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Institutionalized

Selena Gomez

Celebs Who Were Institutionalized (nickiswift.com)

Carrie Fisher: Prior to her death in 2017, Star Wars actress Carrie Fisher was always very up front about her struggles with drug addiction and mental illness, becoming a noted advocate for less stigmatization of these diseases. Fisher, who herself was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1985, was hospitalized multiple times during her lifetime, as People magazine reported after her death. She explained to Diane Sawyer in a 2000 interview (via People), “I have a chemical imbalance that, in its most extreme state, will lead me to a mental hospital. I used to think I was a drug addict, pure and simple — just someone who could not stop taking drugs willfully. And I was that. But it turns out that I am severely manic depressive.”

Demi Lovato: Like Fisher, singer Demi Lovata has been refreshingly upfront about her struggles with both mental illness and addiction. After hitting rock bottom in 2010 at 18 years-old, Lovato left her tour with the Jonas Brothers checked in to a rehab center to receive treatment. She remained in treatment for three months, where she was diagnosed as bipolar and bulimic. She’d continue to struggle with drug addiction after checking out, but has been sober since 2012 and is now working to raise awareness for mental health issues,

Winona Ryder: (Girl Interrupted) Back in 1990, actress Winona Ryder dropped out of a role in The Godfather III and checked herself into a mental hospital to deal with overwhelming anxiety.

Mariah Carey: Shortly thereafter in July 2001 the singer’s mother made a call to police after discovering Carey in extreme mental distress. Carey was quickly checked into Northern Westchester hospital as “emotionally disturbed,” though her publicist cited “extreme exhaustion” as the reason. Carey’s publicist would later admit to the New York Post that Carey had suffered an “emotional and physical breakdown,” and, per a later report from the NYP, Carey was transferred to Silver Hill Mental Hospital in Connecticut. As Jezebel exhaustively narrated in 2016, the actual details of what really happened the day Carey was committed are still disputed.

Ashley Judd:In April 2006, People magazine reported that actress Ashley Judd had undergone a 47-day stint in a Texas treatment center to deal with “depression, isolation and co-dependent relationships.”

Britney Spears: breakdown in January 2008. after being deemed a danger to herself, the singer was committed to a Los Angeles psychiatric hospital again on January 30

Yoko Ono: Before meeting John Lennon and getting blamed for breaking up the Beatles, artist Yoko Ono went through a period of clinical depression that landed her in a mental hospital, after her first marriage dissolved, Ono’s parents had her committed in the early 1960s. A friend, Anthony Cox, got Ono released and the two later married.

Catherine Zeta Jones: April 2011 that actress Catherine Zeta Jones, whose husband Michael Douglas had been battling stage IV throat cancer, had checked into a mental hospital to deal with her bipolar II disorder. Her reps told the media, “After dealing with the stress of the past year, Catherine made the decision to check in to a mental health facility for a brief stay.” “[Bipolar] is something I have been dealing with for a long time…

Mischa Barton: In 2009, actress Mischa Barton ended up involuntarily checked in to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center psychiatric ward after she threatened to kill herself. She told People magazine about the events leading up to her hospitalization in 2013, saying, “It was a full-on breakdown… Straight out of Girl, Interrupted…I was deeply hurt at first, and then I accepted this was time I needed to be away from my family and all the pressure.”

Amanda Bynes: Former teen actress Amanda Bynes’ mental health issues dominated headlines in October 2014, when she was involuntarily committed to a mental facility in Southern California after, per the New York Daily News, “claiming that a ‘microchip’ in her brain led her to falsely accuse her dad of sexual abuse.”

Celebs Who Were Institutionalized

Sinead O’Connor:
In August 2017, Irish singer Sinead O’Connor had family, friends, and fans extremely concerned when she posted a Facebook video describing her suicidal thoughts over the previous two years. Coming on the heels of an incident in which she disappeared in Chicago two months earlier, the video set alarm bells ringing.

Telling viewers she was living in a motel room in New Jersey, according to The Telegraph, the singer (who had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder) was quickly shuttled into a nearby hospital for treatment.

In September 2017, O’Connor appeared on The Dr. Phil Show, to explain (via USA Today), “What kicked all of this off really was, I had a radical hysterectomy in Ireland two years ago and I lost my mind after that… I became very suicidal. I was a basket case. After the hysterectomy, I was mental.”

Steven Tyler: Back in the 1980s, Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler stayed at McLean Hospital’s East House during a period in which he was trying to get sober, according to Mental Floss.

McLean, the setting of Winona Ryder’s aforementioned movie Girl Interrupted, has had a number of famous patients over the years, including poet Sylvia Plath, singer-songwriter Ray Charles, and funk music legend Rick James, who wrote in his 2015 autobiography Glow, “Went off the McLean Hospital outside Boston… I saw my old friend Steven Tyler. He told me he’d been there for a while and dug it completely. He looped happy and healthy and gave me hope that I could get my s**t together.”

James Taylor: Another famous McLean patient? Musician James Taylor, who, as Mental Floss notes, checked in during his senior year in high school to get treatment for depression. He reportedly wrote the song “Knockin’ Round the Zoo” about his experiences there.

In the book Sweet Dreams and Flying Machines: The Life and Music of James Taylor, author Mark Ribowsky quotes Taylor himself on his time at McLean as a “lifesaver,” “a pardon, “a reprieve,” “a sort of medical stamp of approval.”

In January 2017, the Daily Mail reported that Barton was again taken to the hospital for a mental health evaluation after she was found screaming in her West Hollywood backyard, wearing only a shirt and tie. According to People, after her release a day later, Barton revealed that she had been drugged while celebrating her birthday with her friends, and that “[a]fter an overnight stay, I am home and doing well… This is a lesson to all young women out there, be aware of your surroundings.”

People reported that Bynes was released from the hospital on October 31. And so began her slow road to recovery, which has involved long breaks from social media; enrollment at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles; and the mending of her relationship with her parents. She’s said to be doing much better today.

Audra McDonald: Broadway star Audra McDonald bravely came forward in July 2014 to discuss a suicide attempt she made in college at Julliard on ABC’s Popcorn with Peter Travers. McDonald explained, “[Juilliard] had a mental health facilitator there, a therapist there and they checked me into a mental health hospital where I was for a month and got me the help I needed.”

Kanye West: After numerous bizarre Twitter rants and public meltdowns, rapper Kanye West appeared to be on the fast track to some kind of major life event in 2016. Things finally reached a boiling point in November that year, when TMZ reported that he’d been hospitalized for a psychiatric evaluation at the the UCLA Medical Center.

Owen Wilson: Owen Wilson cuts a lighthearted figure in films like Zoolander and Wedding Crashers, but on Aug. 26, 2007 he was taken to St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica after attempting to commit suicide. The following day, People reported, Wilson released a statement, “I respectfully ask that the media allow me to receive care and heal in private during this difficult time,” and sources told the magazine that the actor had previously been in rehab twice. Wilson has stayed mum on the topic of his emotional health, as is his right.

Kendra Wilkinson: Prior to appearing on TV in The Girls Next Door, Playboy playmate Kendra Wilkinson endured her own mental health struggles. In 2010, the New York Daily News reported on the content of her E! True Hollywood Story special in which Wilkinson revealed that her mother checked her into a psychiatric facility after then-15-year-old Wilkinson ingested a “half-dozen or so medications.” Of her time in the hospital, Wilkinson said, “It was crazy in that place… We didn’t see daylight. We weren’t allowed outside. It was basically a jail, but it was a hospital…I think it made me worse because in my heart I didn’t want to change… People were forcing me, and that’s something that does not work with me.”

other lists: 8 Famous People Who Spent Time In Psychiatric Hospitals (therichest.com)