Main content

9 celebrities who have struggled with the pressures of social media

Selena Gomez says she doesn't like Instagram

The most-followed woman in the world says she was "addicted" to social media.

Social media can be a minefield for all of us, but with millions of followers commenting on every tweet or Instagram post, some celebs have it worse than most.

Selena Gomez is the most followed person on Instagram in the world, but she recently admitted that she doesn't like using it very much.

She says she's deleted the app and she wouldn't be the first. Here's 9 stars who have struggled with the pressures of social media or don't use it at all.

Selena Gomez

has more followers on Instagram than any other human being, dog or food blog. But she says looking at other people's perfectly filtered lives made her feel bad about her own.

"As soon as I became the most followed person on Instagram, I sort of freaked out," she told Vogue magazine in March of this year.

"It had become so consuming to me. It’s what I woke up to and went to sleep to. I was an addict, and it felt like I was seeing things I didn’t want to see, like it was putting things in my head that I didn’t want to care about. I always end up feeling like s*** when I look at Instagram. Which is why I’m kind of under the radar, ghosting it a bit."

Most recently, SelGo revealed to Business of Fashion that she worries about how disconnected we're all becoming...

“I see a disconnect from real life connections to people, and that makes me a little worried. I do think social media is an amazing way to stay connected, to learn more things about what’s going on outside your little bubble, but sometimes I think it’s too much information.”

Normani Kordei

Normani quit Twitter in August 2016 after racist cyber bullying from 5H fans about her relationship with former bandmate, Camilla Cabello.

"I've been racially cyberbullied with tweets and pictures so horrific and racially charged that I can't subject myself any longer to the hate," she wrote on Twitter.

"I'm not the first black female celebrity to deal with this and i'm sure I won't be the last."

"Hiding behind a computer and putting people down, especially for the colour of their skin doesn't make you cool, it makes you a coward."

Kristen Stewart

Kristen Stewart uses Instagram - but it's unlikely you'll ever find her on there, because she keeps it secret from anyone apart from her friends.

What would I tweet about?
Kristen Stewart

"I have a private Instagram so I can keep in touch with my friends because I'm always away," she told USA Today in 2014. "That's not social media. We have a shared photo stream."

And Twitter? No chance.

"What would I tweet about? Who to? What are you saying?" She said.

"Imagine sitting here right now and thinking, 'That's a good thing to say to the world?' I can't even understand it."

Daniel Radcliffe

Daniel likes to keep his private life exactly that, which is why you won't find him using any social network. Not one.

"I don't have Twitter and I don't have Facebook and I think that makes things a lot easier," he told Sky News in 2013.

"If you go on Twitter and tell everybody what you're doing moment to moment and then claim you want a private life, then no one is going to take that request seriously."

Very interesting. That would make a good tweet actually...

Justin Bieber

Justin Bieber

quit Instagram in 2016 when fans were bullying his then-girlfriend Sofia Ritchie while they were dating.

"I'm gonna make my Instagram private if you guys don't stop the hate this is getting out of hand," he wrote on Instagram.

"If you guys are really fans you wouldn't be so mean to people that I like."

They didn't ease up and he quit in August last year, but returned in February 2017.

Ed Sheeran

It's hard to imagine a world without in it right now, but Ed quit social media in 2015 when he found himself spending too much time on his phone and not enough enjoying real life.

"I find myself seeing the world through a screen and not my eyes so I'm taking this opportunity of me not having to be anywhere or do anything to travel the world and see everything I missed," he wrote on Instagram before taking a year-long break from social media.

Since then, though, the Shape Of You singer has officially ditched Twitter. While his account is still active, Ed's bio reads: 'I don't use this anymore, please follow me on teddysphotos on instagram, lots of love x'.

After giving an interview to Q Magazine in which he mentioned Lady Gaga, Ed was at the receiving end of some very unhappy Little Monsters. Despite the comments being clarified by Mother Monster herself, Sheeran still decided to step away from social media.

"One comment ruins your day. But that’s why I’ve come off it," he told The Sun. "The head-f*** for me has been trying to work out why people dislike me so much."

Lena Dunham

Girls star Lena Dunham has a complicated relationship with social media. She has faced serious abuse online but continues to be active on both Twitter and Instagram.

A photo she posted attracted negative comments on both Twitter and Instagram and she spoke about the abuse in 2015 during a Re Code / Decode Podcast.

"It turned into the most rabid, disgusting debate about women's bodies, and my Instagram page was somehow the hub for misogynists for the afternoon," she said.

"I really appreciate anybody follows me at all, so I didn't want to cut off my relationship [to Twitter] completely, but it really wasn't a safe space for me."

Daisy Ridley

Daisy quit Instagram in August 2016 after facing abuse for posting a photo of her face with a message about gun violence.

It鈥檚 actually been kind of nice not to be on it
Daisy Ridley

She later said that she had struggled with the pressures of her growing fame and being active on social media.

"I was like ‘I need to post. Oh my God, it’s been this many days’," she said at the Student Academy Awards in LA in September 2016.

"It’s actually been kind of nice not to be on it."

"I’m 24. I have a lot of growing up to do. I have to deal with loads of stuff myself personally. For that to be projected with millions of people watching, that is like a bit of an extra pressure."

Jake Gyllenhaal

Do you follow Jake Gyllenhaal on Instagram? Of course you don't, he doesn't use it and is worried about people who do.

"To me, this is a product of us all having smartphones and being consumed by that," he told USA Today in 2014.

"We're looking down. No one is looking up."