Real Housewives Suicide: The high price of Reality TV fame

Armstrong, Taylor's husband from the "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" committed suicide. His body was found Monday evening.

My heart goes out to his family at this time. RHOBH is one of my favorite, guilty pleasures. I watched it every Thursday.
Critics say reality-tv is far from real because it's all staged. And maybe they are right. But I still enjoy certain "reality" programs, especially any show on Bravo TV.
Russell appeared to look uncomfortable in the first season. He was a man of few words. At times, he asked his wife if they could leave social gatherings early.
Taylor is a part of the cast - but her whole family is a part of the show, for better or worse.
On a positive note, these housewives get a platform to be entrepreneurs, walk the red carpet, and flaunt their fabulous lifestyle. Now people know who they are. They are a part of a cultural phenomena.
But the downside of new-found fame is lack of privacy. The Housewives franchise has not been immune from death, divorce, and bankruptcy. The characters we love/hate often face these circumstances in front of the cameras.

I read in a USAToday article, Russell, the deceased had financial problems and his estranged spouse just filed for divorce last month. I'm pretty sure being thrust into the limelight did not help the situation.

My heart goes out to the Armstrong family in this tragic time.
I'm curious to know from you Advocate readers. Would you do a reality-tv show if you had the chance?

Taylor Armstrong Eyewitness When Husband's Body Was Discovered

"Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" star Taylor Armstrong was at her estranged husband's house when his body was discovered, TMZ has learned.

Sources close to Taylor tell us, she and Russell had been regularly communicating and were supposed to meet on Monday afternoon, but he was a no show.  She became worried and began calling his friends, but none of them had heard from him. 

Taylor became increasingly alarmed and began frantically texting and phoning Russell, to no avail.

On Monday evening, Taylor and a friend went to the home where Russell was staying.  They found the owner of the home on the property.   While Taylor watched, the owner peered through Russell's bedroom window and saw his lifeless body hanging.

As TMZ first reported, the owner called 911 and Russell was declared dead at 8:16 PM.  Taylor believes Russell had been dead for hours.

We're told Taylor stayed at the house for hours after the body was found.

'Real Housewives' suicide could be linked to divorce

Fans of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” are still absorbing the news that Russel Armstrong, the estranged husband of “housewife” Taylor Armstrong, hanged himself Monday night in an apparent suicide. The 47-year-old Armstrong had moved out of the couple's home several months ago after it became clear that the six-year marriage could not be saved, and Taylor Armstrong filed for divorce last month.

Authorities are investigating the circumstances of Armstrong's death. His motivations may never become clear. But time and again, researchers have found a link between a change in marital status and the risk of suicide.

For starters, an analysis of suicide rates in 18 industrialized countries (including the United States) between 1983 and 2007 found that an increase in divorce rates was correlated with an increase in suicides. In fact, the divorce rate appeared to have a bigger impact on suicides than the unemployment rate or the overall state of the economy. “The fact that increasing divorce rates are linked with increasing suicides in men as well as in women can be interpreted as showing that stable social relationships provide protection against suicide,” Austrian researchers reported in March in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

In addition, a study out this year in the journal Crisis found that 10.7% of suicide victims had experienced a change in marital status in the previous five years; in comparison, only 5.6% of people in a control group had changed their marital status. The study, by researchers at the Institute of Public Health of the Republic of Slovenia, included data on more than 1,600 suicides in that country. (The researchers found that in addition to getting divorced, getting married and being widowed also increased the risk of suicide.)

In Taiwan, researchers found that suicide rates rose in conjunction with the popularity of Google searches using the keyword “divorce.” Other search terms linked with the divorce rate included “major depression” and “complete guide of suicide,” according to a July report in the Journal of Affective Disorders.

Perhaps the link has something to do with shame. That theory was proposed by researchers writing in April in the journal Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior (“the official journal of the American Assn. of Suicidology”). Using data from Australia, they reported that men who were separated scored significantly higher on measures of “internalized shame” than men who were either single or married. Furthermore, men who were separated had a significantly higher “suicidality score” than women who were separated. In men, shame leads to anger, and that anger may turn inward and cause suicidal behavior, the researchers said.

Russel Armstrong did not leave a note, according to Los Angeles County Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter. That may be unusual under the circumstances. In a 2011 study of more than 1,000 suicides in Australia, researchers from the University of Tasmania found that although only 33% of victims left a note, people going through divorces and other kinds of “interpersonal conflicts” were more likely to leave a note behind.

Finally, the members of a divorcing couple aren’t the only ones who suffer. A large Canadian study published in May in the journal Psychiatry Research found that men who were children when their parents got divorced were more than twice as likely to think about killing themselves as men whose parents stayed together. (For women, there was no link between parental divorce during childhood and suicidal ideation.)