11 Famous People With Bipolar Disorder

A child star turned pop culture icon, Selena Gomez, 33, revealed in 2020 that she has bipolar disorder.

Gomez cofounded the digital platform Wondermind in 2021 with the goal of sharing “easy, doable ways to put your mental fitness first, every day.”

She didn’t know why she had intense mood swings. Her first husband, actor Bruce Abbott, “said you have the most incredible joy and the most incredible sorrow that goes with it. Without giving it a name, he had pretty much summed it up for me,” she said.

Pop star Mariah Carey, 56, made headlines in 2018 when she revealed that she’d been diagnosed with bipolar 2 almost two decades before, after a breakdown that sent her to the hospital.

Bipolar 2 is characterized by major depressive episodes, as well as bouts of hypomania (a less-severe form of mania) and in-between periods of a neutral mood.

In an interview with People, Carey said she “didn’t want to believe” she had bipolar disorder and decided to keep it a secret: “I was so terrified of losing everything.” She chose to come forward when the burden of denial and fear became too heavy.

Chappel Roan, 28, who won her first Grammy as best new artist in 2025, has been outspoken about having bipolar disorder.

“I’m diagnosed bipolar 2, and it’s been pretty hard to keep it together and release these songs,” she shared on Instagram in 2022 as she was launching her independent career. “I’ve been on meds, and I was in full swing hypomania when ‘Naked in Manhattan’ released, which I’m out of now. And the weeks leading up to and through the ‘My Kink Is Karma’ release campaign, I’ve been in intensive outpatient therapy/individual therapy four days a week, and it’s definitely been difficult to balance promoting and being consistently active on social media.”

About her bipolar diagnosis, she said, “I don’t really talk about it much, but it affects me daily and is a pretty big part of my music. I’m in a healthy spot, just wanted to share and I think it’s important to talk about mental health.”

Pete Wentz, 46, bass player of the rock band Fall Out Boy, opened up about having bipolar disorder during a 2015 interview with Howard Stern on SiriusXM.

Wentz described his twenties as a particularly tumultuous time, saying he’d been self-medicating while on tour to cope with what he later learned were bipolar symptoms.

At age 50, broadcast journalist and author Jane Pauley, now 76, began experiencing episodes of depression and mania. Her doctors believed that steroid medication used to treat hives kick-started what was later diagnosed as bipolar disorder.

Pauley’s doctor tried to give her a cover story of thyroid issues to hide her diagnosis from her employers. She said she uses such experiences to “fight stigma with sophistication.”

Academy Award–winning actress Catherine Zeta-Jones, 56, revealed in 2011 that she was seeking treatment in a mental health facility for bipolar 2 disorder.

While in an intensive program in a treatment facility, Stapp was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. “It was hard to process,” he said. “There’s a stigma associated with it. But Jaclyn [Stapp’s wife] kept telling me, ‘Embrace it. We love you.’ It became a big sigh of relief because finally we had an answer.”