Comedian and Actor Robin William's last known message was addressed to his daughter Zelda on the social media site Instagram. It read: "#tbt and Happy Birthday to Ms .Zelda Rae Williams! Quarter of a century old today but always my baby girl. Happy Birthday @zeldawilliams Love you!". Williams committed suicide on August 11, 2014, at his home in California, at the age of 63. In the initial report released on August 12, the Marin County Sheriff's Office deputy coroner stated Williams had hanged himself with a belt and died from asphyxiation. It was revealed, following his death, that Williams had been suffering from severe depression, and had been sleeping in a different room from his wife due to restlessness and anxiety caused by his Parkinson's.
Robin Williams' only daughter tweeted back to her father's final public words in which he pledged his love for his little girl. She reciprocated with: "I love you. I miss you. I'll keep trying to look up." In her tweet, she quotes from The Little Prince, a French illustrated book for children by Antoine De Saint-Exupery. "You - you alone will have the stars as no one else has them ... In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night ... You - only you - will have stars that can laugh."
They may be beautiful, rich and famous, but celebrities are human too, and that means they're just as prone to getting sick as the rest of us. And just like us, some celebs even live with chronic conditions that can take a toll on their day-to-day lives. But eczema – also referred to as dermatitis – is a common dry skin condition. Symptoms include dry, itchy, red and scaly skin. In more extreme cases, the skin can crust and bleed. According to the National Eczema Association, 1 in 10 individuals will develop eczema in their lifetime. And given these statistics, it’s hardly a surprise there are a few celebrities out there who have eczema too.
The Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, 37, suffered from eczema in her teens. Kate was bullied heavily whilst attending Downe House girls’ boarding school, according to the Duchess’s friend Jessica Hay. According Hay, Middleton’s bullies made fun of her eczema. ‘It didn’t help that she was so tall and self-conscious about her eczema,’ Hay told CelebNow. Studies have shown children with moderate and extreme atopic dermatitis are more likely to suffer from conditions like anxiety and low self-esteem, which has a knock-on effect on their school work and ability to make friends.
Although Brad Pitt, 55, has not spoken about the issue himself, his co-star Cate Blanchett disclosed that Pitt was suffering from eczema during filming of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. In an interview with Scotland’s Daily Record, the actress said, ‘We went through three weeks of make-up tests and he was covered in eczema from it all.’ Blanchett sweetly loaned Pitt her skin cream to deal with the dermatitis, that had developed due to the use of prosthetic makeup worn during filming. Prosthetic make-up isn’t the hugest concern for us non-Hollywood folk, nevertheless, what is a concern, is how makeup can trigger eczema flair up. Unless makeup brushes are constantly washed (let’s be real, they’re not), they become a breeding ground for bacteria. This can lead to clogged pores and irritated sensitive skin.
Adele, 31, stated that her eczema flared up when she became a new mom. During a press conference in 2013 after her Golden Globe win for Best Original Song for the Bond film Sykfall, the singer said: ‘I am exhausted. That’s how [motherhood] changed me. I have eczema from boiling bottles.’ Research carried out by the BMJ (formerly known as the British Medical Journal) has revealed that contact dermatitis has the potential to have ‘detrimental’ impact and in the worst case scenarios can even threaten some sufferers ability to work.