Top Five Celebrity Self-Injurers

For some people, sometimes the pressures and stresses of life become too much and they take it out on themselves. The lives of celebrities are particularly stressful and high-pressure, and it’s possible that a desire to be famous comes from an insecure need to be adored by huge masses of people, so when things go wrong it’s no wonder they try to cut their own limbs off…

Johnny Depp

As a child, Depp used to harm himself as a way to deal with family problems surrounding him and also his own personal insecurities. He has seven or eight scars on his left forearm from knife cuts to celebrate various milestones in his life.

Somehow it makes sense that he once played the part of Edward Scissorhands, a man with blades instead of fingers.

Angelina Jolie

Jolie was teased by her fellow students for having such huge lips, wearing braces and being thin. After failed attempts to become a model, she began to cut herself, saying she felt it was “therapeutic” and like “some kind of release”.

Once, she even played around with knives in bed with one of her ex boyfriends, and has the scars to prove it.

Courtney Love

Always having been considered extremely unstable, Love went through a phase of cutting herself whilst on stage. She also has a tendency, when extremely drunk, to tear her clothes off and run around screaming and breaking windows.

Princess Diana

Diana, Princess of Wales, used to cut her arms and legs as a way of crying for help. It was her way of showing to the outside world that she was hurting inside. She would cut her wrists with razors and the sharp edge of a lemon slicer. During arguments with her husband, Prince Charles, she would react by cutting herself, and once she even threw herself down the stairs.

Richey James Edwards

The former guitarist of Welsh rockers The Manic Street Preachers, Richey Edwards was always a troubled soul, but was always up-front with his acts of self harm.

Self destructive acts included: stubbing cigarettes out on his arm, slashing his chest open with knives a fan had sent him, and carving the words “4 real” into his arm during an argument with a music journalist.

On 1st February 1995, Richey Edwards disappeared. Over the weeks that followed, there were several sighting of him, and £200 was drawn out of his bank account each day, leading up to a total of £2,800. On 14th February 1995, his car was found near the Severn Bridge, a notorious suicide spot. He has never been found.