10 Famous People with Schizophrenia

An illustration depicting schizophrenia. Photo by BruceBlaus-Wikimedia

10 Famous People with Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a chronic mental condition that can affect various aspects of one’s life. It affects how you think, your relations, your feelings, and even how you behave. It is complicated and has a wide range of symptoms. Its symptoms have been classified as positive and negative. The positive symptoms are any change in behavior or thoughts, such as hallucinations or delusions. The negative symptoms are when people appear to withdraw from the world around them, take no interest in everyday social interactions, and often appear emotionless and flat.

The cause of this condition is not known but studies have shown that a combination of genetics, environment and altered brain chemistry and structure may play a role. When one is prone to schizophrenia, a particular emotional or stressful event may trigger a psychotic episode. Since it is chronic it means there is no cure for it the only way to go about it is other managing it with medication and learning to cope with it. Support from friends and family is critical in one’s recovery. Recovery is possible but some people often experience relapses. When one suffers from a mental illness they are unlikely to know so they do not often seek medical help. People suffering from any mental illness may refuse treatment and those around them should be understanding and persistent. An early diagnosis is key to the recovery journey.

Often than not, famous people who suffer from this condition make it public to create awareness, get rid of the stigma that comes with it, and give inspiration to patients and their families. This list looks at some popular people who battled this condition.

Read more on Top 10 Famous People with Klinefelter Syndrome

1. Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait. Image by Vincent van Gogh-Wikimedia

Unfortunately, an artist’s glory is tenfold after death. This is exactly what happened to Gogh. He emerged as one of the most famous figures in the history of Western art only after his death. As a child, he was serious, quiet, and thoughtful. He began drawing whom an early age and as a young man, he worked as an art dealer.

He was an impressive artist, and in only ten years he created a prolific body of more than 2,000 works of art. Despite this, he did not attain commercial success. He often had to rely on his brother for financial support. They say that great artists often suffer from incredible pain. He was a troubled soul. He suffered from depression and episodes of Schizophrenia. It all became too much for him; personal demands, obsessive labor, mental illness, and his changing relationship with his brother, led him to take his own life by shooting himself in the chest in July 1890 at age 37.

Today, Van Gogh’s works are among the world’s most expensive paintings. His legacy is honored by the Van Gogh Museum established by the Dutch government in Amsterdam, which holds the world’s largest collection of his paintings and drawings.

Read more on Top 10 Famous People with Asperger’s

2. Eduard Einstein

Eduard was the son of Albert Einstein and his first wife Mileva Marić. He was a sickly child which stole his childhood as he would often miss out on family trips. He was a good student and had musical talent. While studying to become a psychiatrist, aged 20, he was afflicted with schizophrenia. He was institutionalized two years later at several different times. In that era, harsh treatments were often used including overdosing with drugs and electric shock treatments. The treatments have been speculated to have worsened other than helped his condition. His speech and cognitive abilities were affected. He spent the rest of his life, more than 30 years, in the asylum where he died of a stroke at the age of 55.

3. John Hinckley, Jr.

He attempted to assassinate U.S. President Ronald Reagan, two months after Reagan’s first inauguration. He was 25 years old He used a .22 caliber revolver. He pled insanity in the case brought upon him and was found not guilty. He made the shot to impress actress Jodie Foster, with who he had a crazy obsession. He spent more than 30 years in an institutional psychiatric care facility where it was concluded that he suffered from both narcissistic and schizoid personality disorders. He was later released when a judge concluded that he was not a threat to himself or others at age 67 years.

4. Tom Harrell

Tom Harell. Image by Tom Beetz-Wikimedia

Harrell is a composer, jazz soloist, and one of the most accomplished trumpeters. He was a talented child; at the age of 8 he was playing trumpet at eight, and at 13 he was playing gigs with local bands. He followed his passion despite experiencing symptoms of schizophrenia since he was an adolescent. While at the University of Stanford is when his mental problems became too much. He attempted suicide and was diagnosed with borderline schizophrenia and placed on medication. His condition has not deterred him from becoming his best self. His work has won Grammys and been published in books by renowned authors.

5. Darrell Hammond

Darrell Hammond. Image by Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America-Wikimedia

Hammond is an actor, prolific stand-up comedian, and impressionist. He is best known for playing Bill Clinton on Saturday Night Live. He has a tough childhood as he faced abuse from his mother. She slammed his hand into a car door, hit him in the stomach with a hammer, and stuck his finger in an electrical outlet. When he was aged 3 or 4, she held him on her lap and cut an incision into his tongue using a serrated steak knife. His father suffered from psychological issues resulting from his military service during World War II. It often caused him to drink heavily and have bouts of violence. He did not protect his son. These painful experiences caused him to struggle with depression, substance abuse, and cutting himself. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia, manic depression, borderline personality disorder, major depressive disorder, and multiple personality disorder.

6. Josh Nash

Nash was a prolific mathematician. Just after he made groundbreaking contributions to mathematics, he began to show strange behavior and experience paranoia and delusions. He was hospitalized on different occasions and was put on medication. Studies have shown that some schizophrenia patients recover from the condition on their own. This is what happened to Nash. He went home and started improving. His ex-wife and colleagues were very supportive. His ex-wife even moved back with him which greatly helped his odds. His life story inspired the film Beautiful Mind which has been nominated for and won several awards.

7. Aaron Carter

Aaron Carter Papaeazzo. Image by Paparazzo Presents-Wikimedia

This former teen pop sensation attracted young audiences all over the world. Alongside his brother Nick, who founded Backstreet Boys, he became popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s. During an interview at The Doctors, a syndicated health-focused talk show, so he disclosed that he suffered from multiple personality disorders, schizophrenia, acute anxiety, and depression. He was under medication.

He also struggled with substance abuse for a long time and had had multiple conflicts with the law. His relationship with his siblings was strained. He claimed that he was sexually abused from the age of ten to 13 by his older sister Leslie, who suffered from bipolar disorder and died aged 25 in 2012. His twin sister, Angel Carter, and brother, Nick had both taken restraining orders against him and the court had deemed him dangerous. On November 5, 2022, a housekeeper found his body in a bathtub. The cause of death was not conclusive but people close to him suspect that it might have been a substance abuse relapse.

8. Peter Green

Peter Green. Image by Nick Contador-Wikimedia

Green was one of the guitar-playing greats of 1960s blues rock as well as a gifted songwriter. This guitar genius had a prolific career in the Bluesbreakers and the Fleetwood Mac. He struggled with an LSD addiction and after a three-day LSD binge at a commune in Munich in early 1970, schizophrenia manifested itself. He was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia and spent time in psychiatric hospitals undergoing electroconvulsive therapy during the mid-1970s.  These treatments were not the best and may have aggravated the issue.

He was often seen as a dead man walking. He had a blank stare as if he was in a trancelike state during this period. In 1977, Green was arrested for threatening his accountant David Simmons with a shotgun. He ended up living with a family where he started recovering he died in 2020 at the age of 73.

9. Lionel Aldridge

This three-time world champion football player first dealt with schizophrenia in his early 30s. He played football for 11 years before retiring and taking up a job as a football analyst. Things were going on fine until the first sign hit him. He was doing a commentary when he was asked a question. He stared straight ahead and never took his eyes off the 50-yard line for the next three and a half hours and never said another word. He started hallucinating and then the voices began.

For this six foot three 255-pound beast, the situation was was scary and confusing. He lost everything, his family, home, money, and even his Super Bowl Ring. When he was finally found living in the streets by some old friends, he was beyond despair. He was committed and later diagnosed with schizophrenia. He was put under medication and began his slow recovery. He found ways to cope with the disease as it is incurable. He died of congestive heart failure at the age of 56 in 1998.

10. Zelda Fitzgerald

Zelda Fitzgerald. Image by F. Scott Fitzgerald Archives-Wikimedia

She was married to the renowned short-story writer and novelist, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Apart from being a wife to a famous man, she was a socialite, writer, and painter. Her recurrent mental disturbances saw her in an out of the hospital. She was a lively woman; loved life and lived to the fullest, loved to shop and interact with people. But she could also switch her mood in an instant. In her earlier signs, her husband did not want to believe that she could have mental issues. He convinced himself that her issues were physical and not mental. When she was finally diagnosed, she spent the rest of her life in and out of mental health facilities. Her condition was publicly known and her husband found inspiration in her for some of his work. She died a few years after her husband in a fire in a mental institution in 1948 having lived only for 48 years.