The age of celebrity vulnerability

From Bella Hadid to Prince Harry, every star seems to be sharing their fears and traumas with the world – but, asks Emma Firth, is this helping others or only fuelling more pain?

- Emma Firth

THERE is no such thing as inner peace,” said author, public speaker, and professional disapprover, Fran Lebowitz. “There is only nervousness or death. Any attempt to prove otherwise constitutes unacceptable behaviour.” At first, I thought this was a joke. But she has point if you think about it — absolute, undisrupted, inner peace is a sham (sorry). Yes, we can strive for it. Sometimes even achieve it. However, an ever-constant feeling it is not. Struggling with depressions and doubts and other miscellaneous dooms from time to time, whether or not you choose to share your pain with others, is an inevitability of life. A proof of life, if you will. The one comfort? At the very least we’re not alone in that struggle. Everyone goes through, is going through, something. And it is a subject very much under discussion these days, with celebrities increasingly shining a spotlight on their darkness.

Enter Prince Harry, unofficially crowned this year’s rebel with a cause, sharing his deep-rooted sadness in a Netflix documentary with wife Meghan (as part of a multi-year production deal with the streaming platform, reportedly worth around $100 million). The six-part series offered a look at their personal life and interior suffering, featuring revelations from the sweetly romantic (Meghan scrolling through the prince’s private Instagram account, being virtually wooed by photos of African wildlife) to mental health issues faced during their time as working royals (“we were both struggling”).