The price of fame? Mortality risk among famous singers

Is being famous a risk factor for premature death? Previous studies indicate that famous musicians have a higher mortality risk compared with the general population. However, these studies did not disentangle whether fame contributes to this increased risk, or whether it can be explained entirely by the demands of the music profession. The present study addresses this gap by isolating the effect of fame within the profession.

We used a retrospective matched case-control design in a preregistered study to compare famous singers with matched less famous singers (total N=635) based on the matching criteria of gender, nationality, ethnicity, genre and solo/band status. We compared mortality risk using a Kaplan-Meier curve and used a Cox regression to test the effect of fame.

The results showed that famous singers had a 32 % higher mortality risk compared with less famous singers.

This study provides new evidence suggesting that fame may be associated with increased mortality risk among musicians, beyond occupational factors.