I'm glad that I'm not a famous music star!

Pop Stars More Than Twice As Likely To Die An Early Death

Science Daily — Rock and pop stars are more than twice as likely as the rest of the population to die an early death, and within a few years of becoming famous, reveals just published research.

The findings are based on more than 1050 North American and European musicians and singers who shot to fame between 1956 and 1999. This includes all the musicians featured in the All Time Top 1000 albums, selected in 2000, and covering rock, punk, rap, R&B, electronica and new age genres.

How long the pop stars survived once they had achieved chart success and become famous was compared with the expected longevity of the general population, matched for age, sex, ethnicity and nationality, up to the end of 2005.

In all, 100 stars died between 1956 and 2005. The average age of death was 42 for North American stars and 35 for European stars.

Long term drug or alcohol problems accounted for more than one in four of the deaths.

When compared with the rest of the population in the UK and the US, rock and pop stars were around twice as likely to die early and even more likely to do so within five years of becoming famous.

Some 25 years after achieving fame, European pop stars returned to the same levels of life expectancy as the rest of the population. But North American stars continued to experience higher death rates.