It’s a heavy weight to bear, living life as a celebrity. We won’t boo-hoo over celebrities having it tougher than any other person who wakes up and goes to work daily, but when it comes to enduring scandal, celeb status makes everything more difficult. There is great freedom in anonymity on the grand scale. Screw up as a celeb, and you’re placed in front of a figurative firing squad. It’s not surprising that the following celebrities did their best to keep some of these skeletons in the closet.
14. Britney Spears
2007: It was known as the “Breakdown Era.” The girl we knew as Britney had become a woman, and a mother… then completely lost her gourd. The news of Britney’s breakdown started with rumors of rampant drug use, a poor circle of friends and acquaintances, violent outbursts and inconsistent, erratic emotional behavior. All the variables pointed to a lack of self-control, and growing pains stemming from the loss of her life as a pop sensation. Britney went from a celebrity with no responsibilities to an adult with dependents with no transitional phase. Brit did her best to hide it for as long as she could, then — in a presumed bout of severe paranoia — she scored a pair of clippers, and took her hair off. Shortly thereafter, she attacked the paparazzi with an umbrella. At that point, there was no more hiding the “Britney has lost her mind…” headlines.
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