Numerous notable people have had some form of mood disorder. This is a list of people accompanied by verifiable sources associating them with some form of bipolar disorder (formerly known as "manic depression"), including cyclothymia, based on their own public statements; this discussion is sometimes tied to the larger topic of creativity and mental illness. In the case of dead people only, individuals with a speculative or retrospective diagnosis should only be listed if they are accompanied by a source reflective of the mainstream, academic view. Individuals should not be added to this list unless the disorder is regularly and commonly mentioned in mainstream, reliable sources.
Ronald Braunstein, American orchestra conductor and cofounder of the ME2/Orchestra for individuals like himself who have mental illness.[28][29]
Jeremy Brett, English Shakespearian actor, known for his definitive portrayal of A. Conan Doyle's detective Sherlock Holmes in the 1984–1994 Granada TV Series, "Sherlock Holmes", diagnosed with manic depression. Days before his death in 1995, he recorded a frank and uplifting message for the Manic/Depressive Fellowship in London.[30]
Chris Brown, American singer, songwriter, rapper, dancer, and actor, Brown has been diagnosed with Bipolar II disorder.[31]
Tiffany Lee Brown, American writer, artist, and musician, has created works that reference her Bipolar I diagnosis[32][33] including the Noise music composition "Belly" appearing on Women Take Back the Noise.[34]
Elbridge Ayer Burbank, artist and painter, Burbank was diagnosed with manic depression and was treated at several different facilities during his life.[40]
Neil Cole, former Australian Labor party politician. "Associate Professor Cole was the first politician in Australia or overseas to admit to having a mental illness, namely bipolar mood disorder."[55]
Robert S. Corrington, American philosopher and professor of Philosophical Theology. In his book Riding the Windhorse: Manic-Depressive Disorder and the Quest for Wholeness,[61] he gives a personal account of his own experience with the condition.
Michael Costa, former Australian Labor party politician and Treasurer of NSW. "Mr Costa said a number of state parliamentary colleagues approached him about their mental health problems after he publicly revealed his battle with bipolar disorder in 2001."[62]
Penina Davidson, Former college basketball player at University of California-Berkeley.[66] Current professional basketball player for the Melbourne Boomers[67] of the Women's National Basketball League in Australia. She also represents New Zealand on their national team, the Tall Ferns.[68] While in college, she was self-harming. Her teammate suggested that she get admitted to a hospital where she got diagnosed with bipolar disorder[69][70]
Pete Davidson, Comedian and actor. Pete Davidson was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder.[71]
Ray Davies, English composer. Davies was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and he attempted suicide.[72]
Adam Deacon, English film actor, rapper, writer and director. Deacon discussed his diagnosis in a 2016 interview with Stephen Fry.[73]
Tom Fletcher, English singer, songwriter, pianist, and guitarist, of McFly, discussed his bipolar disorder in the book Unsaid Things... Our Story.[90][91]
Selena Gomez, American singer-songwriter and actress. Revealed her bipolar diagnosis in April 2020 in an Instagram livestream with Miley Cyrus.[105]
Matthew Good, Canadian musician. He first disclosed his illness in a personal blog.[106]
Willa Goodfellow, American author and cleric. Goodfellow wrote a memoir about her Bipolar II diagnosis, which was initially misdiagnosed as depression.[107]
Ben Gordon, Former NBA Player. Winner of the Sixth Man of the Year in 2005.[108]
Ernest Hemingway, American journalist, won the Pulitzer Prize (1953) and the Nobel Prize in Literature (1954) for his novel The Old Man and the Sea. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and insomnia in his later years. He committed suicide in 1961.[132][133][134]
Drewe Henley, British actor, Henley and his illness were discussed in her autobiography White Cargo.[135]
David LaChapelle, American commercial photographer, fine-art photographer, music video director, film director, and artist.[174]
Mary Lambert, American actress, singer, and writer, revealed that she had the illness in an interview with shewired.com[175] and in her 2014 song "Secrets".
Debra LaFave, schoolteacher who had sexual relations with minor student.[176]
Bernard Loiseau, French chef, was the chef and the owner of 3-star Michelin restaurant-La Côte d'Or, Loiseau committed suicide on 24 February 2003.[189][190]
Johnny Manziel, American football player. In an interview in 2018, Manziel recounted his personal problems, and has stated that he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.[199]
Jessica Marais, South African-Australian actress. She has stated that she has had bipolar episodes since she was 12 years old, suggesting that these episodes have been caused by the death of her father from a heart attack.[200][201]
Emily Martin, sinologist, anthropologist, feminist, professor at New York University; drew on her own experience with bipolar disorder to write Bipolar Expeditions: Mania and Depression in American Culture.[202]
Valdemar Schønheyder Møller, Danish painter, known for his depictions of sunlight. He had bipolar episodes. In 1901, he was admitted to the psychiatric hospital in Aarhus and remained there until his death in 1905.[215]
Melody Moezzi, activist, lawyer, and author of Haldol and Hyacinths: A Bipolar Life.[216]
Nicola Pagett, actor. Wrote about her bipolar disorder in her autobiography Diamonds Behind My Eyes.[233]
Jaco Pastorius, jazz musician. "Jaco was diagnosed with this clinical bipolar condition in the fall of 1982. The events which led up to it were considered "uncontrolled and reckless" incidents."[234]
Jane Pauley, TV presenter and journalist. The former Today and Dateline host describes being diagnosed with bipolar disorder in her 2004 autobiography Skywriting: A Life Out of the Blue, as well as on her short-lived talk show.[235][236]
Ota Pavel, Czech writer, journalist and sport reporter.[237]
Emil Post, American mathematician and logician. He is best known for his work in the field that eventually became known as computability theory. Post was bipolar and had his first attack in 1921, for the rest of his life he would have to be periodically hospitalized and given electroshock, the standard treatment at that time.[249][250]
Heinz Prechter, entrepreneur, philanthropist, founder of the American Sunroof Company (ASC); former Harvard Business Club Entrepreneur of the Year; after his suicide, his family established the Heinz C. Prechter Bipolar Research Fund at the University of Michigan in his memory.[252]
Naomi Sims, American model, businesswoman and author, widely credited as being the first African-American supermodel.[281]
Frank Sinatra, American singer and actor. "Being an 18-karat manic depressive, and having lived a life of violent emotional contradictions, I have an over-acute capacity for sadness as well as elation."[282]
Michael Slater, International Australian cricketer, forced to retire because of related symptoms.[286][287]
Tony Slattery, actor and comedian. "I rented a huge warehouse by the river Thames. I just stayed in there on my own, didn't open the mail or answer the phone for months and months and months. I was just in a pool of despair and mania."[80]
^Marie Thompson (2016). "Feminised Noise and the 'Dotted Line' of Sonic Experimentalism". Contemporary Music Review. Vol. 35, no. 1. pp. 85–101. doi:10.1080/07494467.2016.1176773.
^Jamison, Kay Redfield. Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament. Free Press (1994), 219–224.
^Copeland, Mary Ellen. The WRAP Story: First Person Accounts of Personal and System Recovery and Transformation. West Dummerston, VT, Peach Press: 2008. p. 4.
^Robert S. Corrington. Riding the Windhorse: Manic-Depressive Disorder and the Quest for WholenessISBN978-0-7618-2619-4 (Hamilton Books, New York, 2003)
^Allitt, John Stewart (1991), Donizetti – in the light of romanticism and the teaching of Johann Simon Mayr, Shaftesbury, Dorset, UK: Element Books, p. 43
^Altman, Lawrence K. (23 July 2012). "Hasty and Ruinous 1972 Pick Colors Today's Hunt for a No. 2". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 March 2024. In the late 1970s, Mr. Eagleton received a diagnosis of bipolar II disorder from Dr. Frederick K. Goodwin, a psychiatrist who later directed the National Institute of Mental Health.
^Tim Cooper (12 July 2009). "The Specials back on stage after 30 years". The Sunday Times. London. Retrieved 13 July 2009. Six years ago, Hall was diagnosed as suffering from bipolar disorder ... It took four years to find the right medication, ... The results have been spectacular, he says. "For two years, I've been really good—no weirdness, no darkness—and that's great. I can operate now."
^Jezer, Marty (1993). Abbie Hoffman. Rutgers University Press. ISBN978-0-8135-2017-9. Abbie was diagnosed in 1980 as having bipolar disorder, more commonly known as manic depression. p. xvii
^Hornbacher, Marya (2009). Madness: A Bipolar Life. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN9780547348193.
^Huxley, Juliette. 1986. Leaves of the tulip tree: autobiography. Murray, London. Chapter 4.
^Ford E. B. 1989. Scientific work by Sir Julian Huxley FRS. In Keynes M. & Harrison G. A. Evolutionary studies: a centenary celebration of the life of Julian Huxley. Macmillan, London.
^Michael, Jason (2007). Strength of a Woman: The Phyllis Hyman Story. Jam Books. ISBN978-0979489006.
^Campbell, Randolph B. (1 March 2017). Gone to Texas : a history of the Lone Star state (Third ed.). New York. ISBN9780190642396. OCLC987266424.((cite book)): CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Holden, Anthony (1988). Laurence Olivier. New York: Atheneum. p. 183. ISBN978-0-689-11536-3. At these moments Vivien turned into a stranger, whom he was seemingly incapable of helping. It was the beginning of a long and tortured series of such attacks, to be diagnosed some years later as manic depression.
^Levin, Bernard (1985). Enthusiasms (1985 ed.). Coronet Books. pp. 16–17. ISBN0340369272. ...again and again, pain has caused me to retreat into the darkest lair of depression, where the sick soul's desire for solitude turns into misanthropy, with invitations refused, meetings cancelled, and outstretched hands spurned. If you take that test literally - never sorry to see, never unready to talk to - I have absolutely no friends at all, and never have had. But that is a definition of depression and the withdrawal to which it leads, and my good fortune lies in the fact that as far as I know - and by now I know very far indeed - my friends are never sorry to see me or unready to talk to me.
^"Jenifer Lewis's Battle with Bipolar Disorder". Archived from the original on 14 October 2007. Actress Jenifer Lewis, who appeared in Tyler Perry's film Madea's Family Reunion, recently revealed that she is bipolar and says she is finally ready to talk about it. "After years of therapy and after years of medication, I feel experienced enough now to come out and say bipolar disorder is treatable and you can get help and you don't have to live such a tortured existence," she says.
^Davidson, Jonathan (2011). Downing Street Blues: A History of Depression and Other Mental Afflictions. McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers. ISBN978-0-78-644846-3. almost surely Pitt suffered from incapacitating depression and episodic bouts of mania or hypomania that would qualify for a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
^Life and Letters and the London Mercury: An International Monthly of Living, Published by Brendin Pub. Co., 1929 (v.2 1929 Jan–Jun, p.171): "Poe, like Nietzsche, was a manic-depressive; and his existence followed a comparable course."
^From the Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe by Thomas Ollive Mabbott, Eleanor D Kewer, Maureen C Mabbott, Page 561, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1969: "Poe certainly had manic and depressive periods"
^from Edgar Allan Poe: Rhetoric and Style by Brett Zimmerman, published by McGill-Queen's Press – MQUP, 2005, quote, from p.177: "...when the former was in one of his black moods – evidence supporting (in part) the theory that Poe was manic-depressive (see also Ostrom 404, 437)" Zimmerman, Brett (2005). Edgar Allan Poe: Rhetoric and Style. McGill-Queen's Press – MQUP. ISBN978-0-7735-2899-4.
^[in the Belgian newspaper Le Soir (6 February 2010 "Oui, je suis bipolaire")]
^Martin Davis, 1994, "Emil L. Post: His Life and Work" in Davis, M., ed., Solvability, Provability, Definability: The Collected Works of Emil L. Post. Birkhauser
^Post, Emil (13 May 2016). Turing's Vision: The Birth of Computer Science. MIT press. Post was bipolar and had his first attack in 1921, for the rest of his life he would have to be periodically hospitalized and given electroshock, the standard treatment at that time.
^Pride, Charley (May 1995). Pride: The Charley Pride Story. Quill. Pride discusses business ventures that succeeded and those that failed, as well as his bouts with manic depression. He tells his story with no bitterness but lots of homespun advice and humor.
^Wecht, Brian; Gray, Leighton; Stevenson, ND (14 August 2020). "Episode 26: The Pudding Cup of My Brain (feat. Noelle Stevenson)". YouTube. Archived from the original on 15 August 2020. Retrieved 15 August 2020. ...I was really struggling with voicing a certain aspect of my brain and emotional state and that way that it was all rolled together and you know being bipolar and how that felt and I was struggling with how to say it. See 47:06–47:13 in this video
^Dorina Evans Sutherland (2013). Gilbert Stuart and the Impact of Manic Depression.
^"Punk icon Poly Styrene dies". BBC News. 26 April 2011. She moved into a Krishna temple in Hertfordshire with her daughter, and struggled with bipolar disorder.
^Stuart Sutherland (1976). Breakdown. Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-852380-2. Describes in detail his struggles with manic depression
^"The Popdose Interview: Matthew Sweet". Popdose. 21 June 2009. Life was hard for me at that time, when I started to have to tour and all of that stuff, because I suffer from bipolar disorder, and I was untreated for many, many years, and it was just murderous for me.
^Behrens, 2009. Behrens wrote "Thayer outlived World War I, and died in 1921. Impaired by bipolar disorder, or in his words, 'the Abbott pendulum', that swung between the two extremes of 'allwellity' and 'sick disgust'"
^Meryman, 1999. Meryman wrote "at the end he had grown suicidal."
^Simon Mills (2 September 2011). "David Walliams: In at the deep end". This Is London. Archived from the original on 15 September 2012. He has been diagnosed as being manic depressive and has been in therapy
^"Stone Temple Pilots: Long Way Home". Archived from the original on 17 October 2012. Retrieved 18 November 2016. "I suffer from manic-depressive disorder, and I've chosen not to take medication for it." Quotation from Weiland during an interview.
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