Prince Refuses Hip Replacement ‘Cause It’s Against His Religion. Other Anti-Medicine Celebs.

For a long time, I was certain the artist formerly known as Prince (or is he Prince again? I get confused) was an alien. Turns out, he’s just a Jehovah’s Witness. After a lifetime of sexy dancing, the 50-something-year-old is in need of a double hip replacement, trading in his raspberry beret for a diamond-encrusted cane. But alas his highness has refused the surgery, citing his religious beliefs as his reason. Evidently, Jehovah’s Witnesses aren’t down with blood transfusions. [Celebitchy] — Or maybe he doesn’t want the doctors to discover his true alien identity? Hmmm.

After the jump, more celebs who have weird…er…unique views on medicine.

• Who can forget Tom Cruise’s Scientology-fueled PR attack on psychiatry in 2006, when he told Brooke Shields she should’ve gotten over her post-partum depression by exercising and called for all prescription-pill poppers to think carefully about the harm they’re doing to their bodies. [Hollywood.com] — Tom, would you be offended if I recommended some psychiatric help for you?
• Fellow Scientologists John Travolta and Kelly Preston have been under scrutiny by the press since the death of their son, Jett. Many are saying that his seizures were the result of undiagnosed, untreated autism since Scientologists don’t believe in the disease. [NY Post] Although according to the National Enquirer, the Travoltas finally acknowledged that that’s what was wrong with Jett in police documents. [National Enquirer]
• Need to lose weight? Get healthier? Feel better? No need to see a doctor. Just visit guru Gwyneth Paltrow’s blog, Goop.com, to find out how to be as thin and enlightened as she is. [Celebitchy] — No Gwyneth, I refuse to restrict my food intake for 12 hours at a time. It will only make me “hangry.”
• Actress Jenny McCarthy claims to have cured her son’s autism by putting him on a strict wheat-free dairy free diet. She thinks that the very common MMR vaccine was to blame for the onset of the disorder. [Babyrazzi] — Well, at least she’s not a Scientologist.
• Is it medieval superstition or just plain idiocy? Prince Charles created The Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health to promote the use of untested, unapproved, and implausible alternative therapies of all sorts instead of using modern medicine. [Skeptoid] — Good luck with that, Charles.