I’ve seen people talk about actors and artists that had a terrible time.
My own would be Anne Rice. She wrote Interview with the Vampire after her young daughter died of Leukemia. Then her husband suddenly died of a brain hemorrhage. I suspect her Christian, anti-fanfic phase was a result of mental illness and manipulation from the publishers, although I don’t think she ever apologized.
Dostoevsky. I’m convinced that the whole ‘fake execution’ thing he went through in the Katorga broke his mind, a la ‘Room 101’ in Nineteen Eighty-Four. That’s why he went from a somewhat progressive writer before that point to the slavering theocratic imperialist he was after—confronted with his greatest fear, he learned to love Tsar Daddy.
I have read Dostoevsky and loved him. Am I not supposed to if he was a “slavering theocratic imperialist” after that experience?