List of people with schizophrenia

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

This is a list of people, living or dead, accompanied by verifiable source citations associating them with schizophrenia, either based on their own public statements, or (in the case of dead people only) reported contemporary or posthumous diagnoses of schizophrenia. Remember that schizophrenia is an illness that varies with severity.

Regarding posthumous diagnoses: only a few famous people are believed to have been affected by schizophrenia. Most of these listed have been diagnosed based on evidence in their own writings and contemporaneous accounts by those who knew them. Also, persons prior to the 20th century may have incomplete or speculative diagnoses of schizophrenia.

A

• Edward Charles Allaway – American murderer; committed California State University, Fullerton massacre in 1976
• Jeffrey Arenburg – Canadian shooter of hockey player Brian Smith
• Antonin Artaud – French dramatist, poet, essayist, actor, and theatre director, creator of Theatre of Cruelty
• Haroon Rashid Aswat – British follower of extremist Islamic cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri; pleaded guilty in U.S. court to providing material support to al-Qaeda
• Nathaniel Ayers – American musician

B

• Syd Barrett – British musician, founding member of Pink Floyd
• Konstantin Batyushkov – Russian poet of the 19th century
• Herb Baumeister – American alleged serial killer
• Estelle Bennett – American musician, member of The Ronettes
• Arthur Bispo do Rosário – Brazilian outsider artist (1909–1989)
• Kat Bjelland – American musician, member of Babes in Toyland (schizoaffective disorder)
• Nick Blinko – British painter and punk musician: singer, lyricist and guitarist of Rudimentary Peni (schizoaffective disorder)
• Buddy Bolden – American pioneering jazz musician
• Clara Bow – American Hollywood flapper actress and "It Girl" of the 1920s
• Richard Brautigan – American novelist, poet, and short story writer
• Jean "Binta" Breeze (1956–2021), Jamaican dub poet, theatre director, and performer

C

• Aaron Carter - American singer
• Bryan Charnley – British artist
• Camille Claudel – French sculptor of the 19th century
• Aloïse Corbaz – Swiss painter
• Cesare Cremonini – Italian singer-songwriter, member of Lùnapop
• Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka – Hungarian painter

D

• Terry A. Davis – American computer programmer and vlogger

E

• John du Pont – American millionaire and wrestling coach who murdered wrestler Dave Schultz
• Eduard Einstein – Son of Physicist Albert Einstein
• Will Elliott – Australian writer
• Roky Erickson – American rock musician, founder of The 13th Floor Elevators

F

• Frances Farmer – American Hollywood actress, varyingly diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar psychosis, split personality and depression
• Pavel Fedotov – Russian painter of the 19th century
• Wild Man Fischer – American musician, diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and bipolar disorder
• Zelda Fitzgerald – American wife of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald; writer, dancer and artist
• Janet Frame – New Zealand author

G

• Ed Gein – American killer and body snatcher
• Eugène Gabritschevsky – Russian painter and microbiologist
• Ted Gärdestad – Swedish musician (was in Eurovision 1979)
• Jim Gordon – American drummer, member of Derek and the Dominos; killed his mother
• Paul Gösch – German artist and architect

H

• Hamad al-Hajji – Saudi Arabian poet
• Darrell Hammond – American comedian, actor on Saturday Night Live
• Tom Harrell – American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist, composer, and arranger
• Donny Hathaway – American soul singer and songwriter
• Michael Hawkins – American actor; diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder
• Luke Helder – The Midwest Pipe Bomber – schizoaffective disorder
• David Helfgott – Australian concert pianist (schizoaffective disorder)
• John Hinckley Jr. – American failed assassin of Ronald Reagan
• Sigrid Hjertén – Swedish painter
• H.R. – American musician, singer of Bad Brains
• Adèle Hugo – Daughter of French writer Victor Hugo; her story is told in the film The Story of Adele H.

J

• Daniel Johnston – American artist and musician

K

• Uuno Kailas – Finnish poet
• Marij Kogoj – Slovenian composer
• Ronald Kray – English gangster prominent during the 1950s and 1960s
• Kawashima Yoshiko – A Japanese Spy and Kwantung Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

L

• Veronica Lake – American Hollywood actress of the 1940s
• Sasha Lane – American actress (schizoaffective disorder)
• Michael Laudor – American Yale Law School graduate, subject of a planned Ron Howard movie; later killed his fiancée
• Jakob Lenz – German writer of the Sturm und Drang movement of the 18th century
• Juhan Liiv - Estonian poet
• Jake Lloyd – retired American actor who played Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace
• Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler – German avantgarde-painter
• Jared Lee Loughner – perpetrator of the 2011 Tucson shooting

M

• Agnes Martin – Canadian American abstract painter
• Charles Manson – American criminal, cult leader and folk rock musician
• Rufus May – British clinical psychologist
• Charles Meryon – French artist
• William Chester Minor – American killer and a contributor to Oxford English dictionary
• Audrey Munson – American artist's model and film actress, "America's First Supermodel"

N

• John Nash – American economist, mathematician and Nobel Prize winner in Economic Sciences
• August Natterer – German painter
• Émile Nelligan – French Canadian poet
• Vaslav Nijinsky – Russian ballet dancer, choreographer

O

• Michael O'Hare – American actor, suffered from paranoid delusions and hallucinations
• John Ogdon – English pianist and composer
• Ol' Dirty Bastard – American rapper, one of the founding members of the Wu-Tang Clan
• Jeremy Oxley – Australian musician and member of the Sunnyboys

P

• Bettie Page – American pin-up model
• Robert M. Pirsig – American writer and philosopher
• Bud Powell – American jazz pianist

R

• Darren Rainey – American prisoner who died at Dade Correctional Institution after being left in a steaming hot shower for two hours by prison guards
• Joey Ramone – lead vocalist of American band Ramones
• Katherine Routledge – British archaeologist

S

• Elyn Saks – American law professor and schizophrenia writer/researcher
• Daniel Paul Schreber – German judge, writer, and notable patient of Freud
• Ingo Schwichtenberg – German drummer of power metal band Helloween
• Vashishtha Narayan Singh – Indian academic
• Valerie Solanas – American radical feminist who attempted to murder artist Andy Warhol
• Nancy Spungen – American Punk icon and girlfriend of Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious

T

• Talal – King of Jordan (for a year)
• Kelly Thomas – American citizen who was beaten to death by police, who went unpunished for taking his life.
• Gene Tierney – American actress

V

• Lauri Viita – Finnish poet and author
• Mark Vonnegut – American memoirist, pediatrician, son of author Kurt Vonnegut

W

• Louis Wain – British artist
• Robert Walser – Swiss author, diagnosed with a catatonic schizophrenia
• Aby Warburg – German art historian and cultural theorist, diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder
• Butch Warren – American jazz double bassist
• Hannah Weiner – American 'clairvoyant' poet
• Karl Maria Wiligut – Austrian SS-general and an occultist
• Wesley Willis – American musician and artist
• Stefan Wilmont - Polish criminal who assassinated the mayor of Gdańsk in 2019
• Brian Wilson – American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer who co-founded the Beach Boys (schizoaffective disorder)
• Adolf Wölfli – Swiss painter

Z

• Unica Zürn – German artist

See also

• List of people with bipolar disorder
• List of people with post-traumatic stress disorder