Modified On July 25, 2007
Here are multiple listings on the “Dave Chappelle checks into hospital for exhaustion” story.
And a short piece on Slate by Christopher Beam on whether or not exhaustion is a legitimate medical problem.
There are plenty of legitimate reasons to hospitalize someone for exhaustion. For one thing, exhaustion can be a symptom of an underlying condition. Metabolic ailments like adrenal insufficiency, which develops after periods of extended physical or emotional stress, or hypothyroidism, a chronic slowing of the thyroid glands, can leave you feeling wiped.
We’ve always wondered about it ourselves. We’ve heard the tales of stars onstage collapsing from exhaustion. We thought it would be cool to be in an audience at a historical exhaustion episode. Country and western stars always seem to be running themselves ragged an flopping into the first row. We recall being sorely disappointed when we attended a show at the Grand Ole Opry a few years back and nobody took the dive. (We came close, though– Skeeter Davis was celebrating her birthday just a little too much and she was markedly lurching as she performed “End Of The World.” Oh, wouldn’t that have been ironic!)