Trips to the hospital are not often pleasant but more than often necessary – a fact that is just as true for everyone as eating three meals a day. The lives of the rich and famous can seem utterly distinct from our own in so many ways, but the glitz and glamour of life in the public eye masks the same base needs and the same core experiences.
Just as celebrities receive routine care and treatment in the same way we do, they can also suffer from mistakes made in treatment. Medical negligence is a serious matter, with over 12,000 cases reported to the NHS in 2020-21 alone; negligence can appear in a number of forms, from the simple misdiagnosis of a condition to debilitating mistakes made in surgery or aftercare.
Those that suffer negligence may be able to receive compensation after consultation with medical negligence claim solicitors – small comfort for a painful and otherwise preventable event. But it may be comforting to know that even celebrities follow the same process for the same wrongs. Here are four celebrities’ medical negligence stories, many of which ended in a negligence settlement.
Kylie Minogue
Kylie Minogue is nothing short of pop royalty, having won the world over with an illustrious career in music following her humble beginnings on the Australian soap opera Neighbours. But in 2005, Kylie had a cancer scare. After an initial screening returned a negative result, Kylie set off on a world tour – but a second screening discovered cancer and stopped her tour in its tracks. Kylie has since spoken out about her experience, stating that if you feel there is something wrong with you, you should always go back for a second opinion.
Dana Carvey
Dana Carvey is perhaps best known around the world for his character Garth in Mike Myers’ ‘Waynes World’ films, but his career in the US was much larger thanks to his star turns on Waynes Worlds’ birthplace Saturday Night Live. Carvey’s career was cut brutally short in the late 1990s, though, by a routine heart bypass operation gone wrong. It would take four different procedures to discover that the initial surgery had been performed on the wrong artery – leading to a multi-million dollar malpractice lawsuit which Carvey eventually won.
Freddie Prinze
Comedian Freddie Prinze is little-known outside of the US and perhaps best recognized as the late father of A-list actor and comedian Freddie Prinze Jr – but Prinze Sr. was a firebrand comedian who won fame and fortune at an early age before losing his life to an alleged suicide in his early 20s. The suicide, or accidental death, was ruled a result of medical negligence owing to the failure of Prinze’s psychiatrist to properly treat Prinze’s mental conditions, brought on by substance abuse and ill adjustment to fame.
