For those who hanker for the limelight, be careful what you wish for: shooting to stardom as a lead singer really does raise the risk of an early death, researchers say.
Their analysis of singers from Europe and the US found that those who rose to fame died on average nearly five years sooner than less well-known singers, suggesting fame itself, rather than the lifestyle and demands of the job, was a major driver.
Solo singers who found fame fared worse than lead singers in prominent bands, the analysis showed, presumably because they were more exposed, faced more pressure and had less emotional support through the ups and downs of rock star life.
“It’s worrying because it indicates that famous musicians are indeed at risk of a premature death,” said Michael Dufner, a professor of personality, psychology and diagnostics at Witten/Herdecke University in Germany and senior author of the study. On average, their lives were 4.6 years shorter, he said.
Every decade has its list of stars whose lives were bright but brief: the 2010s alone count Amy Winehouse, Whitney Houston, Prince, George Michael and Keith Flint. But when famous singers die young, the media attention is fierce. For this reason, examples came easily to mind, Dufner said. “What about the rock stars who live quietly until their old age?”
To investigate whether fame had a bearing on the risk of early death, Dufner and his colleagues identified 324 famous soloists or lead singers and matched them with less famous musicians of the same age, gender, nationality, ethnicity and musical genre. To ensure a reasonable number of deaths, they focused on artists who were active between 1950 and 1990.
Most of the singers were white male rockers from the US. Only 19% were black and 16.5% were female. The oldest was born in 1910 and the youngest in 1975. More than half were in bands.
When the researchers looked at who had died, and at what age, a clear trend emerged: famous singers typically reached the age of 75, while their less famous counterparts, on average, lived to 79. Band membership was linked to a 26% lower risk of death compared with going solo, but overall, famous singers were still 33% more likely to have died in the years studied than their less famous matches.
The greater risk of death emerged only after singers had shot to fame, reinforcing the suspicion that fame itself was a cause of early death. Details are published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.
Dufner said more work was needed to understand how fame could drive singers to an early grave. The endless public scrutiny, the loss of privacy, the pressure to perform and the normalisation of drink and drug abuse were likely to have an impact, he said. But there may be other factors, such as temperament or bad experiences in childhood driving people who were already at risk to seek out fame.
Asked what the stars of today should do, Dufner said it was important to appreciate how unhealthy the touring lifestyle could be, with readily available drugs and deep isolation from close friends and family. He said: “A good measure against these could be to take a step back regularly,” meet family and old friends, and “critically evaluate one’s lifestyle”.
Dr Sally Anne Gross, a reader at the University of Westminster and co-author of the 2020 book Can Music Make You Sick?: Measuring the Price of Musical Ambition, said the work spoke to the hyper-competitive world of music production, which was now dominated by social media and where fame “operates to isolate the individual”. She added: “Fame, it would seem, is toxic.”
“We can certainly do better, but that doesn’t mean it is easy,” she said. “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.”
