When a celebrity passes away, the media attention can draw out some surprising details, especially
when the loss is unexpected.
And sometimes there are even eerie coincidences between the losses of multiple celebrities.
Here's a look at the bizarre connections between these tragic celebrity passings.
The 27 Club
The term '27 Club' became popular after the loss of Kurt Cobain in 1994 and came back
into common usage after the loss of Amy Winehouse in 2011.
But it all started with the losses of Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix.
Not only were they all 27 years of age, but the legendary musicians, who all knew each
other, also died within 10 months of each other in 1970 and 1971.
Considering former Rolling Stones member Brian Jones also died shortly before them at the
age of 27, it's no wonder music fans around the world continue to search for a bigger
reason behind these senseless tragedies.
The Poltergeist curse
Even if you don't believe in curses, the passing count surrounding the cast of Poltergeist
is even spookier than the movie.
The Steven Spielberg horror flick wound up spawning two sequels, and in the six years
of filming and release of the films, four of the main character actors died.
While Will Sampson and Julian Beck were getting along in years when they passed away, the
other two who perished were much younger.
Heather O'Rourke, who played the little damsel in distress Carol Anne in the films, died
at just 12 years old from a heart attack due to sepsis complications from previously undiagnosed
Crohn's disease.
And Dominique Dunne's life was taken at the age of 22 when her ex-boyfriend murdered her
in her own driveway, cutting short both a life and career full of promise.
Brittany Murphy and Simon Monjack
They say that truth is stranger than fiction, and the proof is the strange and sad passings
of actress Brittany Murphy and her husband Simon Monjack.
Murphy died at 28 due to pneumonia combined with anemia at the home she shared with Monjack
and her mother.
Six months later at the same home, her husband also passed away from pneumonia combined with
anemia.
She was 32 and he was 40, which was pretty young for two passed of "natural causes."
Alternative causes for their losses have been explored by family, with everything from toxic
mold to heavy metal poisoning, but according to authorities, it was all just a tragic coincidence.
Sonny Bono and Michael Kennedy
In the first week of 1998, '60s pop singer-turned Republican congressman Sonny Bono and Robert
Kennedy's son Michael both died from crashing into a tree while skiing.
In accidents that happened just five days apart, both died of head injuries sustained
from the crashes.
They were known as avid and excellent skiers, and neither was under the influence of alcohol
or substances at the time, though Kennedy was reportedly participating in a dangerous game of "football
while skiing."
It was just the latest tragedy for the Kennedy family, which has famously had all too many
of those over the decades.
The Presidential passages
Founding fathers and former Presidents Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Monroe might
not be top of mind in the current political landscape anymore, but there's something strange
about their demises that continues to puzzle people: they all died on Independence Day.
Yep, these founding fathers all passed away on the Fourth of July, and what's even weirder
is that Jefferson and Adams actually died the same day in 1826, just hours apart.
Neither knew the other was dying, leading Adams to utter one of the most famous last
words in American history.
"Thomas Jefferson... survives."
And when fellow former POTUS James Madison was on his final bed in late 1836, his doctors
offered meds to keep him alive long enough to expire on the 4th of July, but he refused
and died a few days early.
Meanwhile, another supposed Presidential curse lived on for over a century.
Starting with William Henry Harrison, who was elected in 1840, every President 'til
Ronald Reagan who was elected on an year ending in zero -- which happened every 20 years -- died
in office.
Count Harrison, Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, Warren G. Harding,
Franklin D. Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy among the list of those even year electees
who died in office.
The curse seemed to break with Reagan, who won in 1980, but he had to survive being shot
by a would-be assassin to end the eerie chain.
Bruce and Brandon Lee
In 1973, legendary martial artist and superstar actor Bruce Lee had completed some filming
for the movie GameofDeaf when he died of a brain aneurysm.
Five years after he died, the film was cobbled together and released by another director
using what little footage was available along with filler clips, including shots of Bruce
Lee's actual funeral.
In one sequence of the completed film, Lee's character is at a movie shoot, about to charge
at a gang of actors firing bullets at him.
In the movie script, one of the actors is an assassin who shoots Bruce's character with
a real bullet instead of a blank.
That scene gained a tragic new significance 20 years later, when Bruce Lee's own son Brandon
Lee died under very similar circumstances.
While Brandon was filming The Crow, he passed when an improperly loaded prop gun
accidentally fired a fragment of a real bullet.
As with GameofDeaf, the film was completed posthumously using previously recorded footage
of Brandon, who was later laid to rest beside his beloved father.
Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington
Musicians Chris Cornell and Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington were pretty good friends,
despite their different musical styles.
After Cornell hanged himself on May 18th, 2017, Bennington wrote an emotional open letter
to him, saying how much he missed and loved him, saying,
"You have inspired me in many ways you could never have known.
Your talent was pure and unrivaled.
Your voice was joy and pain, anger and forgiveness, love and heartache all wrapped up into one."
In a heartbreaking turn of events, Bennington took his own life, reportedly also by hanging,
on Cornell's 53rd birthday.
We can only hope that the copycat acts stop here.
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