Quote about fame and emotional maturity

November 13, 2023 1:41 PM

There’s a reasonably well known observation that people who become famous tend to get ‘stuck’ in terms of emotional maturity at the age at which they got famous. What’s the source of that observation? Is it attributed to any particular person?
posted by damsel with a dulcimer to Grab Bag (9 answers total)

It's from a recent novel by a writer best not named here: "You remain forever stuck at the age you got famous."
posted by zadcat at 4:56 PM on November 13, 2023

The sentiment is definitely older than a recent novel. You can find references to this from a decade ago or more. Here's a tweet from 2011, attributing it to Rob Lowe (or whoever ghostwrote his book), but I'd imagine one can find earlier references.
posted by ssg at 5:02 PM on November 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

It's from a recent novel by a writer best not named here: "You remain forever stuck at the age you got famous."

Who is it? this is silly.
posted by Sebmojo at 5:15 PM on November 13, 2023 [18 favorites]

The novel referenced above appears to be The Running Grave, if that's bothering anyone.
posted by shadygrove at 5:31 PM on November 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

I hadn't heard this before, but I've often heard it said about young people who are abused or traumatized, that they are stuck at the level of emotional development they were at when the abuse started. I mention this only because it might help you track down other versions on your way to finding what you're looking for.
posted by Well I never at 5:48 PM on November 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

and going back to at least the 1990s, i always heard this as applying to drug users getting stuck at the age when they started getting fucked-up every day. i've never heard the fame or trauma versions.
posted by glonous keming at 6:25 PM on November 13, 2023 [4 favorites]

alcohol, is what i heard, too.
posted by j_curiouser at 8:06 PM on November 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

I think this is a more general observation about fame being a type of traumatic experience for those not emotionally mature enough to handle it. And the idea that traumatic experiences can cause a person to get "stuck" with the emotional coping mechanisms until they've learned to process the experience (if they ever do learn) is one which has a fairly long history. Here is the first of many, many Google result about trauma and its affect on emotional development.

So it's an amalgamation of two ideas:

1) that trauma affects emotional development
2) that fame can be a type of trauma

I'm not sure if either of those ideas, or the joining of them together, has a specific and agreed genesis though (but other people here might know)
posted by underclocked at 11:54 PM on November 13, 2023

Michael Jackson comes to mind. The press called it "Peter Pan syndrome," but that was only ever a popular phrase, not related to a diagnosis.

https://www.biography.com/musicians/michael-jackson-childhood-peter-pan-syndrome
posted by Former Congressional Representative Lenny Lemming at 10:25 AM on November 14, 2023