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Abstract
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The COVID-19 pandemic has affected people of all ages, races and socio-economic strata, across the globe. People have been experiencing a wide spectrum of psychiatric disorders such as fear, anxiety, depression, panic, distress, discomfort, and even suicidal behaviours (Kar et al., 2020; Rogers et al., 2020). Several suicides have been reported during this COVID-19 pandemic in India though the exact attribution demands further exploration study (Dsouza et al., 2020; Menon et al., 2020). Celebrities (film actor and actress) go through enormous challenges during this pandemic due to loss of employment, cancellation of contracts, loss of public identity, life-style limitations, boredom, etc., which may attribute to stress and suicidal behaviour.
As per the media reports, several Indian celebrities committed suicide during this COVID-19 pandemic. The latest news reports the suicide of popular, young Marathi Actor Ashutosh Bhakre on 30th July 2020. The report mentions the possibility of depression in the actor (PTI, 2020). Similarly, Kannada actress Chandana, committed suicide on 28th May 2020 following relationship challenges (Times of India, 2020). Another young Kannada actor Susheel Gowda, committed suicide in the first week of July 2020 (The Indian Express, 2020). Sushant Singh Rajput (SSR), a popular mainstream Bollywood actor also committed suicide on June 14, 2020 (Menon et al., 2020). In the first week of June 2020, two Tamil actors (Sreedhar & Jaya Kalyani) committed suicide. The media report mentions that these two actors (who were brother-sister) were going through financial crisis due to lockdown related job loss (Kumar, 2020a). A TV actor Manmeet Grewal also committed suicide by hanging due to stress of financial loss during this COVID-lockdown (Kumar, 2020b). It has been reported that people resisted themselves, to rescue the actor, when his wife shouted for help, due to the suspicion that the actor might have COVID-19 infection (Kumar, 2020b).
Mental health needs of celebrities are complex, often unaddressed due to different psychological concerns such as unwillingness to give up fame, mistrust, isolation, and character-splitting. These concerns could be the reason for the delay or lack of treatment-seeking behaviour or supportive care despite being aware of the mental health problems (for e.g. in movie Chhichore SSR has created awareness about suicide but unfortunately, he died by suicide). In addition, the published literature on the phenomenological analysis of fame among celebrities has...
Language: en |