Kobe Bryant’s extremely sudden and out of nowhere death was so stunning, I did not believe the initial reports until I saw a proper source. I saw it on Twitter a few minutes before any major news agency carried the story and I was, like most people, totally blown away.
I’m trying to think of a celebrity death that was more shocking and surprising. I was born in 1978(6 days before Kobe, by the way) and I am struggling to think of any in my lifetime. Ones I can list some of us might remember are:
John Kennedy - obviously a huge shock that rattled the world
Michael Jackson (this one blew me away, but I can now not ever picture him growing old)
Paul Walker - nice guy, doing good work, gone with no warning
Princess Diana- again, my gut wrenched when I heard about it
I think Princess Diana is the most stunning and shocking death in my lifetime. I was almost speechless when I heard about it. I’m still blown away that we knew her for so little time.
Whitney Houston. I mean, sure she had drug problems but that was supposedly in the past where she left Bobby. A friend texted me she died and my immediate reply was ‘no she didn’t’. I thought she was kidding me.
ETA: Sadly, I was not at all surprised when I found out Bobbi Christina had died.
Seconding Robin Williams. Since hoaxes claiming such-and-such celebrity died often spread on social media, I initially just assumed the stuff on Facebook about his death was just another one of these hoaxes. It was only when serious news outlets started reporting it that it started to sink in.
Phil Hartman was another shocking one, particularly the manner in which he died.
Suicide was always a theme in his work but if you had kept up with his work his last two monologues (Slippery Slope and Morning Noon and Night) you’d think that was something he had worked through and was squarely in the past…Then the car accident and the subsequent issues there (I saw him once after that) you’d understand that the struggle was back…but at least I thought it would not…get there.
As soon as it was reported that he had gone missing–my first thought was–“he went on a ‘walkabout’ and will turn up the next day.”…and then he didn’t …and I knew…so it was shocking but not surprising, I suppose.
I thought George Michael died from a heart attack?
I don’t consider Robin Williams’ death to be from suicide, because his autopsy revealed that he had Lewy Body Dementia, which is like a cross between Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s and much, much worse than either because (among other things) people with it can live for many years after they reach the end stage, and it causes depression and paranoia. He did end his life, but he had a precipitating cause that nobody apparently knew about.
The actress who played Violet Beauregard in the original “Willy Wonka” movie, who lived in my hometown for a while, recently ended her own life, although like Williams, things were a lot more complicated.
At least one reporter, when the Teleprompter said he’d been free-basing before the plane crashed, flat-out said, “I knew him, and I’m not going to report that because I know it isn’t true.”
Oops, you are correct. Wiki article says “natural causes”. I was mistaken that his death was a suicide. Nonetheless, I still found his passing a bit of a shock.
John Lennon and Heather O’Rourke off the top of my head. There was another young child actress in some sort of murder/suicide thing (her father and the body was set on fire?) but the name escapes me. With most other famous people you almost expect some sort of drug/alcohol related death enough not to be surprised when they happen.
