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This is an upsetting situation that even a powerful celebrity like Taylor Swift probably couldn’t get used to: having her name associated with a mentally unstable follower whose delusions lead to stalking or escalating violence and someone being hurt or killed.

Travis Reinking, the 29-year-old arrested Monday in the killing of four people in a shooting at a Waffle House restaurant in Nashville, Tennessee, reportedly showed “signs of significant instability” over the the past two years.

The instability included Reinking’s belief that the mega pop star had been hacking his phone and Netflix account and stalking him for years, authorities in his home state of Illinois told the Washington Post and The New York Times.

It’s not clear if Reinking’s reported Swift delusions played any role in the early Sunday morning shooting rampage at the Waffle House.

But Swift’s name has unwillingly become a part of a tragic story. In this way, she has become the latest celebrity embroiled in the actions of a mentally unstable person with a dangerous obsession.

Jodie Foster has described being traumatized when John Hinkley Jr. cited his love for her as the reason he tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in March 1981.

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“It was a very difficult time in my life,” Foster recalled in a 1999 interview with “60 Minutes,” saying that being caught up “in a drama like that” was “scarring” and “strange.”

Three months before the attempt on Reagan’s life, John Lennon was shot and killed outside his New York City apartment by Mark David Chapman, a Beatles fan who had idolized him.

The 1980s closed out with the killing of up-and-coming TV actress Rebecca Schaeffer, who was fatally shot in July 1989 in the doorway of her West Hollywood apartment building by a stalker who had become obsessed with her.

Other celebrities who’ve had fans send them threatening letters or break into their homes include Madonna, David Letterman, Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Taylor Swift has dealt with more than her fair share of stalkers. In just the past month, the singer, who has millions of fans world-wide, has been the target of multiple men who tried to find her at homes in New York City and Los Angeles, Fox News reported.

In the most recent case, a Florida man was arrested for allegedly breaking into her townhouse in New York City. Earlier this month, a 38-year-old Colorado man wearing a mask was arrested outside her estate in Beverly Hills, with a knife, rope and ammunition inside his car. And in a disturbing echo of John Hinkley Jr., a Connecticut man robbed a bank last week to impress Swift; he wanted to get cash to bring to her Rhode Island estate and propose, police told the Daily Beast.

Mental health experts say some stalkers have a psychological disorder called erotomania, according to a 2012 column in Psychology Today. Erotomania is when someone develops a delusion that they have a special connection with someone else, often a celebrity or someone of a higher social status.

The stalker may falsely believe that the object of his or her desire loves them back, or that the two of them have “an entwined destiny,” which drives the stalker to force contact or some other kind of reaction, writes Katherine Ramsland, Ph.D., a professor of forensic psychology at DeSales University in Pennsylvania.

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Mark David Chapman, now 62, told a CNN writer in 2015 that he had dealt with schizophrenia and paranoia throughout much of his life, but he maintained that he was not “under the control of that” when he murdered Lennon.

Chapman reportedly turned against Lennon because of the singer’s well-publicized comment in 1966 that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus.” In the end, Chapman, who also reportedly was obsessed with the novel “The Catcher in the Rye,” shut down his lawyers’ attempts to mount an insanity defense and pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. He continues to serve a 20-years-to life sentence.

John Hinckley Jr., on the other hand, relied on an insanity defense to stay out of prison for his attempt on Reagan’s life outside the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C. Reagan was hit in the chest and soon recovered, but press secretary James Brady was critically wounded in the head and left paralyzed on one side of his body.

Hinkley spent three decades in a psychiatric hospital in Washington, D.C., until 2016 when a judge released him to live with his mother in Williamsburg, Virginia, CNN reported.

Hinkley became obsessed with Foster after seeing her play a child prostitute in the 1976 film “Taxi Driver.” As part of his obsession, Hinkley moved to New Haven, Connecticut where Foster has just begun her freshman year at Yale University, in part to get away from the Hollywood limelight. Hinkley tried to call her and slipped poems under her dorm room door. When Foster didn’t respond, Hinkley fantasized about hijacking an airplane or committing suicide in front of her to get her attention.

An hour before he shot Reagan and three others, he sent Foster a letter, saying he would abandon the idea of trying to kill the president if only he could win her “heart,” Newsweek reported.

“I’ve got to do something now to make you understand in no uncertain terms that I am doing all of this for your sake,” he wrote. “Jodie, I’m asking you to please look into your heart and at least give me the chance with this historical deed to gain your respect and love.”

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News about Hinkley’s obsession brought Foster intense media attention scrutiny at Yale, which meant she wasn’t able to enjoy the relatively anonymous undergraduate existence she had hoped for.

In a 1999 interview with “60 Minutes,” Foster said she did not “like to dwell” too much on Hinkley or the assassination attempt.

“I never wanted to be the actress who was remembered for that event,” said Foster, by then a two-time Academy Award winner. “I was kind of a hapless bystander. But … what a scarring, strange moment in history for me, to be 17 years old, 18 years old, and to be caught up in a drama like that.”

Foster explained that the incident had a major impact on her personal and career choices, though she added that whatever ordeal she went through was minimal compared to the suffering of James Brady and his family. “Whatever bad moments that I had certainly could never compare to that family,” she said.