Summer usually ushers in a quiet time for the arts, but this season has offered three spectacles — not onstage, but off. In June, author Laura Albert, displaying acute psychiatric instability, stood trial for civil fraud for promoting herself under a false identity — JT LeRoy — she fostered to distribute her novels, such as “Sarah.”

Last week, New York City Ballet principal dancer Nilas Martins was arrested for possession of cocaine during the company’s summer season in Saratoga Springs, New York. And Wednesday, former Metropolitan Opera tenor Jerry Hadley shot himself in the head with an air rifle and is currently in critical condition in a hospital in Poughkeepsie. Mr. Hadley reportedly had a history of depression and was arrested on drunken-driving charges after he was discovered intoxicated in his car on Riverside Drive in 2006.

Dramatic events involving substance abuse and mental health issues are often devastating to an artist’s career. But such events seem to have extra significance when they play out in the arts as opposed to Hollywood.

On some level, Hollywood celebrities behave as if rehab is just another part of an active career. From Lindsay Lohan and Robert Downey Jr.’s repeated stints in rehab to Winona Ryder’s shoplifting charges to Hugh Grant and Eddie Murphy’s legal troubles for soliciting sex, Hollywood scandals happen with numbing regularity. Rank-and-file authors, dancers, and tenors, however, don’t benefit from the same ho-hum reaction, and negative news events about them can cripple a career in a hurry.

In order for artists outside Tinseltown to enjoy immunity from public criticism and scorn, they have to be on the order of Hollywood celebrities. And at one time, they were. The ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev, for example, credited with propelling ballet into popular culture in the 1970s, was known for his personal proclivities — which included drug-fueled sexual escapades — as much as, or if not more than, he was for his artistic talent. One need look no further than Nureyev’s social companions, including Andy Warhol and Mick Jagger, for an idea of his public profile.

In 1967, Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn, his longtime onstage partner and close personal acquaintance, were caught in a drug bust in San Francisco, Calif. The result? Nureyev’s untarnished star shone even brighter than before. Not only did he make frequent appearances on talk shows and in the tabloids, and, in 1978, a guest appearance that helped revive “The Muppet Show,” but his performances attracted standing-room-only crowds.

The artists in turmoil this summer are decidedly not on the order of Fonteyn and Nureyev. And though their troubles made the papers, they’re suffering for it rather than getting a boost to their careers, as in the case of, say, Mr. Downey Jr.

Mr. Martins, whose hearing is scheduled for August 3, has been suspended by NYCB for the remainder of its season. While Mr. Hadley, sadly, is now no longer fit for a stage career, his tenure was proclaimed short even before Wednesday’s events. Last year, after his arrest, the charges of which were subsequently dropped, Mr. Hadley was declared a “has-been” by the New York Times.

And as for Ms. Albert? In finding her act of deception a legal fraud, not just a figment of her imagination, the jury transformed her arguably artistic experiment into something much more sinister and likely career-ending.

Dance and opera are scrambling to attract audiences. Publishing isn’t exactly in a boom era, either. But celebrity culture certainly is. When crises in the arts make news, it brings a negative connotation to the industry. In Hollywood, it gets a pass.