At the tender age of seven-years-old, Adrian Peterson watched his older brother die at the hands of a drunk driver. This particular incident led Peterson into his obsession with sports guiding him to become a five-star recruit that would commit to playing his collegiate ball with the University of Oklahoma Sooners. During his freshman year in 2004, Peterson set an NCAA record for rushing yards by a true freshman with a total of 1,925 yards. Throughout his three-season college career, Peterson would go on to finish third in all-time Sooner rushing yards with 4,041.
His stellar performance in college led him to be the 7th overall pick in the 2007 NFL Draft by the Minnesota Vikings where he had an instant impact setting an NFL record for most rushing yards in a single game with 296 yards. His most prominent years, Peterson spent in Minnesota earning a total salary of $94.2 million dollars before being suspended for accusations of negligent injury to a child in 2014. Since then, Peterson has become a journeyman around the league playing for teams like the New Orleans Saints, the Arizona Cardinals, and now the Washington Redskins. While he's signed multi-million dollar deals with two out of the three of those franchises and accumulated over $101 million in his NFL career, Peterson claims that he is broke.
They may be beautiful, rich and famous, but celebrities are human too, and that means they're just as prone to getting sick as the rest of us. And just like us, some celebs even live with chronic conditions that can take a toll on their day-to-day lives. But eczema – also referred to as dermatitis – is a common dry skin condition. Symptoms include dry, itchy, red and scaly skin. In more extreme cases, the skin can crust and bleed. According to the National Eczema Association, 1 in 10 individuals will develop eczema in their lifetime. And given these statistics, it’s hardly a surprise there are a few celebrities out there who have eczema too.
The Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, 37, suffered from eczema in her teens. Kate was bullied heavily whilst attending Downe House girls’ boarding school, according to the Duchess’s friend Jessica Hay. According Hay, Middleton’s bullies made fun of her eczema. ‘It didn’t help that she was so tall and self-conscious about her eczema,’ Hay told CelebNow. Studies have shown children with moderate and extreme atopic dermatitis are more likely to suffer from conditions like anxiety and low self-esteem, which has a knock-on effect on their school work and ability to make friends.
Although Brad Pitt, 55, has not spoken about the issue himself, his co-star Cate Blanchett disclosed that Pitt was suffering from eczema during filming of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. In an interview with Scotland’s Daily Record, the actress said, ‘We went through three weeks of make-up tests and he was covered in eczema from it all.’ Blanchett sweetly loaned Pitt her skin cream to deal with the dermatitis, that had developed due to the use of prosthetic makeup worn during filming. Prosthetic make-up isn’t the hugest concern for us non-Hollywood folk, nevertheless, what is a concern, is how makeup can trigger eczema flair up. Unless makeup brushes are constantly washed (let’s be real, they’re not), they become a breeding ground for bacteria. This can lead to clogged pores and irritated sensitive skin.
Adele, 31, stated that her eczema flared up when she became a new mom. During a press conference in 2013 after her Golden Globe win for Best Original Song for the Bond film Sykfall, the singer said: ‘I am exhausted. That’s how [motherhood] changed me. I have eczema from boiling bottles.’ Research carried out by the BMJ (formerly known as the British Medical Journal) has revealed that contact dermatitis has the potential to have ‘detrimental’ impact and in the worst case scenarios can even threaten some sufferers ability to work.