There’s been some speculation that one of Hogwarts’ finest is leaving school due to bullying.

And not Hogwarts, mind you, but Rhode Island’s Brown University.

21-year-old Emma Watson, who has played Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter movie series since the release of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in 2001, has attended Brown University for the past two years (Granger would be so proud). However, when the starlet’s spokeswoman announced she wouldn’t be spending her third year at Brown, rumors began flying that Watson had chose to leave because her classmates were bullying her.

Most notably, they would chant “Ten points for Gryffindor!” when Watson correctly answered a question in class.

(Really?)

Still, the bullying – as well as the Gryffindor comments – apparently never happened.

Friday before last, I suggested you all check out NAMI’s interview piece with Jodi Foster. NAMI got a sneak peek at The Beaver, Foster’s new film with Mel Gibson about a man – and his family – struggling with depression, and Katrina Gay, NAMI’s Communications Director, talked with Foster about the film.

At that time, I didn’t have any information about a release date for The Beaver, but it seems the film premiered at the South by Southwest (SXSW) film festival in Austin, Texas last Wednesday, March 16, 2011.

Oddly enough, that’s the same day Foster’s co-star, Mel Gibson, reported to the El Segundo Police Department and was booked, fingerprinted, mug-shotted, and released as part of a plea deal that:

[...] resulted in him being on probation for three years and attending a year of domestic violence counseling. (Yahoo! News / Associated Press)

Apparently, this isn’t new trouble for Gibson: It stems from a 2010 misdemeanor battery charge that alleges Gibson struck Oksana Grigorieva, his girlfriend at the time and mother of the daughter over whom the two are currently engaged in a custody battle.

Still, it’s…interesting press given its timing with The Beaver‘s premiere, nonetheless. I wonder what impact, if any, it will have on the film’s success.

(Special thanks to Chato B. Stewart, author of Psych Central’s Mental Health Humor, for the story heads up!)

Image Source: Released by the El Segundo Police Department

Let’s get this out of the way upfront: This is not a post about Charlie Sheen.

Okay, maybe it is – in a way.

But more than a post about Charlie Sheen, it’s a post about Americans. Or, maybe, the human race as a whole (as I’m not sure how far the aftershocks of this Sheen Quake are being felt.)

And more than a post, it’s a question:

Just what exactly is Charlie Sheen winning at?

Life? Popularity? Who can gain the most Twitter followers the fastest? (Sheen, by the way, he holds the record for reaching 1 million followers faster than any other Twitter user – a feat that prompted Ad.ly to sign a deal with him.)

Certainly not who can get the most blonde live-in girlfriends. I mean, Heff kind of won that a long time ago.

So what’s the deal?

Just a few more days, folks, and 2010 will be officially behind us.

Many people relish this time because, to them, the start of a new year represents a new beginning. Another chance to do what they didn’t get around to doing the previous year, or accomplish goals they put off or didn’t quite reach the year before.

Before we break out the champagne and confetti, though, we should pause and look back at all the good that was accomplished in 2010.

For the purposes of this blog, specifically, all the mental health “good” we saw from celebrities.

After the jump, vote for your favorite celebrity mental health moment of 2010!

Despite acting as the muse for such earwormy little ditties like Jimmy Fallon’s “The Ballad of Steven Slater” and being invited to the Emmy Awards, this summer’s biggest celebrity who’s not a celebrity, Steven Slater, still had his day in court this past Tuesday.

Sort of.

The former Jet Blue (and by former, I mean, he was still employed with the company up until last week?!) employee appeared on charges of trespassing, reckless endangerment, and criminal mischief, but ultimately the case was adjourned until next month, giving Slater enough time to be evaluated for participation in an alternative sentencing program that would address mental health issues such as anger management and alcohol abuse.

Get it? Because he grabbed two beers and jumped.

Sorry – couldn’t resist.

Back in July, when Lady Gaga had a mere 10 million Facebook fans (she now has more than 16 million – it’s been barely more than a month!), Psychology Today‘s Robbie Woliver wrote an article, Lady Gaga and Her 10 Million Facebook Friends: Celebrity Warship Syndrome, which is mostly about Celebrity Worship Syndrome but also somewhat about how Gaga’s millions of Facebook fans could be…well, not exactly indicative of the syndrome, but perhaps something worth raising an eyebrow over in the grand scheme of things.

Woliver’s article is a quick, interesting read. For example, I found out that it was James Chapman who actually coined the phrase Celebrity Worship Syndrome in his Daily Mail article Do You Worship the Celebs? (the article also links to Do You Have Celebrity Worship Syndrome?, a page that lists several characteristics that could point to low-level, moderate, or severe Celebrity Worship Syndrome).

However, I’m hesitant to draw similarities between how many fans a celebrity has on Facebook and the level of potential Celebrity Worship Syndrome going on.

This is a couple of weeks old, and I can’t believe I just now read about it, but I’d be such a bad blogger if I didn’t pass it along for those of you who might’ve missed it, too.

It seems that back during the tail-end of the NBA finals (ahh, that’s why I missed this), Ron Artest of the Los Angeles Lakers had someone interesting (unusual? surprising? I’m not sure what the right word is to use here) to thank after the Lakers won the 2010 NBA Championship: his psychiatrist.

SBNation.com shares a video of the interview during which Artest thanks “everybody in my hood” including his psychiatrist, who “really helped [him] relax a lot.”

Is it just me, or did his face really light up when he talked about her?

It’s one thing for a celebrity to advocate for mental health awareness and education; it’s quite another for a celebrity to advocate for the use, or nonuse, of certain mental health treatments, which is what some folks in the mental health world feel actor John Travolta did when he told CNN that his way of thinking about psychiatry and psychiatric medicines lines up with the stances taken by Tom Cruise and Travolta’s religion, Scientology.

In other words, psychiatry and medicine are no good.

Folks involved in the mental health world might be quick to lash out at Travolta for having this opinion. Fighting the Darkness, a PsychCentral.com member blog, points out that these celebrities are speaking out about “treating an illness they have never experienced and have no real education about.”

This is a slippery turf, though, I think.

During some very rare downtime this morning, I was able to relax with a cup of joe and catch a few minutes of The Today Show. The segment was about Simon Monjack, Brittany Murphy’s widower who was found dead Sunday night by the same lady who found Murphy dead just five month’s ago: Brittany’s mother, Sharon Murphy.

More than that he died, the segment was about how he died, which, of course, none of us know yet. Lots of folks are attributing his death to the serious heart condition he kept ignoring (his publicist, Roger Neal, claims Monjack needed bypass surgery but kept putting it off), but naturally there’s also been talk of accidental overdose (supposedly prescription medications were found at the scene), suicide, and even a broken heart.

Despite those last two suggestions, I’ve refrained from blogging about it here until authorities release more official and conclusive reports.

The reason I’m blogging about it now is a comment Neal made during the segment.

Daily Mail writer John Naish asked, Is celebrity soul-bearing spreading depression? yesterday, and upon diving into the article, I expected to gain some more insight about the effects celebrity candidness about mental illness is having on the public’s perception — and opinion — of mental illness (think “‘I want to be bipolar’ … a new phenomenon”, the research Dr. Diana Chan and Dr. Lester Sireling published in the most recent issue of The Psychiatrist).

Overall I did: Naish references the research, talks about specific celebrity cases, quotes other doctors, and even hands the podium over to a man who’s dealt with bipolar disorder for years and who finds it “horrendous” that people who don’t have bipolar disorder would aspire to have it.

Articles like Naish’s are working to educate the public about this possible trend of “I’m diagnosing myself with [whatever mental illness] because [whatever celebrity] has it and clearly it’s [cool/respected/beneficial] to have it,” which is great; however, in trying to help some, I think they might be isolating others — others who might actually have an undiagnosed problem, but end up thinking it’s all in their heads because their symptoms aren’t being addressed in the discussion.

For example, during its mission to draw a line between mood swings and actual bipolar disorder, Naish’s article doesn’t really mention the different kinds of bipolar disorder. Naish highlights extreme highs and lows, but leaves it at that.

In reality, there are different levels — different types, rather — of bipolar disorder.