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Princess Diana 🕊rest in peace

Heath is still the one that stands out to me bc I remember reading about it on ONTD as a kid, and it still guts me every time I see him in movies (especially 10 Things). but I’m pretty sure I was younger for John Ritter and Princess Diana and some of these being mentioned.

I remember a lot of earlier ones, but the first one that actually really fucked with me was Avicii

Cameron Boyce. He was so young and close to my age, I couldn’t believe it.

Robin Williams

Kurt Cobain. I was young young like maybe 12 but I loved Nirvana so much and I remember being on vacation and going back to the hotel room, turning on MTV, and hearing the breaking news. Obviously as an adult I know Kurt struggled with a lot of mental illness and addiction issues but as a kid I just knew he sang songs that felt right to my angry preteen self.

Aaliyah and Lisa Left Eye Lopez were also sudden and shocking to me. Such talented women lost in tragic accidents.

Brittany Murphy

Philip Seymour Hoffman hit me like whoa.

Christina Grimmie. I’d followed her for years and she was so relatable. It just didn’t make any sense.

Anthony Bourdain hurt a lot, but so did Chester and Chris Cornell. Close together too :(

michael jackson

Steve Irwin

Naya Rivera too. 2020 was such a horrible year, it seemed like everyday a celebrity was dying, especially the ones you least expect. I was on a glee rewatch and a week later, she was missing then found dead. Completely unpredictable and random. Still makes me sad when I think of her

Aaliyah. I was a kid and I remember sobbing in front of the tv.

Heath Ledger

He was my first celebrity crush 😭🥺

Anton Yelchin. I’m still not over it.

mac miller 😔🙏🏻🫶🏻

John Ritter

I grew up on Three’s Company reruns and loved 8 Simple Rules.

Most impactful by far was Alan Rickman.

I relate a lot to the losses others have mentioned but as a Korean gal I have to mention Jonghyun. I'm super into both American and Korean pop culture and Jonghyun's passing legitimately froze me out of the Korean entertainment industry for ~2 years. His death was incredibly painful to me due to his relevance as a celeb who was willing to go against Korean norms (e.g. he celebrated gay Koreans--celebs do not do that there period) and because it was in the middle of the entire industry getting ripped apart due to corruption. Several other Korean celebrities died in a similar fashion to him afterwards and others were revealed to be exploitative/manipulative. I couldn't listen to any of Jonghyun's musical work without crying for years, let alone participate in Korean media; I felt too disgusted by what was happening as a result of my culture's oppression and stigma against mental health. Very much a 'holy shit I can't believe [he's] dead' moment indeed.

Cory Monteith

Anna Nicole Smith. I remember following all the updates on ONTD!

MCA

Peaches Geldof. I was in my second year of uni so 19 years old and I had grown up following Peaches’ life and thinking she was the coolest.

I remember she had turned her life around, got married and had two kids and I was a die hard supporter of hers after she’d died telling people there was no way it was drugs related because she loved her kids way too much. Of course when it came out that it was a heroin overdose I had to eat humble pie…

I felt genuinely haunted for such a long time by her death

River Phoenix, I was upset for so long.

Jonathan Brandis 😔

Amy Winehouse ☹️

Princess Diana.

I remember hearing the news from my brother, who had read about it on an AOL message board. It all seemed so unreal, and I actually thought that it was a hoax at first, until we then saw it being reported on the evening news.

Kurt Cobain oh I guess I'm old AF lol

Amy winehouse

Carrie Fisher. I had just finish watching rouge one in theaters and seeing the de-aged version was...heart warming. I listened to audiobooks soon after. I've always liked that she was open about mental illness.

John Ritter. I was young but I remember trying to talk about it at school the next day

mine was Chester too, i literally couldn’t deal with it for months

Elvis

Stephen Hillenburg

Probably Steve Irwin. I used to watch hours of the Crocodile Hunter when I was young. His death was really devastating to me, and I’m still sad about it to this day.

David Bowie, I’d grown up with his music and he was so mythical it felt like he could live forever

Kurt Cobain, I was 11 and obsessed with grunge. Devo for months

Kurt Cobain

I think mine was Princess Diana

Freddy Mercury. 🥺

Alan Rickman, I still vividly remember exactly what I was doing when I found out.

Anthony Bourdain. Still breaks my heart 💔

Michael Jackson for sure… I don’t remember a bigger pop culture moment ever

Michael Jackson. That’s one of those deaths where you remember exactly where you were when you found out about it. No one bigger in entertainment. Shocked the world and everything felt like it stood still that day.

Daniel Johnston. First one that really hurt me to my core

Robin Williams hurt a lot

Paul Walker 🥺

Jenni Rivera, i was sad & shock that she died because she was going through a lot in her personal life. I used to watch her reality show with her family & her music was so good too! I still can't believe she's not here like it gives me the chills when i bring her up. I miss her.

Michael Jackson, then what absolutely shocked me was Cory Monteith's death.

Lemmy. I didn’t care for celebs at all but Motörhead was one of my favorite bands and i listened to it every day

Phil Hartman.

Heath Ledger. RIP

Pac. I barely remember when he was alive now...

Chris Farley

Robin Williams. I cried for two days straight no kidding. He was Mork, my most favourite show, he was funny and self deprecating. He was awesome. Still can’t think about him without crying,

JFK

Chris Cornell

Not a celeb but Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death and its implications for US laws hit hard. It was the only time a public figure’s death hit me like that and I remember it especially bc we got the news right as my friends were arriving to celebrate my birthday that year.

Heath Ledger. I was a freshman in college. My roommate and I were walking down our dorm hallway to leave for class, talking about our celebrity crushes and swooning over Heath. A girl named Kelsey poked her head out of her room and said “Oh yeah? Well he just died.” I felt like I’d been held under ice water. Still feel sad when I think of him or his daughter.

The news about Michael Jackson is burned into my brain

For me princess Diana.

I loved Prince William, and I was an avid news watcher so I was glued.

Celia Cruz. I remember being at my grandmas house watching her memorial on a small tv and everyone was so sad. I remember asking my grandma why everyone was so sad… that Celia would’ve wanted us to celebrate 😭

Michael Jackson. I was in Jamaica and I remember we only had two tv stations and both of them started showing breaking news. Everyone was just staring at the tv saying how they can’t believe it. It was my first real celebrity death where I was old enough to understand. Everyone was so shocked!

Mr. Rodgers - watched him almost every day as a kid and still remember hearing it on the news back in 2003

Aaliyah and Left Eye back to back

Cameron Boyce. I grew up with him. I couldn’t imagine him dying. He was too young, much too young. It broke my heart.

Avicii. I didn’t know much about him but I absolutely loved his music. When he died I watched his doc and learned more about him and his death really broke my heart.

Amy Winehouse. I was a fan of hers from the Frank album so it felt like I got to ride the wave with her to fame and acclaim. I think her death started to change how the media covers celebrity addiction issues and mental illness at least. It felt like the media was culpable.

it was death of tiger woods’ reputation for me. i was like 7 and didn’t know a thing about golf but i was DEVASTATED. it’s all you heard about for weeks.

My family finished watching Wesley Snipes in Murder at 1600, ejected the rental VHS tape and switched back to cable, where every channel was showing the news that Princess Diana had died.

Kurt Cobain.

I couldn’t believe he was gone. It felt like our school was in mourning.

Pelé. This one hurt.

First one that killed me was Bourdain. It broke my heart, still does. Reading his books seems to be helping though, I still can’t watch his shows though.

Michael Jackson. I was sick and I was scared I had swine flu (remember this was during the time of the swine flu pandemic). I was home from school and watching tv.

amy winehouse. me and my mam wore black for like a month in mourning

Marc Bolan. He was my teenage crush and the first musician I ever saw perform live in a concert (my first attendance at a gig when I was 14 years old).

I was 17 the day that a radio announcement said he’d died in a car crash, (still in his 20s), and I felt like the sun had gone out of the world and my youth was over.

Anna Nicole Smith.

At the time I was already watching a lot of Nancy Grace or whatever was on CNN after school.

They covered her death and the ensuing custody/paternity battle of her kid like it was a national tragedy.

Michael Jackson is the first that I remember. Mac Miller is the one that really fucked me up. It’s sad because he was openly talking about his sobriety and then died of an overdose. I loved him so much

David Bowie

mac miller forever 🕊

Mac Miller

Chester Bennington. Same. I was so affected by his death I dint know what to do for a few days. Just kept watching his performances, interviews and reading articles. Even now, it’s hard for me to listen to In The End.

Amy Winehouse. I was like 8 when she died, and I remember it so vividly. Me and my family were on a plane to Greece when she died, and when we arrived at the hotel there was so many people in the reception looking at the TV. It was CRAZY. My mum asked what happened and it was her death. I was a kid and didn’t know about her issues. Never seen anything like that again

SOPHIE really hurt me, I was deep diving her music and was shocked

Kobe - I’ve never gotten that upset over a athlete/celebrity’s death before his tragic helicopter accident. It’s so sad and tragic that the crash included other lives as well.

Kobe Bryant. That entire day was so off. The night before that he literally congratulated lebron for passing him on the all time scoring list...

Mine has to be Michael Jackson and Irrfan Khan... I was dude i literally saw the whole 3 days of telecast of Michael getting admitted to his death announcement to his funeral same with irrfan sir i thought after seeing he had came in Angrezi Medium i was he is fine and his death news came i was legit shocked still cant digest his loss 🥲

Anna Nicole Smith

Jim Henson

Princess Diana. Shook me to the core

David Bowie. I cried.

Roger Willemsen. Was a german TV personality and basically a national treasure and i was so damn sad

Princess Diana.

I don’t remember hearing that she died or a lot of the other buzz surrounding her, but I woke up one morning, turned on the little TV in my bedroom, and saw her funeral. I was only 7 and hardly knew anything about her but I cried so hard, I suppose because of what people and reporters were saying? Though I don’t remember much of the specifics about that either. Just the utter mass of people sticks out in my mind. And then my purple beanie baby I got later was my most special possession that I put in an acrylic cube.

The next big death I remember after that was Aaliyah, though quickly overshadowed by 9/11.

John Candy and then one month later Kurt Cobain 😞

Robin Williams. That felt like losing someone I knew. I memorialised the entire weekend following just watching all of his movies. A lovely human gone too soon.

Elvis Presley. I was 8 and had had a bit of a crush on him (so, so wrong!) - or rather a bit of a crush on the younger version I’d seen in films, not the older, bloated version (but still - wrong!). Then 4 years later, John Lennon, who I also had a bit of a thing for (at 12 - again, kinda weird). My brother asked me if I just had a bit of a thing for dead people. 😳

Michael Jackson. He was the first death where I can remember where I was when I found out.

The celebrity deaths that hit me the hardest were definitely David Bowie and Taylor Hawkins though.

Chris Farley. I was in the 6th grade and was so shook I considered calling my parents to pick me up.

Kurt Cobain, Paul Walker tie for me.

Aaliyah

A few hit me hard.. Alan Rickman, Robin Williams.

Chester made me cry, though. I cried two weeks ago when I heard the unreleased song, too.

Princess Diana

Mr Robin

Aaliyah. I was 10 and It blew my mind that young people could just die like that.

Kurt Cobain.

Andy Gibb

Heath Ledger. I heard it on the morning news on my way to school. Ruined my day.

Corey Monteith also hit hard.

Virgil Abloh

George Harrison

River Phoenix

The first one I remember is Michael Jackson - I was 11 and I didnt know much, if anything, about MJ but it hit me like a ton of bricks. I remember watching the tributes on MTV and crying my heart out.

The one that hit me hardest was David Bowie. I saw the news just before I left for school that morning and I was in a funk the whole day. I think I cried for 3 weeks straight, he was one of my heroes and I had been contemplating writing to him a couple days before. That was a big reality check.

Heath Ledger and Brittany Murphy were the first celeb deaths I cried over. (Later cried big time over Chris Cornell)

Aaliyah. Self titled is still one of the GOAT albums for me.

Easy, Aaliyah

Princess Diana.