"Being famous, that's a 24-hour job right there," actor Bill Murray once said. All those hours of work in the limelight might well take their toll in the long run.
A study by a team from Witten/Herdecke University in Germany suggests singers who reach celebrity status tend to die an average of around four-and-a-half years earlier than lesser-known individuals.
Publicly available data on 324 relatively famous mainstream music artists who were active between 1950 and 1990 were matched by gender, age, nationality, ethnicity, genre, and solo/band status with 324 'twins' who were much less well known.
Famous singers passed away aged 75 on average, the analysis showed, while for their more obscure and less successful counterparts, the average age of death was almost 80. Anonymity may not necessarily bring riches, but it could help you live longer.
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"The findings show that, when put to a stringent test, being famous goes along with an increased mortality risk," health researcher Johanna Hepp and colleagues write in their published paper.
"This highlights the need for targeted health interventions for individuals in the public spotlight and might stimulate future research exploring the causal mechanisms underlying the observed mortality."
By considering the date of the artist's initial entry into the music charts, the team found that the elevated risk of dying appears after fame is achieved, supporting the suggestion that fame is indeed the underlying reason for the change in mortality risk.
It's worth bearing in mind that the method used in the study can't prove fame is directly responsible for an early grave, nor that the results can be applied to other occupations, such as acting or sports, for example. However, there is a distinct enough difference in the stats to suggest something is going on here.
The researchers didn't interview any musicians for this study, but point to "psychosocial stress" factors as a potential reason for the disparity.
These factors might include the intense public scrutiny and loss of privacy that come with being famous, for example, or the pressure to perform consistently at a high standard for larger groups of people.
"These stressors may fuel psychological distress and harmful coping behaviors, making fame a chronic burden that amplifies existing occupational risks," write the researchers.
Previous studies have shown that famous musicians tend to die earlier than the general population, and the findings of this study – which also focused on Europe and North America – suggest that it's down to being famous rather than being a musician.
The researchers also found that solo artists had a higher mortality risk than singers who were in a band, regardless of fame, perhaps due to the protection that bandmates offer and the sharing of duties such as speaking to the public.
The study is another reminder that while the wealth that often comes with fame can improve quality of life in many respects, it's not necessarily a guarantee of more years – especially when other factors are involved.
"Being famous appears so detrimental that it overrides any potential benefits associated with high socioeconomic status," write the researchers.
"Such knowledge could help identify ways of promoting health and well-being, not only for musicians who are in the public eye but also for the broader population, as famous individuals are often role models that shape public perceptions and influence health-related behaviors."
The research has been published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.