As JK Rowling will vouch, there can be a downside to fame and fortune.
Rowling has revealed how she needed therapy to help cope during difficult times in her life – first when she was a struggling single mother living on benefits and writing the first Harry Potter book, and again when she first became successful and found fame overwhelming,
“I had to do it again when my life was changing so suddenly - and it really helped,” she has told The Telegraph. “I’m a big fan of it, it helped me a lot.
“For a few years I did feel I was on a psychic treadmill, trying to keep up with where I was. Everything changed so rapidly, so strangely. I knew no one who’d ever been in the public eye. I didn’t know anyone - anyone - to whom I could turn and say, “what do you do?”, so it was incredibly disorienting.”
As JK is about to release her first book for adults, she has also revealed that her vast fortune – she’s reported to be worth £560 million but has given at least £100 million to good causes – caused it’s own problems too.
“You don’t expect the pressure of it. I felt I had to solve everyone’s problems. I was hit by this tsunami of demands. I felt overwhelmed.”
With her new book The Casual Vacancy set to become an instant bestseller we can see JK having a few more ‘requests’ coming in.