Celebrities play a multitude of roles in their lifetimes. They entertain, anger, and excite us with the roles they portray, but they too are human. They suffer just like the lot of us. They get sick, undergo treatments, and suffer illness -- just like any Jean, Paula, and Mary. Even with their financial ability to hire the best doctors, celebrities still struggle to find cures and treatments. But their path to wellness is fraught with unwanted attention and their public battle with illnesses can often be a futile exercise at preserving privacy.

Public figures going to hospitals and treatment centers pose a more serious problem. With paparazzi and the media constantly hounding them, their battles become fair game. While some view this public display as disheartening, others see it as a silver lining. An experience that should have been private is presented as a free-for-all show -- which can also be a free education for others. Celebrity status magnifies an illness, take Angelina Jolie for example. Her premature double mastectomy opened the door for women to be more aware of how to battle breast cancer before it even starts. And since her operations garnered so much air and print time, a lot of breast cancer doctors are now closely monitoring their patients and giving them more options.

Just like Jolie, there are many more celebrity mothers that have been diagnosed with different types of illnesses ranging from multiple sclerosis to severe depression. Their fights have been much publicized -- some have fought and lost, while others are still fighting. Here are fifteen celebrity mothers who were/are seriously ill.

15  Veep’s Julia Louis-Dreyfus

Julia Louis-Dreyfus is the latest in a long line of celebrity moms to be diagnosed with a serious illness. On the 29th of September, she announced her battle with breast cancer through an incredibly candid Instagram (IG) post. In this post, she revealed that she is one of the one in eight women who are diagnosed with breast cancer worldwide and that her family and friends are her solaces in this crucial time.

Her most recent IG post was put up after her second chemotherapy session. This post showed her sporting a hoodie with a drawn-on mustache and had everyone laughing. Her Veep co-stars also lent some support with a hilarious parody of Katy Perry’s song, “Roar.” And in true Julia Louis-Dreyfus comedic fashion, she’s fighting the dreaded disease with humor, the love of people around her, and a strong fighting spirit.

14 Girls’ Rita Wilson

Actress, singer, and activist Rita Wilson wears a lot of hats in real life. She is also a businesswoman, wife to famous actor Tom Hanks, and mother to Chet and Truman. In April 2015, Rita was also diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a double mastectomy to clear her of the disease. Two years after her surgery, she candidly revealed that she is cancer-free and wants to keep it that way.

Two years post mastectomy, she shares her ordeal with women around the world making sure they are aware of the before and after effects of surgery. She admits that it was far from an easy ride, but commends her husband Tom for the unconditional love her provided her during the ordeal. Her words of advice for fellow women -- get tested and stress less. Just because you can’t feel a lump doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

13 Bond Girl Halle Berry

Touted as one of Hollywood’s hottest women over age fifty, Halle Berry is also the only black woman ever to win an Academy Award. A mother to two kids, Halle has always espoused an active and healthy lifestyle due in part to living with Type 1 diabetes for over thirty years. She is an active volunteer for the Juvenile Diabetes Charity and is a vocal advocate for those battling with insulin-dependent diabetes.

Tabloid magazines have reported her “shooting up” insulin during film shoots and production meetings. For her, it is a vital part of daily life, but she still has hope that her illness will continue to improve and that her dependence on the daily shots will be lessened over time. With a persistent and accepting personality, she and others get through life, one insulin injection at a time.

12 Songstress Toni Braxton

This famous R&B singer shot to fame in the 1990’s with hit songs, “Breath Again” and “Another Sad Love Song.” With a slew of music awards under her belt, Toni Braxton and her songs have been a staple on the airwaves for over two decades now! Her songs have influenced other famous R&B singers to launch their careers and follow in her footsteps.

In 2008, during a performance at a Las Vegas venue, Toni Braxton passed out and was feared to have suffered a small heart attack. After a few days at the hospital, doctors diagnosed her with the disease Lupus. Lupus is an autoimmune disease that occurs “when the body's immune system attacks its own tissues and organs.” Generally, the immune system begins attacking healthy cells in the heart, lungs, joints, kidneys, and brain. Toni has managed her Lupus with a complete lifestyle change including keeping a healthy diet and taking proper medications.

11 Gwyneth Paltrow

Along with a slew of other A-list celebrities, Gwyneth has opened up about having suffered from Postpartum Depression (PPD) soon after her son, Moses, was born in 2006. According to a study from the Center for Disease Control (CDC), of the four million births every year in the United States, 15% of the mothers will suffer from a combination of PPD, postpartum mood disorders (PPMDs), postpartum anxiety, and postpartum psychosis. A clearer picture would suggest that about 10 to 20% of all new mothers will experience some form of perinatal depression.

She candidly wrote on her website that those times were the most challenging and most debilitating in her life. PPD and most postpartum illnesses are brought about by severe changes in the woman's hormone levels occurring right after childbirth or a miscarriage. She remembers feeling like a zombie and being detached from any emotion.

10 Angelina Jolie 

After the death of her mother, aunt, and grandmother from cancer, Angelina Jolie took a very proactive approach when dealing with the dreaded disease. Her five children are what motivates her to closely monitor her body. In an opinion editorial she wrote recently, she narrated events that lead up to her decision to undergo two major operations. Her first surgery was a double mastectomy in 2013 and the second was to remove her ovaries and fallopian tubes.

After discovering that she carried a genetic mutation that can potentially increase her risk of getting breast cancer in the future, she decided to have both her breasts surgically removed. Two years later, in 2015, Jolie had her ovaries and tubes removed as well to prevent any chances of contracting another form of cancer. She is stress-free for now and will deal with any potential illnesses as they arise. Kickass onscreen and off-screen.

9 Kim Kardashian-West

True to form, Kim Kardashian’s Psoriasis reveal was on an episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians (KUWK) back in 2011. An autoimmune disorder, Psoriasis leaves reddish, white, scaly pelts on a person's extremities, back, and scalp. Being often in the limelight, Kim was concerned about it affecting her career. Since her fame rests on her dusky, good looks, she tackles her illness the same way she does her business -- with the tenacious determination that shot her and her family to stardom. She keeps her psoriatic spots at bay through a whole food diet and cortisone shots.

She hopes for a cure in the future but for the meantime, her make-up artists tone down the redness and flakiness by using a mix concealers and foundations. When doing photo shoots, photographers are informed of her condition and they work their way around her breakouts. By being transparent and forthright about her spots, she takes away the stigma of the disease. And by doing this, she is showing women who also have it that it is not something to be ashamed of.

8 Top Chef’s Padma Lakshmi

In 2009, Padma Lakshmi founded the Endometriosis Foundation of America together with her gynecologist. Her goal was to educate women worldwide about the disease that has caused her so much pain and left her suffering for over twenty years. Endometriosis is what Lakshmi describes as “period death,” when tissue that normally lines the inside of the uterus, is growing outside. Thus causing severe pain during a monthly period. It can also be a cause of infertility if not diagnosed and treated in time.

Lakshmi has made it her life’s mission to passionately support the foundation. Pressing Congress and legislators to address endometriosis as a health issue and not just a personal issue. She believes that if women, young women, in particular, talk about their pain early they can get cured and eventually enjoy pain-free periods and a healthy reproductive system. Again, this is a clear example of a celebrity using her fame, influence, and fortune to promote issues that are important to women and their bodies.

7 The Sopranos’ Jamie-Lynn Sigler

Jamie-Lynn was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) when she was twenty years old and has since lived with it for over fifteen years. MS affects the central nervous system and it causes disruptive signals from the brain to the body. Sigler’s symptoms range from problems with balance, bladder control, extreme fatigue, weakness, stiffness, and some eyesight issues. She has adjusted to living with chronic fatigue and swears by meditation, a healthy diet, and exercise to keep her flare-ups manageable.

Doctors have yet to find the cause of MS, but studies have hinted at environmental factors and a mix of bad genes that contribute to it. Sigler’s advocacy to shed light on the travails of living with the disease continues to this day. By sharing her experience, she hopes that others will come to terms with their conditions and seek the proper help. There are many treatment paths for those with MS, and Sigler is confident that more are being discovered.

6 The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills’ Yolanda Hadid

In 2014, two years after being diagnosed with chronic neurological Lyme disease, Yolanda tried to end her life. While vacationing in Florida with then-husband, singer-composer David Foster, and so distraught with the pain, she plunged herself into the ocean and wanted to end it all. That was her rock bottom. With the help of her three children, she realized that fighting the disease head-on was her only choice.

Today, she’s passionate about finding a cure and is constantly documenting her treatments online through videos and social media. “I do it to help educate others and they too can seek help,” she says. The challenges she experienced convinced her to pen a memoir titled, Believe Me: My Battle with The Invisible Disability of Lyme Disease, which was launched in September. The bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi is the main cause of the disease and is transmitted to people through the bite of infected black-legged ticks.

5 Actress Drew Barrymore

Drew Barrymore grew up before our very eyes. She was the little girl who befriended the alien on the popular movie, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. This, her incredible talent, and a family that is considered Hollywood royalty catapulted her career on the big screen. After a few tumultuous years and relationships, she eventually found her footing, produced a lot of big hit movies and television shows, including Charlie’s Angels and The Santa Clarita Diet, and became a mom of two wonderful children. An actress, singer, producer, model, and mother, Drew wears a lot of hats.

After she gave birth to her second child, Drew experienced Postpartum Depression. In an interview, she commented that after the birth of her first child she did not have any PPD symptoms. It was confusing for her after her second child because all her emotions were heightened. She compared it to a “dark cloud over her that she could not shake off.”

4 Songstress Sheryl Crow

Nominated 32 times, Sheryl Crow has nine Grammy awards under her belt. Added to that, she has released ten albums and sold over 50 million albums worldwide! At a concert in 2012, Crow revealed to her audience that she was suffering from a benign brain tumor called a meningioma. The most common type of brain tumor, meningiomas account for 33% of all diagnosed brain tumors in patients in the US.

Meningiomas often occur in older women and are 90% benign. Some feel no symptoms at all but others go through phases of nausea, blurred vision, numbness in the extremities, and seizures. Crow discovered she had a tumor accidentally. She went in for a routine check-up to figure out why she was having memory lapses and gaps. After a thorough scan and an MRI, doctors discovered she had a tumor in her brain.

3 Goddess Of Pop - Cher

She is one half of the famous duo Sonny and Cher, who shot to fame in 1965 with their folk-rock duets. After selling over 40 million records in 1967, Time magazine touted them as the “it” couple. In the years after, Cher moved on to become a television star and a fashion trendsetter, donning outrageous outfits during her concerts and shows. She went on to perform in successful shows on Broadway and in Las Vegas.

In the early 1990’s she totally stopped all engagements after learning that she had chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) or myalgic encephalomyelitis. She is not alone, as many as 1 million Americans suffer from this illness and much more are showing the initial symptoms of it. While there isn’t any medically-approved cure for CFS, specialists suggest a dietary shift to a diet with less saturated fats. This includes fatty foods, palm oil, chicken skin, sugars, and sugar syrups.

2 Nashville’s Hayden Panettiere

In an interview with Good Morning America in January of this year, Hayden opened up about her battle with Postpartum Depression a second time. Soon after she gave birth to her son in 2014, she noticed a change in her mood. Confessing that, “I wasn’t feeling like myself,” she hurriedly sought treatment. Early this year after the debut of the fifth season of her series, Nashville, she sought further treatment for ongoing PPD.

Following a holistic approach this time which includes doses of fish oil, glutathione, and a slew of other holistic-approved supplements. Panettiere dished out some helpful advice to both women with PPD and their spouses. “Feel everything, seek help and listen to the experts.” And to the men, she chided,”support your wife’s PPD journey and make sure you have her back in all the treatments.” The best support system a PPD sufferer can have is a supportive husband and a loving extended family.

1 The View’s Elisabeth Hasselbeck

Elizabeth suffered for over a decade before she diagnosed herself with Celiac disease. Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease that disrupts the body’s digestion to digest gluten. Doctors misdiagnosed her with Irritable Bowel Syndrome and also thought it was the cause of her migraines and irritability. She knew something was wrong and that it wasn’t IBS so she researched and read books and eventually got to the bottom of her illness.

She went fully gluten-free in 2003 and has never looked back. She added that the diet is beneficial to both Celiac disease sufferers and normal healthy people. Armed with a ton of knowledge about Celiac disease, she went on to write a book about her diet and encourages everyone to try it out. A gluten-free diet is good for the gut, which could eventually lead to less harmful diseases like cancer or diabetes. Her book, The G-Free Diet, is a bestseller and gives practical advice to those who want to try it out.

Sources: CNN, DailyMail, Diabetes, MayoClinic, CDC