Young stars are thrust into fame and riches – but the spotlight can be deadly

Reflecting on the price of her fame, Lady Gaga once said the transaction of celebrity effectively made her everyone’s property. “It’s legal to follow me. It’s legal to stalk me at the beach. And I can’t call the police or ask them to leave,” she said.

Another pop star, Billie Eilish, was more blunt. “I had a panic attack every single night,” she once told Rolling Stone, of the period in her life where fame came crashing in the front door. “I cried for two hours every night. It was really, really bad.”

Just how bad can it be? You might well ask Hayden Panettiere the same question, but the 36-year-old New York-born singer and actress was found unresponsive and in cardiac arrest yesterday , and died at the scene . Panettiere can no longer answer that question but her recent memoir gave the world a clear picture of her personal struggles.

By her own admission, Panettiere struggled with addiction, anxiety and postpartum depression. In a May interview with British podcaster and author Jay Shetty , Panettiere said she “did not have a good reaction” to her former partner moving to Europe with their young daughter.

“I was struggling with mental health and anxiety and the postpartum and having to act my way through it and just feeling like I I completely lost myself,” Panettiere said. “I think a misconception is that I have been in the past forced into treatment when, in fact, I have been the one who sought it out.

“It became this horrible cycle for years of battling depression, alcoholism and substance abuse and me just trying to find my way out of this darkness,” Panettiere said. When her daughter was taken to Europe, “I did not have a good reaction to it. I went like mother lion. I would have burnt the world down for my child, so that was incredibly difficult.”

Extraordinarily, Panettiere’s candour cost her professionally. In response to her speaking publicly about her postpartum depression, American cosmetics company Neutrogena ended their 10-year relationship with her. According to Panettiere, the company had a morals clause, which was deemed violated by her talking about her experience with PPD.

The online reaction to her death was swift, and affecting. Known for the Scream film franchise, and the television series Heroes and Nashville , Panettiere’s fame ensured her death became a headline. More than that, it triggered a strong response from fans around the world, shocked and upset at the news.

While the die was not truly cast from the outset – many, many famous people live full and happy lives, without trauma or regret – it is also true to say that Panettiere’s early fame, including television commercials as a child, and American soap operas as a teenager, put her in a high-risk group.

The list of names is long: Britney Spears and Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, Lindsay Lohan and Ariana Grande . Corey Haim and Corey Feldman. Jonathan Brandis. Amanda Bynes, River Phoenix, Macaulay Culkin, Drew Barrymore, Gary Coleman. Even Michael Jackson, and as far back as Anissa Jones, Bobby Driscoll and Judy Garland.

Which is not to imply that child stardom is the path to difficulty, addiction and, in some cases, death.