Celebrity Worship Syndrome: When only the first row is good enough

Whether it is Margot Robbie or Ryan Gosling, we all have had our celebrity crushes over the years. But have you ever heard of the term Celebrity Worship Syndrome? It is often described as an obsessive-addictive disorder in which a person becomes overly involved with a celebrity’s personal life. According to the World Health Organization, approximately 70 million individuals are affected by obsessive disorders worldwide. But how exactly can it affect your life and can it be treated? These are all questions that will be answered in this article.

Liese

Celebrity Worship Syndrome (CWS) was up until now an unknown term to Liese Van Crombrugghe, a 23-year-old fashion student from Belgium. However, after doing some research, she found that a lot of the symptoms resonated with her: “I think I am the true definition of a fangirl. I have several artists that I am a huge fan of, but I would say my main obsessions are Ariana Grande and The Weeknd.” From spending hundreds of euros on concert tickets, to standing in line two days before a concert starts, there is not much Liese would not do for her favourite celebs: “Being in the third row will never be good enough, it’s the front row or nothing.”

“I think it all started with Ariana Grande back in 2012. I was truly obsessed with her and would copy her makeup and hairstyle”, she says. Liese wore a tight ponytail to school every single day to look more like her favourite singer, which resulted in a big bald spot at the top of her head. “I was so committed, I didn’t even care that I was going bald. The goal was to look like her because that is what made me feel confident.” In an article from the Journal of Behavioral Addictions, it was said that people with low self-esteem are more prone to become a victim of CWS, which Liese agrees with. “I think I enjoyed the kind of escape artists like Ariana [Grande] offered me. I was heavily bullied in high school, but coming home to my room filled with posters and cd’s made me happy again”, she explains. “Also starting fan accounts on social media and talking to people that were experiencing similar things, felt incredibly validating.”

Liese also spends a lot of money on merchandise. “I am not proud to say it out loud, but last year I must have spent around 1.500 euros on merchandise alone”, she admits. For Liese it is not a way of showing off or proving to other fans that she might be a bigger fan than them. “It’s more about supporting an artist that I really appreciate, and I also enjoy collecting stuff in general, so that is why I am willing to spend a pretty penny on it”, she explains. She also thinks that wearing merchandise in public helps her make friends with a similar taste in music. “You would not believe how many come up to me whenever I am wearing merch, which almost always leads to an exchange of phone numbers. That is how I met one of my main concert buddies, Yade, whom I am incredibly grateful for.”  

Since Ariana Grande has not been releasing new music and is on a break from touring, Liese decided to put her focus on another artist, The Weeknd. She even decided to do her semester abroad in Toronto, because that is where The Weeknd is originally from. “I would follow this Twitter account that tracked where he was at all times, and whenever he got spotted in Toronto, I would try to go out in the same nightclubs, so I could potentially run into him.” She recognizes that that kind of behaviour is unhealthy and could even be seen as stalking. “I would never want to upset the artists that have helped me through some of the toughest times of my life”, she says. Liese explains that she has been struggling with her mental health for the past two years and has been seeing a therapist because of that: “I have talked to my therapist about how my favourite artists are my escape from reality, and she has been teaching me ways to not fall back into old patterns and deal with my obsessive tendencies in a healthy way.”  

Julia

Julia Steding is a 32-year-old researcher from Germany. In this video she talks about her experience with being a part of a big fandom.

The expert

Even though it is called Celebrity Worship Syndrome (CWS), and it is described as an obsessive-addictive disorder, it is not a clinically recognized condition in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The first person to use this term was Lynn McCutcheon and her research colleagues in the early 2000s. Plenty of studies have been done on CWS since and have mostly agreed on all the aspects from the signs and symptoms to the treatments that can be given.

According to the World Health Organization, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder has a worldwide prevalence of between 1% and 2%, which might not seem like much, but it equals to roughly 70 million people. Els Keijzer is a 56-year-old Belgian nurse and psychologist at the psychiatric center Dr. Guislain. She states that there are certain people who are more inclined to suffer from an obsessive disorder. “I think a big factor would be the environment you grew up in as a child. You pick up a lot from your parents and unfortunately that also means increasing the risk of picking up obsessive tendencies”, she explains. Keijzer also points out that when you are in a stressful phase of your life, you are at a higher risk of developing obsessive disorders: “People deal with stressful situations in different ways, but obsessing over something, or in this case a person, might be a coping mechanism to be able to deal with that stress.” Some other incentives could be gender, age or drug use. 

“In practice, there is also a difference between people that suffer from psychosis, and people that have been diagnosed in the past with delusional thoughts and hallucinations”, Keijzer says. The first group realises that their thoughts are wrong and that their fantasies about this person are not real. “They could for example be in love with Harry Styles, but they are also aware that he does not reciprocate that feeling”, she explains. The second group has extreme thoughts in which they believe that they have the right to know their celebrity on a personal level. “So they could for example be convinced that Harry Styles would love them back if he got to know them. That is called delusion, plain and simple”, Keijzer points out.

Keeping in mind that some people are more sensitive to developing CWS, it does bring forward another question: Can it be treated? As with any other obsessive disorder, therapy is a common treatment. “By providing in-depth therapy sessions we can try to minimize this kind of behaviour”, Keijzer suggests. “Especially exposure and response prevention comes to mind when we are talking about obsessions with other human beings.” In this kind of therapy psychologists will try to expose people to the thing they are obsessing over and show them ways to deal with it and make them stray away from their usual compulsions. Also limiting news and online content exposure is a big part of this, so that patients gain less information about their favorite celebrity.

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© McCutcheon, L. E., Lange, R., & Houran, J. (2002). Conceptualization and measurement of celebrity worship. British Journal of Psychology, 93(1), 67–87. https://doi.org/10.1348/000712602162454

Coping with obsessive disorders can be challenging, if you feel the need to talk to someone about it after reading this article, feel free to reach out to:

• S.O.S. Obsessions 01 45 39 40 00 (EU)
• OCD Action at 0300 636 5478 or support@ocdaction.org.uk (UK)
• NAMI HelpLine at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264) or info@nami.org (US)

Authors: Eva Eeckhout, Alexandra Kossolapova