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27 Celebrities Who Opened Up About Their Mental Health This Year

"I don’t think I understood how dangerous hopelessness is."

Anna Borges
by Anna Borges

BuzzFeed News Reporter

1. Chrissy Teigen got super real about her experience with postpartum depression.

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In an essay for Glamour, she wrote, "I also just didn’t think it could happen to me. I have a great life. I have all the help I could need: John, my mother (who lives with us), a nanny. But postpartum does not discriminate. I couldn’t control it. And that’s part of the reason it took me so long to speak up: I felt selfish, icky, and weird saying aloud that I’m struggling. Sometimes I still do."

2. Michelle Williams shared that she experienced depression while she was in Destiny's Child, to the point of feeling suicidal.

3. Logic gave a powerful speech about mental health at the VMAs.

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After performing his song "1-800-273-8255" (which is the number of the National Suicide Prevention Hotline), and surrounded by people who had survived suicide attempts, Logic began, "I just want to take a moment to thank you for giving me a platform to talk about something that mainstream media doesn't want to talk about: mental health, anxiety, suicide, depression, and so much more that I talk about on this album."

He went on to give a speech that touched on suicide, racism, sexism, anti-gay sentiment, and other pressing issues.

4. Stephanie Beatriz opened up about dealing with disordered eating.

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In an essay for InStyle, she wrote: "I have an eating disorder. But like a lot of us, mine is a bit hard to define. I don’t purge, so I’m not a bulimic. I do eat, so I’m not anorexic. I’m what I like to call a disordered eater."

She continued, “Food was both the remedy and the punishment. I thought by controlling what I ate I was controlling my fate, when it was ultimately controlling me."

5. Pete Davidson revealed he has borderline personality disorder.

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He opened up about his new diagnosis, and talked about how he's begun therapy and new medication. "It is working, slowly but surely,” he said on the WTF With Marc Maron podcast. “I’ve been having a lot of problems. This whole year has been a fucking nightmare. This has been the worst year of my life, getting diagnosed with this and trying to figure out how to learn with this and live with this.”

6. Kesha wrote about the story behind her newest album, including details about when she felt alone and scared in rehab for an eating disorder, as well as her exhausting legal battle with producer Dr. Luke.

7. Gina Rodriguez revealed that she experiences anxiety, while reflecting on a 10-second portrait she posted to Instagram.

8. Colton Haynes opened up about depression and anxiety on World Mental Health Day.

9. Lili Reinhart talked about how she dealt with severe anxiety before being cast on Riverdale.

10. Ellie Goulding wrote about her experience with anxiety and panic attacks when her career took off.

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In an essay for Well+Good, she wrote: "I started having panic attacks, and the scariest part was it could be triggered by anything. I used to cover my face with a pillow whenever I had to walk outside from the car to the studio. My new life as a pop star certainly wasn’t as glamorous as all my friends from home thought. Secretly, I was really struggling physically and emotionally."

11. Camila Mendes opened up about how she recently started seeing a therapist.

12. Demi Lovato continued being an outspoken advocate for mental health, this time talking about bipolar disorder, depression, and addiction in her new documentary, Simply Complicated.

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She shared, “When I first got diagnosed with bipolar disorder it just made sense. When I was younger, I didn’t know why I would stay up so late writing and playing music. And then I learned about episodes of mania, and I realized that that’s probably what it was. I was manic. In a way, I knew that it wasn’t my fault anymore — something was actually off with me.”

13. Tyler Posey opened up about dealing with depression after losing his mother to breast cancer and calling off his engagement — and how much therapy helped.

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“Taking even one therapy session is just one step in the right direction to getting help and getting better, so I think it’s great. I love it," he told Page Six. “Right now I’m somewhat OK and mentally stable that I don’t need to be in it a couple of times a week, whereas other phases of my life I felt like I needed it at least a couple of times a week. Therapy just kind of gives you resources to manage your life outside of therapy, so you can kind of wean yourself off of it a little bit.”

14. Selena Gomez opened up about how mentally taxing touring could be.

15. Abigail Breslin wrote about dealing with complex PTSD after experiencing domestic violence and sexual assault.

16. Cara Delevingne opened up about how she used to keep her depression a secret.

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"I was so ashamed of how I felt because I had such a privileged upbringing," she said on This Morning. "I'm very lucky. But I had depression. I had moments where I didn't want to carry on living. But then the guilt of feeling that way and not being able to tell anyone because I shouldn't feel that way just left me feeling blame and guilt."

17. Shannon Purser opened up about the misconceptions she faces as someone with OCD.

18. Troian Bellisario wrote about her past eating disorder and how she still struggles sometimes, even in recovery.

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"As someone who struggles with a mental illness, my biggest challenge is that I don't always know which voice inside me is speaking," she wrote in Lenny Letter.

"There is a part of my brain that defies logic. Once, it completely convinced me I should live off 300 calories a day, and at some point, it told me even that was too much. That part of my brain is my disease, and there was a time when it had absolute authority over me. It almost killed me, and you can see that even though I have lived in recovery for ten years now, it still finds loads of fun, insidious ways to thwart me to this day. It was a difficult journey finding my way back to health. Through hard introspection, intense medical and mental care, a supportive family, friends, and a patient and loving partner, I survived, which is rare."

19. Hayden Panettiere talked about her postpartum depression and how it took time for her to realize something was wrong.

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"It takes you a while and you feel off," she said on Good Morning America. "You don't feel like yourself. But, you know, 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."

20. Gabourey Sidibe revealed she dealt with depression, suicidal thoughts, and bulimia in her memoir, This Is Just My Face: Try Not to Stare.

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"I just accepted depression as something that’s part of my anatomy; it's part of my chemistry, it's part of my biology," she 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? Fucking do it, it’s worth it!"

21. Hayley Williams talked about her experience with depression.

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"For the first time in my life, there wasn’t a pinhole of light at the end of the tunnel," she said in an interview with Fader. "I thought, 'I just wish everything would stop.' It wasn’t in the sense of, I’m going to take my life. It was just hopelessness. Like, 'What’s the point?' I don’t think I understood how dangerous hopelessness is. Everything hurts."

22. Katy Perry shared that she used to deal with suicidal thoughts.

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During a livestream of her life, Katy Perry broadcasted a therapy session, where she talked about struggling with alcoholism and suicidal thoughts. “I wrote a song about it," she said. "I feel ashamed that I would have those thoughts, feel that low and that depressed."

23. Zendaya talked about dealing with anxiety, first triggered by a bad performance.

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"I used to struggle with anxiety pretty bad," she wrote in a blog post on her app. "It only happened when I sang live, not when I danced or did any other live performances, and it stemmed from a bad experience I had while singing on 'The Ellen DeGeneres Show' in 2013. It wasn't my best performance and I've never let myself live that down. I had mad anxiety ever since that."

24. Alanis Morissette talked about dealing with postpartum depression for the second time.

25. Pink posted a moving and encouraging note about mental health after the death of Linkin Park lead singer Chester Bennington.

26. Gabrielle Union talked about why she's been so open about her sexual assault and resulting PTSD over the years.

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In an interview for Lenny Letter, she said, "What's crazy is that every time I talk about being raped, it's a revelation. It trends. It's news. We like to think it's not affecting our mothers, or sisters, or fathers, or brothers, or neighbors, or significant others. But the reality is, it is the most underreported crime in the world. You do know us. We are right here. We're in your office. We're in your bed. We're everywhere."

27. Prince Harry opened up on the impact of pretending to be fine after losing his mother.

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"I've spent most of my life saying, 'I'm fine,'" he said on the Mad World podcast. "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 not only on my personal life but also my work as well... I have probably been very close to a complete breakdown on numerous occasions."

If you are thinking about suicide or just need to talk to someone, you can speak to someone by calling the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or by texting HOME to 741741, the Crisis Text Line. Suicide helplines outside the US can be found here.

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