The musician suicide crisis is real.
A March 2025 report by Dr. George Musgrave and Dr. Dorian Lamis at Frontiers in Public Health shows that musicians are among the most at-risk of all professional workers.
Per their article: “Occupational mortality data from the Office for National Statistics in England (2011-2015) demonstrates that ‘musicians, actors, and entertainers’ rank among the five occupational groups with highest suicide mortality. . .” This trend is not confined to England: “. . . comparable patterns emerge in (the) United States,” and “This phenomenon also extends beyond Anglo-American contexts.”
The numbers are troubling for all musicians, but they indicate an even greater risk for women in music. Female musicians “recorded the highest suicide mortality rate across all occupational groups in 2012, 2015, and 2021.”
The inherent dangers in this profession have long been shrouded in fatalistic mystique, romanticizing self-destruction and early graves, with too much cliched narrative about the necessity of suffering and excess to be a legitimate star. These widely-accepted beliefs and perceptions allow the real risks for musicians to remain unaddressed, dismissed, and trivialized.
Despair knows no boundaries. The kinds of problems may vary across different ways of life, but misery and mental illness are not exclusive to any social group. No status is immune.
What’s the solution?
Musgrave and Lamis discuss a “Support plan for musicians” with emphasis on prevention through training, intervention, de-stigmatization, engagement, transitions, and data analysis at various levels of the music industry.
Support Life And Music is also implementing programs of support, education, inspiration, and connection to fight back against this scourge in the musical and art worlds. Contact us to ask how you can aid us in our mission to save and improve lives. Your volunteer time and tax-deductible donations do make a difference.
Here’s The Guardian’s coverage of Dr. Musgrave and Dr. Lamis’s findings:
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