Curated playlist

People with bipolar disorder

Jean-Claude Van DammeJean-Claude Van Damme once slept in cars and sometimes stole food while trying to break into Hollywood.
F. Scott FitzgeraldF. Scott Fitzgerald died in 1940 believing his work was forgotten. The Great Gatsby later sold millions.
Kanye WestKanye West recorded "Through the Wire" with his jaw still wired shut. A 2002 car accident had shattered it.
Vivien LeighWhen Vivien Leigh died in 1967, every central London theater went dark for an hour.
Virginia WoolfVirginia Woolf's father let her read whatever she liked in his vast library.
Gaetano DonizettiIn 1811, a teacher staged a play to keep young Donizetti in music school. Simone Mayr wrote it himself.
Amy WinehouseAmy Winehouse won five Grammys singing by satellite from London at 3 a.m. Her visa was not processed in time.
Ezra PoundEzra Pound cut T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land by about half. Eliot called the edits proof of Pound's critical genius.
Samuel Taylor ColeridgeSamuel Taylor Coleridge coined the phrase "suspension of disbelief." He also battled opium addiction for years.
Mariah CareyMariah Carey handed her demo tape to a record boss at a party in December 1988. He turned his car around.
Brian WilsonOn a flight to Houston in 1964, Brian Wilson broke down sobbing. He then quit touring with the Beach Boys.
Robert Downey Jr.Robert Downey Jr. was too big an insurance risk to hire until Mel Gibson paid his insurance bond.
Phil SpectorPhil Spector's first number one song came from his father's gravestone.
Carrie FisherCarrie Fisher once asked to be reported as drowned in moonlight, strangled by her own bra.
Catherine Zeta-JonesCatherine Zeta-Jones once said that with one hour of television, her life completely changed and she could not go anywhere. She is a Welsh actress, born in Swansea on the 25th of September 1969. The Zeta in her name is pronounced ZEE-tuh.…
Axl RoseAxl Rose, the lead singer of Guns N' Roses, was ninety minutes into a July 1991 concert at the Riverport Amphitheater near St. Louis when he decided to deal with a problem himself. He had asked security on stage to confiscate a fan's video…
ND StevensonA class assignment at art school became the webcomic Nimona. It later became a National Book Award finalist.
David HarbourDavid Harbour made his television debut in 1999 on Law & Order, playing a waiter. He was born on the 10th of April 1975, and he is an American actor. A waiter is about as small as a screen part gets. So how does an actor go from that…
Greta ThunbergGreta Thunberg, aged fifteen, sat alone outside Sweden's parliament in August 2018.
Halsey (singer)Halsey, the stage name of Ashley Nicolette Frangipane, once looked at a bank account holding nine dollars. She spent it on a four-pack of Red Bull. The caffeine kept her awake for two or three days, because she judged sleeping somewhere…
Chris BrownChris Brown, born Christopher Maurice Brown, has sold more than 140 million records worldwide. That total places him among the best-selling music artists in the world. Across his career he has collected 219 awards from 566 nominations, and…
Mike TysonBy age 13, Mike Tyson had been arrested 38 times. At 20 he became the youngest heavyweight champion ever.
Sinéad O'ConnorSinéad O'Connor once walked into the Grammy Awards with the logo of the hip hop group Public Enemy painted on her shaved head. She was protesting because the first-ever Best Rap Performance award was being handed out off-screen. The…
Diego MaradonaDiego Maradona punched in one World Cup goal, then dribbled past five English players for another.
Townes Van ZandtTownes Van Zandt earned one of the boldest compliments in American songwriting from his friend Steve Earle. Earle said Van Zandt was "the best songwriter in the whole world and I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and…
Selena GomezIn 2016, Selena Gomez became the first person to reach 100 million followers on Instagram, a milestone Time later singled out in its Firsts series. Gomez is an American actress, singer, songwriter, businesswoman, and producer, born in…
Dolores O'RiordanDolores O'Riordan was twelve years old on her first day at Laurel Hill Coláiste in Limerick. She stood in front of her new classmates and announced, "My name is Dolores O'Riordan and I'm going to be a rock star". Then she stood on her…
Lily AllenIn the months before her debut album, almost nobody outside her record label's A&R department knew who Lily Allen was. Even so, 500 limited edition 7-inch vinyl copies of her song "LDN" were rush-released, and they resold for as much as…
XXXTentacionXXXTentacion, born Jahseh Dwayne Ricardo Onfroy, was shot dead on the 18th of June 2018 near a motorcycle dealership in Deerfield Beach, Florida. He was 20 years old. At the time, he was a rising and deeply polarizing figure in hip-hop.…
Chappell RoanChappell Roan stood in front of a crowd in June 2024 and admitted she was having a hard time that day. Her career, she told them, was going really fast and was hard to keep up with. Then she said the line that frames her whole story: "This…
Robert HansenBehind the headboard of a bed in an Anchorage home, investigators found an aeronautical chart marked with thirty-seven handwritten x symbols. The home belonged to Robert Hansen, a baker nicknamed the Butcher Baker. Between 1971 and 1983 he…
Louis AlthusserLouis Althusser used a police officer's shout on the street to explain how ideology shapes every person.
DMXDMX was the first artist to open five straight studio albums at number one on the Billboard 200.
Mikhail VrubelMikhail Vrubel stepped off a train in 1884 dressed like a Venetian from a painting.