33 Celebrities Open Up About Their Mental Health Struggles

Your favorite stars are here to let you know that you are not alone.

Anyone who struggles with a mental illness knows the toll it can take on you. And some of your favorite stars know that too; we love that they use their platform to advocate for causes that could use a little more attention and support.

1. Emma Stone

The Oscar winner recently spoke about her lifelong struggle with anxiety in a new Facebook campaign for the Child Mind Institute.

“[Anxiety] has always been something that I’ve lived with and it flares up in big ways at different times in my life,” she said in a Facebook video. “Sometimes while it’s happening, like while I’m in a phase of big turmoil or the anxiety is very strong, it feels like it’s never gonna end — but it does.”

2. Chrissy Teigen

Part of the reason we love Chrissy Teigen is how completely down-to-earth and relatable she is.  While she’s married to a Grammy-winning singer, hosts a popular TV show, manages to stay in such great shape after giving birth to her daughter, she recently took her candid nature to another level, when she revealed that she had suffered from postpartum depression.

In an essay for Glamour, Teigen wrote, “”Getting out of bed to get to set on time was painful. My lower back throbbed; my shoulders — even my wrists — hurt. I didn’t have an appetite. I would go two days without a bite of food, and you know how big of a deal food is for me.”

3. Demi Lovato

Demi Lovato has been especially vocal about her past mental health struggles from her powerful DNC speech to creating a documentarythat discusses the importance of speaking out about mental health. These discussions are quite personal to the singer, who herself has been diagnosed with an eating disorder, addiction, and bipolar disorder.

“Anytime you aren’t creating conversation about what mental health really is, you’re opening it up to a bunch of negativity,” Lovato told Marie Claire. “It’s important to remember that the vast majority of people living with mental health conditions aren’t violent. They’re 10 times more likely to be the victims of a violent crime.”

4. Amanda Seyfried

Amanda Seyfried previously revealed that she has been living with OCD.

“I’m on Lexapro, and I’ll never get off of it,” Seyfried told Allure, revealing that she has been taking the drug for 11 years. “I’m on the lowest dose, and I don’t see the point of getting off of it. Whether it’s placebo or not, I don’t want to risk it.”

“What are you fighting against?” she continued. “Just the stigma of using a tool? It should be taken as seriously as anything else… If you can treat it, you treat it.”

5. Herschel Walker

herschel walker

The former NFL running back revealed that he suffered from Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), or more commonly referred to as multiple personality disorder.

“What DID is, it is a unique way of coping,” he told the Star Tribune. “People have to shift themselves and their personalities in so many different areas to be successful. You don’t want Herschel Walker the football player, babysitting your kids. Those are two different people. The same person who was on the football field is not the same person you would see running a business.”

6. Grace Victory

The Youtube star, though struggling with depression and anxiety, refused to let that slow down her successful career.

“So when I was 21, I got help. That was the start of my self-love journey. I was just sick of it. It just got to the point where I was so tired — I was constantly surrounded by a massive gray cloud,” Victory said. “Therapy felt like the only option I had. I just couldn’t cope anymore. I went into therapy and it gave me the confidence to read up on things about mental health — it was important for me to find my own therapeutic way to deal with my issues. You can’t just know to love yourself; you have to be taught how, and that’s OK.

7. Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga has been vocal about living with PTSD since her assault at age 19.

“For me, every morning waking up sad and going on stage is very hard to describe,” she told Prince William during a Skype conversation. “There’s a lot of shame attached to mental illness; you feel like something’s wrong with you. In my life, I look at all the beautiful things that I have and think ‘I should be so happy,’ but you can’t help it if you wake up and feel so tired and so sad; you have anxiety and you can barely think. It was just saying this is part of me, and that’s OK.”

8. Lena Headey

“Game of Throne’s” Queen Cersai recently revealed what it’s like to struggle with depression and anxiety in a series of tweets to her fans.

“Anxiety is a beast. You have to talk to beasts. Release them back into the wild. Easier said than done I know but still. Good to Practice,” she posted on the social media site.

9. Carrie Fisher

The late “Star Wars” actress opened up about living with a Bipolar I diagnosis and her struggle with addiction and helped provide support to others struggling.

“We have been given a challenging illness, and there is no other option than to meet those challenges. Think of it as an opportunity to be heroic — not ‘I survived living in Mosul during an attack’ heroic but an emotional survival,” she wrote. “An opportunity to be a good example to others who might share our disorder. That’s why it’s important to find a community — however small — of other bipolar people to share experiences and find comfort in the similarities.

10. Selena Gomez

When Selena Gomez made her emotional speech during the 2016 American Music Awards, fans immediately praised the star for speaking out about a rarely discussed issue. And then, in a 2017 Vogue cover shoot, Gomez opened up about how DBT therapy changed her lifefor the better.

“I wish more people would talk about therapy,” she said to the magazine. “We girls, we’re taught to be almost too resilient, to be strong and sexy and cool and laid-back; the girl who’s down. We also need to feel allowed to fall apart.”

11. Adam Levine

The Maroon 5 singer revealed to Very Well about what it’s been like for “The Voice” judge having ADHD.

“”Throughout my life, I struggled with ADHD,” Levine said. “I had the symptoms of ADHD – inattention, and hyperactivity/impulsivity. It was hard for me at times to sit down, focus and get school work done. I was frustrated because of the challenges I was having in school. I was really struggling.

While he was diagnosed as a teenager, Levine found it hasn’t gone away. “Finding out that I still had ADHD and working with my doctor to come up with a treatment plan that works for me has helped me manage my ADHD,” he continued.

12. Kristen Bell

The actress has been vocal about the stigma surrounding mental health, and makes sure to work on herself to cope with her anxiety and depression.

“I present this very cheery, bubbly person, but I also do a lot of work. I do a lot of introspective work and I check in with myself when I need to exercise and I got on a prescription when I was very young to deal with my anxiety and depression and I still take it today,” she said. “I have no shame in that.”

13. Prince Harry

The young Royals have worked to open up a dialogue on mental health recently, founding the nonprofit Heads Together and creating new films  to discuss mental health, in hopes to reduce the stigma. And so, in a recent interview, Prince Harry revealed that after the death of his mother, Princess Diana, he entered therapyto help him cope with his grief.

“I can safely say that losing my mum at the age of 12, and therefore shutting down all of my emotions for the last 20 years, has had a quite serious effect on not only my personal life but my work, as well,” Prince Harry said. “I have probably been very close to a complete breakdown on numerous occasions, when all sorts of grief and all sorts of lies and misconceptions and everything are coming to you from every angle.”

14. Lena Dunham

Lena Dunham is definitely candid about what she struggles with and how she works to cope, such as her OCD and anxiety.

“Lately I’ve been noticing that nearly every pop cultural image we see of a woman on psychiatric medication is that of an out-of-control, exhausting, and exhausted girl who needs help,” Dunham wrote in a January 2016 Instagram caption. “But guess what? Most women on meds are women who have been brave enough to help themselves.”

15. Catherine Zeta-Jones

Catherine Zeta-Jones has been vocal in revealing her Bipolar II diagnosis, as a way to help others understand what they themselves are going through and to seek help.

“This is a disorder that affects millions of people and I am one of them,” the actress told People. “If my revelation of having bipolar II has encouraged one person to seek help, then it is worth it. There is no need to suffer silently and there is no shame in seeking help.”

“Finding out that it was called something was the best thing that ever happened to me! The fact that there was a name for my emotions and that a professional could talk me through my symptoms was very liberating,” she told Good Housekeeping UK. “There are amazing highs and very low lows. My goal is to be consistently in the middle. I’m in a very good place right now. A lot of that is to do with the fact that I’m much more knowledgeable about what I call my pain in the a**!”

16.Cara Delevingne 

The supermodel opened up on Twitter about her battle with depression as an aspiring model.

“I suffer from depression and was a model during a particularly rough patch of self hatred,” she wrote. “I am focusing on filming and trying to learn how to not pick apart my every flaw. I am really good at that.”

17. Ryan Reynolds

Ryan Reynolds and his wife Blake Lively may seem like the perfect couple, but that’s merely a facade caught on camera and on screen. Because beyond the Hollywood lens, the actor is a normal man, who too deals with real struggles.

“I felt like I was on some schooner in the middle of a white squall the whole time. It just never stopped. When it finally ended, I had a little bit of a nervous breakdown. I literally had the shakes. I went to go see a doctor because I felt like I was suffering from a neurological problem or something. And every doctor I saw said, ‘You have anxiety,'” Reynolds told GQ.

18. Naomi Judd

Country singer Naomi Judd revealed her battle with severe depression on Good Morning America last December.

“They see me in rhinestones, you know, with glitter in my hair; that really is who I am,” the country star said. “But then I would come home and not leave the house for three weeks and not get out of my pajamas and not practice normal hygiene. It was really bad.”

19. Jane Pauley

The famous broadcaster revealed that she has been living with Bipolar 3 to TODAY in an interview.

“The first night, I’m in bed in a hospital room and I realized there’s a woman sitting in a chair. And that she’s going to be there the whole night. And I turned over.  And she told me I had – my arms had to be outside of the covers and at that point, you know, I … burst into tears,” she said.

20. Ellie Goulding

The singer may look and sound picture-perfect when she gets on stage. However, that journey to the stage isn’t always together as one would expect from a pop star.

“I still feel nervous before performing, or have pangs of anxiety from time to time, but it’s not crippling like it used to be,” Goulding wrote in an essay for Well + Good. “It took time, but I’ve accepted that everyone feels nervous before they perform — it’s not just me. And now that I believe in myself more, that confidence comes through, whether I’m working out, singing onstage, or just hanging out by myself at home.”

21. Leonardio DiCaprio

When the actor portrayed Howard Hughes in the movie “The Aviator,” he wanted to make sure he got the pilot’s mannerisms right, and according to a psychologist who advised Leo, he used his own “mild” OCD to become the character, but soon, his diagnosisbegan to get more severe.

“I remember my make-up artist and assistant walking me to The Aviator set and going, ‘Oh God,we’re going to need 10 minutes to get him there because he has to walk back and step on that thing, touch that door, and walk in and out again,” DiCaprio said. “I let myself do it because I wanted that to come out. I was trying to be the character but it became really bothersome – and it continued way after the filming.”

22. Hayden Panettiere 

The “Nashville” actress has been vocal about suffering from postpartum depression after the birth of her daughter Kaya and how getting through it has made her a better mother.

“It takes you a while and you feel off, you don’t feel like yourself,” she said. “Women are so resilient and that’s the incredible thing about them. I think I’m all the stronger for it. I think I’m a better mom because of it because you never take that connection for granted.”

23. Brandon Marshall

The NFL player revealed that he was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, something that drastically changed his life.

“It’s no secret that, in the years before my diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder in 2011, I was making some bad decisions. I had little idea why. I struggled to control my emotions or manage my life and relationships,” Marshall wrote in an essay for Huffington Post. “As a longtime athlete in the NFL — a testosterone-driven, tough-it-up, egocentric profession — there’s not a lot of room for ‘How do you feel today.'”

24. Rene Russo

While normally celebrities go on talk shows to promote their latest projects, Rene Russo took a more candid approach, when she revealed that she’s been living with bipolar disorder.

“My mom said my whole childhood … was stop and go,” Russo revealed to Queen Latifah in 2014. “I literally crashed, hit a wall and couldn’t get out of bed. I thought it was depression, but if you take antidepressants it speeds you up more. I haven’t shared this. I have friends who don’t want to go on medication, and they are suffering.”

25. Olivia Munn

As result of her anxiety, the actressrevealed that she suffers from trichotillomania.

“I don’t bite my nails, but I rip out my eyelashes,” Munn told New York Daily News. “It doesn’t hurt, but it’s really annoying. Every time I run out of the house, I have to stop and pick up a whole set of fake eyelashes.”

26. Pete Wentz

After Pete Wentz discovered his bipolar diagnosis, he revealed how his Fall Out Boy bandmates have been there to support him and they regularly chat about mental health when they are in the studio or on the tour bus.

“There’s no shame in talking about that kind of stuff, it’s not something that you should feel scared talking about,” he told HuffPost Live. “We’re all very comfortable discussing our collective health with each other.  I think that’s the thing we’ve made very cool with each other.”

27. Sophie Trudeau

The wife of the Canadian Prime Minister has been candid about her previous battle with an eating disorder. Ever since, the Trudeaus do what they can to support others suffering from mental illness.

“I myself battled bulimia as a teenager and young adult. I speak openly about this experience, because it is not a secret,” she wrote in an essay for Huffington Post. “Mental illness should never be a secret, and the difficulties in facing them, as well as the power it takes to overcome and get back on your feet, should never be a secret.

28. Gabourey Sidibe

In her new memoir, the actress opens up about battling bulimia and depression growing up.

“I just accepted depression as something that’s part of my anatomy; it’s part of my chemistry, it’s part of my biology,” Sidibe told People. “When it’s too big for me to just turn around on my own, I see a therapist. I see a therapist anyway. We all should see a therapist. If only for the hour a week that you can talk about yourself and not worry about monopolizing the conversation? F***ing do it, it’s worth it!”

29. Zayn Malik

The former boy band singer revealed that he suffered from crippling anxiety, which even caused him to cancel several tour dates as a result.

“I just couldn’t go through with it. Mentally, the anxiety had won. Physically, I knew I couldn’t function. I would have to pull out,” Malik wrote in Time. “Anxiety is nothing to be ashamed of; it affects millions of people every day. I know I have fans out there who have been through this kind of thing, too, and I wanted to be honest for their sake, if nothing else.

30. Miranda Kerr

The supermodel revealed that after her divorce from Orlando Bloom, she became depressed.

“When Orlando and I separated [in 2013], I actually fell into a really bad depression,” Kerr told Elle Canada. “I never understood the depth of that feeling or the reality of that because I was naturally a very happy person.” To get through the tough times, she had to remember that “every thought you have affects your reality and only you have control of your mind.”

31. Jon Hamm

The “Mad Man” actor has been open about suffering from depression and addiction, which helped inform his perspective as a working actor in Hollywood.

“I struggled with chronic depression. I was in bad shape. I knew I had to get back in school and back in some kind of structured environment and… continue,” he told The Guardian.

32. Kesha

The pop singer spent two months in rehab to treat her eating disorder, something that developed after working in the music industry and not feeling good enough.

“I felt like part of my job was to be as skinny as possible and, to make that happen, I had been abusing my body,” she wrote. “The music industry has set unrealistic expectations for what a body is supposed to look like, and I started becoming overly critical of my own body because of that.”

33. Jared Padalecki

The “Supernatural” actor and “Gilmore Girls” alum revealed his battle with anxiety and depression.

“There’s still a large portion of the population who just want to say, ‘Buck up. Put on a happy face and everything goes away.’ For some people, that works. For those of us who aren’t so blessed, the message ‘Always Keep Fighting’ is for us,” Padalecki told E! Online. “I try to remember to remain empathetic to those who are not extending the same back to me. I’ve danced with these issues also, or my friend did, or my father did. Generation by generation, we’re slowly stripping away that taboo [on the stigma of mental health discussions], that strange dynamic of, ‘Oh, there must be a problem with you if you feel this way.'”

 This piece was originally written for Dr. Oz The Good Life.

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