From students to teachers, children to parents, and movie stars to artists, mental health affects everyone. Movie stars and music legends have had to face their own struggles with mental health as well. From the movie industry, two important actors and actresses have spoken up about their struggles with mental health within their careers: Melissa Benoist and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. Chrissy Teigen and her husband, John Legend, also shared their stories about facing their own struggles with mental health. Having more celebrities speak up about their own mental health struggles and journeys helps break the stigma surrounding mental health especially in the entertainment industry.

As one of the main music streaming platforms, Spotify, has reached out to neuroscience researcher, Joe Barnby, to talk about the unique challenges that artists face, and will face, in their music careers. Barnby says that “a culture of self-medication and drug abuse in the music industry poses a unique mental-health challenge to musicians” because artists have to be even more wary about taking medication while going through their mental health challenges. Barnby also says that it is important to “develop a culture of people being able to vocalize their vulnerabilities and vocalize how they’re feeling, because a lot of the time, just having someone there to compassionately and non-judgmentally listen to what you’re saying can really go a long way.” To be able to share those feelings and not have to put up a front is something that everyone should not feel ashamed to have.

As Chrissy Teigen and John Legend have shared with the world, after having their first child, Luna, she struggled with postpartum depression and anxiety. To go through a traumatic experience like postpartum depression,fight and overcome that battle and then share her experience with the world is very remarkable. Opening up and normalizing talking about mental health and  mental health struggles is not something that everyone can do. As someone that has a major influence in the music industry, Teigen writes that “it can happen to anybody and I don’t want people who have it to feel embarrassed or to feel alone”. It is even more important while going through something as severe as postpartum depression to those who have anxiety to feel like there is a support system.

Melisa Benosit also shares her story with the public in hopes to create a safer space in the world to talk about mental health and emphasize on how it is okay to reach out for help. Benosit plays Kara Danvers and Supergirl in Supergirl and Marley Rose in Glee and through it all, she was going through something that no one else knew about: depression and anxiety from a young age. Melisa shares that she would “just plain lie to her closest friends to cover up what was going on until one day one of them confronted her about it”. She had also been in an abusive relationship, which resulted in her turning down auditions and job offers because she “didn’t want to hurt him [her previous spouse]”. This is said time and time again but simply talking is a useful step forward in order to address mental health concerns and break the stigma that surrounds it. Benosit spoke up about her personal experiences regarding her own fight in order to let others know that they are not alone.

Mental health is something that no one should struggle with alone, and even celebrities are speaking up about what challenges they faced in order to let everyone know they shouldn’t be afraid to reach out for help. Benoist and Teigen share their stories to shed light on the true struggles that many people face in the music and film industry.