People Are Sharing The Celebrities They Genuinely Feel Bad For, And It's Heartbreaking

Buzz Feed

05-04-2025

With the way our culture treats celebrities like they are gods walking among us, it's easy to forget that they're actually human.
NBC
Yes, they often have more money, power, and influence than your everyday person, but that doesn't mean they aren't still a person.
1. " Jennette McCurdy was abused by her mother, most likely by Dan Schneider too, but her mom went as far to send her a hate message from her own deathbed."
2. "Chadwick Bozeman. To be fighting cancer at the biggest moment in his career had to be such a big secret to hold. Every time I think about that photo he had to delete because people were making jokes, all the while knowing what Black Panther meant to people and that he wasn't going to make it. My heart breaks for him."
3. "Rachel Ziegler. She's become the target of all these MAGA anti-woke rage campaigns. Her actions (which she didn't even do anything wrong) are not at all proportional to the hate she has received for months. She is so young and talented. She just began her career not even a few years ago. I really hope she stays strong!"
—u/ Msexquisin
"Any female celebrity who the public suddenly decides they all hate because they take things out of context/decides they are annoying, e.g. Rachel Zegler, Anne Hathaway, Amber Heard, Blake Lively, Millie Bobbie Brown, Jennifer Lawrence, Hailey Balle, etc."
—u/ Aguafresca34
4. "Lindsay Lohan. Her parents are awful. She called her dad in a crisis, crying, and that bastard recorded the call and sold it to a tabloid."
5. "Matthew Perry. I listened to his autobiography and heard him talk about how insecure he actually was, how he struggled with his self-image, and then how he wrestled with addiction, all the while knowing he lost that battle. It just made me feel so bad for him. I just wanted to hug him."
6. "Salma Hayek. Harvey Weinstein threatened to shut down production of Frida unless she agreed to have a fully nude lesbian sex scene in it. The entertainment industry is fucking gross."
7. "The little boy (Jake Llyod) from Star Wars: Episode I. An 8-year-old child gets hate mail and death threats from grown adults for acting in a movie he didn't write, direct, or produce. Grown adults did this stuff to a child because they didn't like how he acted in their space movie."
8. "Britney Spears. That girl got put through the wringer. She was the subject of humiliation, slut shaming, insults, and hatred by the press while everyone else demanded more and more. She was overexposed and cruelly used. This abuse made her what she is today."
9. "Pamela Anderson. Her private tape was stolen and made public by a scumbag with a vendetta. Whatever nudity she did in public by choice has nothing to do with her private memories and personal property."
10. "Robin Williams, who was robbed of his mind by Lewy body dementia."
11. "Céline Dion. She has always had her voice; it's been her comfort and her happy place all her life; she has lost her husband, which broke her heart. Now, she is losing her voice and her control over her own body, with an illness that is incurable and progressive. It's heartbreaking that such a beautiful soul with such a magical voice is losing everything she has ever loved, and there's nothing at all she can do to stop it."
12. "Chester Bennington still hurts. Those first three Linkin Park albums...man, they hit me at exactly the right time as a teenager. My first public performance as a musician was covering 'In the End' with a buddy at my eighth-grade talent show. The suicides of him, Chris Cornell, and Anthony Bourdain all in a relatively short amount of time really spurred me to examine and better my own coping methods for my clinical depression."
13. "Sinead O'Connor. Incredibly talented, but everyone blacklisted her after the SNL thing. Who would have thought people loved the pope more than they hated coverups for sex offenders in the catholic church?"
14. "Bruce Willis. His health condition is so sad."
15. "Amanda Bynes. I really enjoyed her acting. So sad."
16. "Keanu Reeves. The poor guy lost his girlfriend, daughter, and best friend, and yet he still remains one of the kindest souls, undeterred by events that would make anyone angry and bitter."
17. "Rebecca Black. She was just a regular kid whose parents had a bit of money and she wanted to do a fun thing with her friends through some mall studio-tier music video company. And the entire internet collectively and relentlessly dragged her for it."
18. "Amy Winehouse. The media violated her privacy to take and publish the most awful photos of her that they could while she was struggling with an eating disorder, addiction to multiple substances, and relationship struggles"
19. "Corey Feldman and Corey Haim. One of them is completely gone, and the other has been so traumatized that even if he's 100% telling the truth, he sounds unwell. I feel terrible for them both. They didn't deserve what happened to them."
20. "Monica Lewinsky. A young person who got absolutely screwed over by a sleazy dude and then was subjected to all sorts of innuendo and insinuation as folks closed ranks around Clinton, given he was so powerful, and then for her to be made the butt of jokes for so long. Glad to see she's very much overcome it all these days, but I remember thinking how cruel people were to her at the time."
21. "Tim Curry. He's said on a few occasions that the paralyzing stroke he suffered in 2012 robbed him of his passion for acting. He's continued his career as a voice actor as much as possible, but it's painful to think what other iconic roles we could have gotten from him if it wasn't for his stroke."
22. "Julie Andrews. She's so famous for her singing roles but lost most of her vocal range and ability from surgery complications. It's obviously not as tragic as others, but I can't imagine how hard that is for a singer."
23. "Michael J Fox. He was so young when he got Parkinson's, and it has progressed so much. Fortunately, he has a loving wife and family."
24. "Anna Nicole Smith got a pretty raw deal."
Ron Davis / Getty Images
—u/ AsYouWishyWashy
25. "Jojo Siwa. Never got a real childhood, exploitative mom made her into a character for profit, and now she's collectively joked about by the internet because she acts weird despite never learning how to be a normal child, let alone adult."
Christopher Polk / Variety via Getty Images
—u/ FreddyCosine
26. "Paris Hilton. Her parents sent her to a school for troubled teens instead of parenting, and the way they did it was horrible. I never thought I'd sympathize with her, but then I read her memoir and it's just heartbreaking."
Chad Salvador / WWD via Getty Images
—u/ Gothiccornila92
27. "Aubrey Plaza. She was with her husband for many years, then they separated, and while they were apart, he died by suicide. My wife and I often mention how we hope she is doing OK."
ANGELA WEISS / AFP via Getty Images
—u/ FunboyFrags
What do you think? Are there any celebs you feel bad for that weren't included in this list? Let me know in the comments.
Note: Responses have been edited for length/clarity.