson …… This is a sad one - she was so good in her 2 big roles. She played Ally McBeal’s roommate and Carla - Erin LaSalle’s girlfriend on ER. She was bipolar and it became too much.

To continue with my R49 post, Lauryn Hill would be another example.

In the last decade she’s re-invented herself as a legacy touring act so she’s been more comfortable in the spotlight now that the pressure is off.

But she completely collapsed from the pressure of fame because she could never follow up to her first album. A lot of that had to do with her ego and the fact that she took credit from the band she recorded the album with. They sued her and she was left on her own which is why she never put anything substantial out.

R18 These are just all crazy people. Fame had nothing to do with their issues, they just had issues.

Brendad

Lindsay Lohan had substance abuse issues but crazy? I think not. I'm not sure Sean Young is crazy. If she is, what is the diagnosis?

Lindsay Lohan is crazy.

Many people who retreated from fame - genuinely retreated - are likely on the autism spectrum. Josh Hartnett is a good example, he voluntarily abandoned his very hot career.

And of course…

“I vant to be alone.”

r56 what is your armchair diagnosis. Please refer to the DSM.

[quote]Balthazar Getty

I thought Balthazar Getty stepped away from acting because he finally came into his inheritance and decided to spend his time and money acting like a DJ like his cousin Nat Getty.

-Singer/Songwriter Gregg Alexander got a whiff of fame as the lead singer of Brand New Radicals. Had one hit ("You Get What You Give") and immediately couldn't take it. He stuck with song writing, but didn't want to be the center of attention.

Kanye West.

-

R58 Isn’t there a video of her somewhere from a few years ago in the Middle East trying to lure a kid away from their parent in a British accent and the mother punched her in the face?

She’s crazy.

Kanye West is a walking DSM panoply of diagnoses

To be fair the Getty family is rife with neurodivergence

Very visible in J Paul

He washed all his own clothes himself, by hand

Nevertheless Balthazar Getty never took off in Hollywood because Liev Schreiber was already there

The R&B artist D'Angelo - sort of. Once his second album Voodoo was released and he established himself as an R&B star and a sex symbol (thanks to the Untitled video), he sort of lost it. Drug problems, got fat. He just didn't take it all that well. He did release a third album and still performs, but it wasn't pretty for a while. Though it almost works in his favor. No one really expects consistent material and performances and there's an established fan base that will wait for him and turn out when he does show up.

Amanda Bynes. It's hard to tell if fame made them crazy or if they were nuts all along.

Not sure if Shelley Duvall really counts — she had a fabulous career for a decade and made several masterpieces, and I don’t think she was as nuts 8n the end as people claimed she was. I don’t think we really know the real story with her.

Lauryn Hill seems nuts

Yeah, Lauryn Hill didn't handle it well. I mean, she made it from The Fugees (who were huge) to the release of her first solo album, which was enormous. But then it all really went to shit. I'm sure the seeds started earlier. Now that I think about it, I don't remember if she had issues during the Fugees or not. Anyone know?

Durbin was very self-aware. She knew her final films for Universal were not particularly successful and she wanted a happy home life. Her parents invested her money uncommonly well and she was a very wealthy woman. So she left. I don't think she crumpled.

Virginia Weidler is a better example. She just quit films in 1943 (I think "Best Foot Forward" was her last film) married in 1947 and gave no interviews for the rest of her life. Her leaving was not the same as Durbin. She died of a heart attack in 1968. She was only 41.

Her brother George was Doris Day's second husband from 1946-1949.

Lauryn supposedly gave a ton of money to the same doomsday cult Busta Rhymes gave his to. I heard this from someone who claims to have once worked for her. She just always seemed like someone uncomfortable with their talent, and then she and the Marley chap had a bunch of kids, and turned up to gigs looking frightening.

R68 Not really. She was banging Wyclef so I imagine everyone was getting along for the most part.

Lauryn is a megalomaniac and her ego ate her up and she couldn’t handle the pressure of fame and the anticipation of the second album, mainly because she lied about singer-songwriter-producer.

R70 Lauryn’s not that talented, that’s the problem.

She created the myth that she was this tortured musician with writer’s block but the truth is, there was a band of musicians who worked on that album and weren’t given songwriting credit and they sued her.

Anyone who’s heard the MTV Unplugged album would know she has no idea how to write a song on her own.

She’s not Tracy Chapman.

Jeff Mangum from Neutral Milk Hotel is a good example. The album “ In the Aeroplane Over the Sea” was a huge success for an independent album and he was so overwhelmed by the attention he disappeared.

Also Stephin Merritt of The Magnetic Fields.

Two men who could have crossed over into the mainstream and made money but were terrified or disinterested in being in the spotlight.

As much as I loved The Score and The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, I never saw her or the Fugees live. I'd assume she was at least a decently talented performer until she went downhill - like she could actually sing live - if she bothered to show up and not have an issue on stage or with the crowd or anything else. Lol. Anyone see her perform live?

A lot of music artists fit the bill for people who can’t handle fame as opposed to actors. I think because with music, something small can become massive and fairly quickly as opposed to an acting career where it’s constant building.

Some artists just expect to be indie artists and sell a few records and then they blow up overnight.

Someone like Adele had issues. She was fine during “19” which did well in the UK and ok in the US but she blew up with “21” and she couldn’t handle it. She’s grown into it over time but it’s definitely taken a while and she still hasn’t embraced fame the way she should have.

Gotye

Martika

Liv Tyler?

Hate saying it, but Whitney.

Justin Bieber

Britney Spears

Matthew Perry

Naomi Judd

Lizzo

Occupation? Cocksucker.

We all have issues. I don’t think fame creates them, I think it makes them much worse. And I think a lot of famous people who fall apart or even die due to drugs are sex abuse survivors - with the sexual abuse being related to their careers

Jonathan Reece Meyers.

Brendad Ixon. Of course, her "fame" was limited to one soap opera role.

I would only include people who started messing up the moment they arrived. So Britney, Whitney, Kanye, Britney Murphy etc don’t count. They all had several years of great success before the stress started to visibly take its toll.

Lauryn Hill, Lindsay Lohan, Amy Winehouse, all had a very short moment of being white hot that was immediately followed by a downward spiral

[quote]Gotye

He didn't crumble, he hated it when that damn song hit big. He always wanted to be a niche indie artist, so his return to obscurity makes sense.

Anne He He/Celestia

J.D. Salinger

Durbin was one who didn't crumple as said above. She just wanted out of that shit business. A strong sane woman. Who was even offered My Fair Lady before Julie Andrews and in no way was going to leave her home in the French countryside to live in New York and deal with Broadway bullshit. Considering the success of her movies she saved Universal and there will be a Deanna Durbin ride in the new Epic Universe in Orlando.

Didn’t “crumple” but retreated from acting, fame and a very hot career—Juliette Lewis. I think she just tours with her band now. I haven’t looked at her IMDb. She seemed very uncomfortable with being famous.

Yes, of course.

Ezra Miller collapsed because he couldn't handle stardom.

Just like Jacko, Elvis, Frances Farmer, and Monty Clift.

[quote]Yes, of course. Ezra Miller collapsed because he couldn't handle stardom.

Well, that plus the fact that he was batshit crazy to begin with.

[quote] In the last decade she’s re-invented herself as a legacy touring act

Lauryn, It's hard to call yourself a touring act when you don't even show up on time. And when you do, you sing one song and walk off.

Elizabeth Hartman (Patch of Blue and other great performances)

R93, Juliette Lewis has been working in film and television every year for the past four decades. She just keeps a low profile these days.

Lisa Turtle

R98 ok. I just cannot name anything I have seen her in since the 1990’s. She was doing very high profile, prestige projects with the biggest directors and then…I just stopped seeing her name in anything. Unfortunately, she is also a Scientologist.

ELLIOTT GOULD OWNS THIS THREAD

Was a HUGE movie star for a year and a half, self-destructed publicly with drug and mental issues. uninsurable and blacklisted for two years. Ex-wife Streisand had to bail him out.

Started working again, but the momentum was lost.

Virginia Weidler was a case of a child star who lost their looks as they grew up, not unlike Jerry Mathers. That could probably be a thread in itself.

Greta Garbo made dozens of films, mostly huge hits, from her mid-1920s silents to her last, a misguided romcom called Two-Faced Woman in 1941. Those 15 years were considered a long career for a leading back then. Her MGM contemporary Norma Shearer had the same impressive longevity. They both recognized their leading lady status was over and chose a happy retirement over supporting character roles.

There was no crumpling.

Juliette Lewis left Scientology didn't she? I think she FINALLY left. It took forever but I kind of cut some slack to people who were born to Scientologist parents. That's tough.

I saw The Fugees perform back in like 1996 or 1997 and they were great but that was before Hill's solo album came out - seems like it all went to shit after that.

Patty Duke? She had an undiagnosed mental illness for many years but continued to work steadily. Cuba Gooding Jr. took a lot of garbage paycheck parts after he won the Oscar but he continued to work.

I guess Emily Lloyd who was poised for stardom but crippling mental illness derailed her career. Carrie Snodgress was poised for a big career winning 2 golden globes and nominated for an Oscar in 1971 but was overwhelmed and decided she didn’t want a high profile career.

[quote] You guys are confusing people who are mentally ill, drug addicts, or washed up people for people who couldn’t handle fame. Most of these people didn’t crash because they couldn’t handle fame, they crashed cause they were crazy.

The thread title is just "People who couldn't handle stardom and crumpled".

If people are mentally ill or drug addicts it could have contributed to not handling stardom, or stardom could have contributed to their drug/mental problems. The point is they were people who couldn't handle stardom.

R91, I'll see your JD Salinger and raise you Harper Lee.

David Tennant recently gave an interview where he said he had a really hard time handling the rapturous reception and international fame he got as Doctor Who. He said he leaned heavily on Billie Piper, who had been extremely famous in Britain in her teens, to learn how to get through it. He's very sane, and had many years in the industry before that, so if he found it that tough it's no surprise that young, untrained screen actors can't deal, particularly once they start self-medicating on top of it.

PS Tennant didn't use the words "rapturous reception and international fame". He's not a prat.

Did anyone mention Alex Pettyfer?

Heather Donahue (The Blair Witch Project). She had a few acting gigs after TBWP. She worked for years a medical marijuana grower and has had issues with alcholisim. She's now sober and living in Maine and has changed her name to Rei Hance.

Tennessee Williams—he lamented the "catastrophe of success," as he called it.

R109, I think Alex Pettyfer is more of a Taylor Kitsch, an actor positioned for stardom who just didn't pan out. In his case it was partly because of bad behavior, but he's still working, just no longer in high-profile projects.

I'm going to throw some names into the ring. Whether or not I'm on the right track is up for debate. But, in my opinion, they seem like people who struggled with fame (or were sane enought o back out of the spotlight) and had to step away.

Brendan Fraser

Leelee Sobieski

Freddie Prinze Jr.

Dido

Zayn Malik

I mean, I guess you could argue that their stars simply faded. But Zayn in particular strikes me as someone who genuinely can't handle fame and has to retreat whenever the pressure mounts.

Lisa Nicole Carson.

John Fetterman

Corey Haim

Has anyone mentioned Armie Hammer, or has he eaten all of his enemies?

Mo'Nique

I think Armie is more a case of him being unable to handle that he wasn't as famous as he thought he deserved to be.

Tobey Maguire? Or is he just a raging asswipe?

Jim Carrey. He did that movie "I Love You Philp Morris" with Ewen MacGregor and that's the last thing I remember him doing. I loved him in that and I absolutely love that movie. They were great together.

I would argue that Ben Affleck can't handle fame, or at least the trappings that come with it.

Yes. It was easy once I had money enough to buy a house in cash and carry no debt (paying off any bills before they accrue interest.)

Before then it was less easy.

Jim Carrey was very famous and intentionally so for over a decade. He might have had sufficient but he wasn’t unable to handle it

[quote]Not sure if Shelley Duvall really counts — she had a fabulous career for a decade and made several masterpieces, and I don’t think she was as nuts 8n the end as people claimed she was. I don’t think we really know the real story with her.

Everyone steps around this, but put her in the drugs category.

She was a recreational drug user in L.A., but became a heavy user after decamping to Texas after the Northridge earthquake (a move that was supposed to be temporary). Sadly, being on a decade-plus long drug binge led her to have long-lasting cognitive impairments.

I would never in a million years want to be famous and that includes if something extraordinary happened to me like being struck by lightning. I would refuse to be interviewed.

Leelee and Freddie both became stay at home parents and enjoyed it. Freddie still acts in smaller roles but mostly works on his successful podcasts on horror movies and wrestling, things that don’t take him away from his family.

There's something about Amanda

Houston, we've got a problem

Pope Benedict XVI

Jean Arthur. She suffered near crippling stage fright.

Michael Jackson was popular for decades but he really handled fame poorly. His sanity chipped away dramatically (especially post-Thriller). His ego skyrocketed as his sanity declined. And then there's his constant bitching about how the media "mistreated" him and made him cry. And his plastic surgery just...well, I don't even need to say anything about that.

Amanda Peterson.

Louise Lasser

Probably Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

Pope Benedict

Jean Seberg?

Dolores Hart?

Dolores found a higher calling.

Michael Jackson, Prince, Madonna.

Don't agree about Brittany Murphy. She loved stardom. But she had two flop moves as a leading lady. Then she got involved with Simon Monjack which was a big mistake. Then she got sick and died.

Wasn't Durbin quoted as saying to Judy during a call after some years "are you still in that shit business?"

Hart left to be a nun. She just realized that was her true calling.

Or she was a muff diver who wanted to live in an all womyn community.

Amanda Plummer - with Streep-level acclaim for her acting gifts, plus being a "nepo baby", she was on track and then something went awry. White hot theatre career, then the "difficult" rumors and the firing or leaving projects started and work becomes infrequent. Hollywood recognized her gift and tried to do keep her in mainstream projects, whether it was on tv or on film.

Now she mainly plays crazy ladies and cameo roles.

Pamela Sue Martin - something happened on Nancy Drew, then Dynasty was her second chance, and something happened again, and then she didn't get another opportunity at that level.

Steven Lee the hot weatherman who became a convincing porn actor then quickly bailed.

R139, why are you listing Madonna? She clearly handled fame very well. Far better than her peers.

[quote] Corey Haim

Was it stardom he couldn't handle, or the amount of molestation he encountered early in his career?

Cat Stevens

Melania

I can see Plummer winning a late career Oscar.

Would Jeannie Berlin fit the criteria. A spectacular career start and connections then very little to nothing for years.

I feel like Leelee retreated by choice. She is supposedly highly intelligent and a talented artist. She seems respectable and nice.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Ezra was such a fetching young man. What a pity he went nuts.

[quote] Did anyone mention Alex Pettyfer?

I've always thought DL never cared about him since he turned out to be just another hopelessly boring straight dude.

Sarah Holcombe from Caddyshack and Animal House. Apparently schizophrenia, although it sounds more like sexual abuse and cocaine.

[quote] Ezra was such a fetching young man. What a pity he went nuts.

Except for those long corn chip toenails.

R1 ???????????? How did Dave Chapelle implode.

R3 Right. It was actually a brilliant career move. He played the long game. Now he is adorned as a cultural icon.

Ezra, apparently on some sort of bizarre manic high (drugs? bipolar disorder?), during an interview.

Re Barbara Harris, she had bi-polar disorder. Mike Nichols got a small group of her friends together, and they supported her for her last fifteen years or so. She thought she was teaching, but she survived thanks to Nichols and her friends.

[quote]Tobey Maguire? Or is he just a raging asswipe?

R120, Tobey Maguire is thought to be the RL Player X (played by Jesse Eisenberg) in the movie Molly's Game, so that would be a hard yes to your last question.

I have never heard of Molly’s Game, but I have heard that Tobey enjoys degrading and humiliating women—sometimes in public

According to the movie, which is based on Molly's autobiography, that is not confined to women.

MICKEY ROURKE

^^^Absofuckinglutely, R161,R162,R163. Molly Bloom is correct. Tobey is a "controlling closeted dickhead" and total asshole.

Explains why he's Leo's fuck buddy.

[quote] [R120], Tobey Maguire is thought to be the RL Player X (played by Jesse Eisenberg) in the movie Molly's Game, so that would be a hard yes to your last question.

Player X in "Molly's Game" was played by Michael Cera, not Jesse Eisenberg.

Mick Jagger once mentioned that phenomenal an interview. He said famous people that died young often hated being famous. I know of one person on the spectrum that deals with being famous by actively not caring what people think, and clowning people that attempt to bully by pretending it’s not happening. The interview with Ezra miller is bizarre.

[quote]R144 Pamela Sue Martin - something happened on Nancy Drew, then Dynasty was her second chance, and something happened again, and then she didn't get another opportunity at that level.

For one thing, her hair started falling out. I think that told her it was time to find something else to do.

Pamela Sue Martin had substance abuse problems, but I don't think they were necessarily related to fame. She had been famous for more than a decade, ever since The Poseidon Adventure, when she left Dynasty.

Mary Margaret O’Hara owns this thread.

Lauryn Hill. She just disappeared.

So many kid actors….

[quote] People who couldn't handle stardom and crumpled

J. D. Salinger, Harper Lee, Tennessee Williams ...OP is talking about stardom and actors.

R174, OP only mentioned actors, but never specified them. And a lot of people have mentioned musicians.

Even your quote says people who couldn’t handle stardom, not actors. Writers can be stars, too (Capote, Rowling, Stephen King, to name some of the most obvious examples).

r174 makes one wish DL had downvoting, like Reddit.