# I am officially calling a Glee curse **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 14, 2020, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-officially-calling-a-glee-curse/915308 "2020-07-14T13:56:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![psychobunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/54ee81/32.png) [@psychobunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychobunny)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2020, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-officially-calling-a-glee-curse/915308/1 "2020-07-14T13:56:46Z")
We are now up to three untimely deaths. Not necessarily bizarre or unjustified but still premature deaths of cast members in their 30s. The death of Naya Rivera so far seems to be a tragic accident. I feel for her son. How awful to basically see your mother drown. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2020, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-officially-calling-a-glee-curse/915308/2 "2020-07-14T14:10:02Z")
This is just like the SNL curse. I predict that one day every cast member of the show Glee will one day die. I am confident I will someday be proven correct about both shows. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2020, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-officially-calling-a-glee-curse/915308/3 "2020-07-14T16:31:24Z")
Sure, everyone dies eventually. But the OP made the point that people don’t typically die in their thirties. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats2)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2020, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-officially-calling-a-glee-curse/915308/4 "2020-07-16T02:07:08Z")
Please note, I’m not trying to speak ill of the dead, but is it a normal thing to go swimming in the middle of a body of water without scuba gear? I would think plain swimming would usually take place near the shore, especially with a small child. Do boating types do this sort of thing? ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2020, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-officially-calling-a-glee-curse/915308/5 "2020-07-16T02:17:43Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](#): > > Please note, I’m not trying to speak ill of the dead, but is it a normal thing to go swimming in the middle of a body of water without scuba gear? Extremely normal, isn’t it? Like, happens thousands of times a day normal? ---
**Author:** ![Acerbic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acerbic/32/3695_2.png) [@Acerbic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acerbic)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2020, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-officially-calling-a-glee-curse/915308/6 "2020-07-16T02:18:19Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](#): > > Please note, I’m not trying to speak ill of the dead, but is it a normal thing to go swimming in the middle of a body of water without scuba gear? I would think plain swimming would usually take place near the shore, especially with a small child. It’s pretty normal to jump off a boat into the middle of the lake to do some swimming. At least on every lake I’ve been in with relatively warm water. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2020, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-officially-calling-a-glee-curse/915308/7 "2020-07-16T05:32:46Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](#): > > Please note, I’m not trying to speak ill of the dead, but is it a normal thing to go swimming in the middle of a body of water without scuba gear? I would think plain swimming would usually take place near the shore, especially with a small child. > > Do boating types do this sort of thing? It seems quite natural to swim off a boat, sure. Obviously you’d stay close to the boat with the kid there, and she protected him with a life jacket. Her personal history make depression circumstantially plausible. But taking the kid along to witness a suicide and be left abandoned in the boat? People can do stuff like that, but I’d have thought there would have been some prior evidence of that degree of mental disturbance. Lake Piru apparently has dangerous currents with numerous prior drownings, so accidental drowning is not an unlikely scenario. ---
**Author:** ![TRC4941](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trc4941/32/6792_2.png) [@TRC4941](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TRC4941)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2020, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-officially-calling-a-glee-curse/915308/8 "2020-07-16T13:39:41Z")
I just read this morning that the day they found Naya’s body was the 7th anniversary of Cory Monteith’s (Finn) death. ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2020, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-officially-calling-a-glee-curse/915308/9 "2020-07-17T22:36:06Z")
Posting from a phone so no links sorry. If I’m interpreting the life table on the wikipedia page correctly 3,600 out of 100,000 Americans die before 40. So the probability of one person dieing before 40 is 0.036. Note this includes deaths in infancy and childhood so will be higher than you’d expect in a group of adult actors. The probability of three cast members dieing before 40 out of a group of 20 or so adults is beyond my meager status ability. I guess it would be something like (probability of 1 person dieing cubed) times 18(number of sets of three in 20) which comes out as 0.0008 which I’ll round to about 1 in a thousand. Unlikely but not mind blowing so. I apologise to any statisticians I’ve offended and anticipate your corrections. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2020, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-officially-calling-a-glee-curse/915308/10 "2020-07-17T22:46:22Z")
How many Americans out of 100,000 in show business die before the age of 40? ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2020, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-officially-calling-a-glee-curse/915308/11 "2020-07-17T23:23:37Z")
No idea although there seems to be a bit of a spike between 26 and 28. ---
**Author:** ![River\_Hippie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/river_hippie/32/26_2.png) [@River\_Hippie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/River_Hippie)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2020, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-officially-calling-a-glee-curse/915308/12 "2020-07-18T01:26:30Z")
I really never liked Glee but I watched it every week because I had a (totally age inappropriate) geezer crush on Naya Rivera. I expected her to have a pretty good post Glee career. I am deeply saddened at how she ended. RIP, Naya. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2020, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-officially-calling-a-glee-curse/915308/13 "2020-07-18T02:32:45Z")
> [@lisiate](#): > > If I’m interpreting the life table on the wikipedia page correctly 3,600 out of 100,000 Americans die before 40. > So the probability of one person dieing before 40 is 0.036. Note this includes deaths in infancy and childhood so will be higher than you’d expect in a group of adult actors. This alternative source says that at age 20, the odds of dying within the next 20 years is 3%. So your number seems about right. > **[Odds of dying: by age, gender, lifestyle stats in 2024 | finder.com](https://www.finder.com/life-insurance/odds-of-dying)** > > Learn about the average life expectancy in the US, and your odds of dying within the next 5, 10, 20 or 30 years based on your age, gender and race. These were three leading cast members, but it’s a large ensemble cast, so I agree that calling it 3 out of 20 people is probably about right. The probability of at least 3 deaths out of 20 people would be given by the binomial distribution with p=0.03 and 20 trials, for which the probability of at least three “successes” is about **2%** , i.e. 1 in 50 rather than 1 in 1000. And, of course, we didn’t specify beforehand _which_ famous group of 20 people we’re considering. If there at least 50 roughly similar groups of famous people (surely there are far more), then it’s in line with statistical expectations that one of these groups would by chance have 3 deaths in this age range. ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2020, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-officially-calling-a-glee-curse/915308/14 "2020-07-18T22:47:54Z")
Thanks I knew I’d not used the right approach. Put by a factor of 20. Shame! So barely remarkable at all really. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2020, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-officially-calling-a-glee-curse/915308/15 "2020-07-18T23:24:08Z")
I was wondering about this myself. Didn’t they say that the boy was wearing a life jacket, but she wasn’t? This story just does not smell right. The toxicology report may be interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2020, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-officially-calling-a-glee-curse/915308/16 "2020-07-19T03:00:06Z")
I’m calling the Gleek Hearse. Because the sight of a blue monkey driving will lighten even the most solemn occasion. > [@nearwildheaven](#): > > I was wondering about this myself. Didn’t they say that the boy was wearing a life jacket, but she wasn’t? People rarely wear life jackets while going for a swim. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2020, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-officially-calling-a-glee-curse/915308/17 "2020-07-19T03:10:58Z")
Here is an article about swimming off boats. (Which says that people _should_ wear life jackets to swim, but _do_ adults typically do that? > **[Swimming Around Boats - Quimby's Cruising Guide](https://quimbyscruisingguide.com/safely-swimming-around-boats/)** > > For most of us, swimming and boating go hand in hand. Swimsuits, towels, noodles and inflatable rafts are standard equipment aboard our craft, with the more adventurous packing snorkeling and scuba gear to enjoy time under the waves as well as up on... ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2020, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-officially-calling-a-glee-curse/915308/18 "2020-07-19T03:37:07Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > People rarely wear life jackets while going for a swim. I agree. It makes perfect sense that the young kid sitting in the boat would be in a life jacket, but she would go for a swim near the boat without. If you’re actively swimming rather than just floating, it’s awkward in a flotation device. The other fact that some people seem unaware of is that Lake Piru has unexpected currents and whirlpools, and there have been numerous drownings in the past, with some people advocating for warning signs against swimming (but none placed). > **[Lake Piru | Drownings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Piru#Drownings)** > > Due to harsh conditions such as debris, low visibility, different currents, strong winds, and cold water temperatures, a number of fatalities related to drowning have occurred at Lake Piru: > 1.In August 1994, 27-year-old Jesus Danilo Carranza drowned in the lake while on an outing with his family, even though he was wearing a life jacket. | > 2.In July 1997, Liborio Dominguez of Long Beach drowned in the lake while trying to rescue his daughter. Dominguez's body was discovered several days later. ... > [@nearwildheaven](#): > > This story just does not smell right. I don’t agree, the circumstances with the kid present along with the facts about the lake seem consistent with the most straightforward explanation, an accidental drowning. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2020, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-officially-calling-a-glee-curse/915308/19 "2020-07-19T04:10:37Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > It makes perfect sense that the young kid sitting in the boat would be in a life jacket, but she would go for a swim near the boat without. If you’re actively swimming rather than just floating, it’s awkward in a flotation device. They were both in the water. Evidently, the current began to get rough and she managed to push her son back into the boat, but she couldn’t make it. Very tragic. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2020, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-officially-calling-a-glee-curse/915308/20 "2020-11-19T07:05:10Z")
Should’ve seen this coming. > **[Naya Rivera's ex-husband and estate file wrongful-death suit on behalf of the...](https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/18/us/naya-rivera-wrongful-death-lawsuit/index.html)** > > The lawsuit claims the boat Rivera was on lacked adequate safety equipment.