Conspiracy theories aside, sometimes there are very real celeb connections to a famous fatality,
ranging from mere coincidence to outright speculation and scandal.
Let's dive in and look at the stars connected to other celebrity deaths.
One mystery surrounding the tragic death of Heath Ledger in 2008 was his connection to
Mary-Kate Olsen on the night he passed away, in an apartment that belonged to the Full House star.
Though she wasn’t compelled to go on the record in the subsequent investigation,
questions remain. It’s unclear why the masseuse who found Ledger's body
called Olsen before dialing 911, despite sources telling the New York Post that
"[Ledger's employees] panicked at finding his body and did not know what to do."
It’s also puzzling that after receiving the call, Olsen dispatched her bodyguards to
go to Ledger's apartment, rather than just letting the authorities handle the matter.
Olsen hasn’t spoken publicly about Ledger's death, except via her attorney, who said,
"We have provided the government with relevant information including […] the
fact that Ms. Olsen does not know the source of the drugs Mr. Ledger consumed."
The drowning death of Natalie Wood is one of the most enduring Hollywood mysteries of all time,
and it involved not only her actor husband Robert Wagner,
but also Christopher Walken. Wood was found floating in the frigid waters of Isthmus Bay
near Catalina Island, California. She had gone missing the previous night from her and Wagner’s
yacht, Splendour, where she, Wagner, and Walken were spending the weekend in November of 1981.
The coroner’s report claimed she drowned while trying to board a dinghy, and the
press presumed she was trying to escape some type of altercation between Walken and Wagner.
“I don’t think that there’s a day that has ever gone by in my life…
there hasn’t been a moment that I haven’t thought about Natalie.”
In Wagner's 2009 book, Pieces of My Heart, he admits to an argument with Wood and Walken
before his wife died. As reported by Radar, the captain of the boat, Dennis Davern, told
authorities that Wagner had, quote, "exploded" during a 15-minute, drunken argument with Wood.
“I think the argument got out of control, and she was knocked unconscious by a physical fight.”
In 2019, Natalie's sister Lana spoke out about the incident to The New York Times,
claiming that the actress would never board a dinghy. She said,
"Let's be truthful about who she was. […] I am not making judgments [...] I'm simply
looking at facts. Natalie didn't swim. Her fear of dark water was deeply ingrained."
As was the case with Natalie Wood's death, suspicious circumstances surround the death of
Kurt Cobain. They've even given a nickname to the followers of those who doubt the official story:
Kurtruthers. Their conspiracy theory relies on two objections to the official explanation of suicide.
First, they say, Cobain wouldn't have been able to lift a shotgun
to shoot himself because of the large dose of heroin he'd taken.
Second, they claim, his suicide note appears to have more than one person's handwriting on it.
The theory, focusing on Courtney Love, Cobain's then-wife, claims that she must have hired someone
to kill him, then forged the note. Unfortunately for Kurtruthers - including the filmmakers behind
the 2015 docudrama Soaked In Bleach - the Seattle Police Department does not agree.
Not only have handwriting experts attested to the fact that Cobain did,
indeed, write the note, but the Seattle P.D. has consistently released more than
100 pages' worth of case files in an effort to debunk the persistent conspiracy theories.
According to CBS News, a cold-case detective
even took a fresh look at the case in 2014 and determined,
"The investigation on the death of Kurt Cobain, which was conducted 20 years ago,
reached the correct conclusion that the manner of death was [suicide]."
Alan Thicke died unexpectedly at the end of 2016,
a year that saw other unexpected celeb deaths, including Carrie Fisher, Prince,
and Anton Yelchin. But Alan Thicke supposedly got advance warning of his impending demise.
As shown on E!, during an episode of Hollywood Medium with Tyler Henry,
Henry repeatedly told Thicke that he was receiving messages from beyond
concerned with preventable heart issues. Even after Thicke protested
that his family doesn't have a genetic link to heart problems, Henry insisted,
"If you yourself notice blood pressure or a heart murmur,
just see a doctor. […] I feel almost like we have to […] take this into consideration."
Thicke, who was a skeptic of Henry’s methods at the time, even joked back,
"Thank you Dr. Henry. I'm gonna take that [...] I'm gonna take that to heart."
Three months after the taping,
Thicke collapsed and died from a heart condition after playing ice hockey.
“The one message he didn’t really understand was from a loved one
who died of a heart condition, who said, in their exact words,
‘Don’t be stubborn like I am – don’t be stubborn like I was – go get your heart checked.”
Vascular surgeon Dr. Jean Starr told Fox News that Thicke’s particular condition was, quote,
"hard to prevent," so even advance screening may not have averted it.
But even so, Henry’s specific premonition seems like more than just a lucky guess.
In 2015, actor Jim Carrey faced two wrongful-death lawsuits
involving the suicide of his on-again, off-again girlfriend Cathriona White.
The first lawsuit, filed in September 2016 by White's estranged husband, Mark Burton, alleged
that Carrey provided White with the prescription pills she used to commit suicide. The second
lawsuit was filed about a month later, by White's mother, alleging her daughter's suicide was
triggered after White confronted Carrey about him giving her three sexually transmitted diseases.
Carrey maintained his innocence in both matters, even as headlines continued to
paint a messy picture. In the spring of 2018, the actor was set to face a civil trial,
but as the BBC reported in February of the same year,
it was dismissed. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Carrey's lawyer,
Raymond Boucher discovered that White's 2011 document supposedly claiming she had clean STD
test results before meeting Carrey was a, quote, "forgery." Carrey hasn't publicly commented.
It's hard following in the footsteps of a legend,
yet that's exactly what Brandon Lee set out to do in the mid-'80s,
confident he would live up to his father, Bruce Lee's, fame. In a really twisted way, he did.
As reported in the Chicago Tribune, kung fu icon Bruce Lee had died in 1973
due to "brain swelling," which many believe came from his aggressive
on-camera antics. But five years before his death, Bruce Lee had filmed Game of Death,
a flick that saw his character murdered on a movie set after a villain placed a
real bullet in a prop gun and fired it during the scene. So keep that in mind.
Decades later, son Brandon was filming the now-cult classic, The Crow, in 1993.
For one scene, the younger Lee was to be shot by actor Michael Massee, standing 15 feet away
from him. During a take of that scene, Lee fell to the ground with an abdominal wound,
dying 12 hours later. As the Los Angeles Times revealed, autopsy pathologists discovered a
.44 -caliber bullet in Brandon's body. The prop gun had been loaded with a real bullet
instead of a blank. As Brandon's former acting coach, Eric Morris, told the Chicago Tribune,
"It's weird, spooky, strange, ironic and tragic."
Convicted murderer and cult leader Charles Manson at one time had ambitions to become a rock star.
According to Manson biographer Jeff Guinn, this led to Manson desperately trying to hobnob with
celebrities to find a way into the industry, but these musical ambitions never panned out.
Yet, either through his own direct contacts, or via members of his cult "The Family,"
Manson crossed paths with quite a few musical giants of the late 1960s.
It all started when Dennis Wilson of The Beach Boys picked up two hitchhikers who turned out to
be female members of The Family. From there, Manson weaseled his way into Wilson's world,
also meeting Mike Love, another member of The Beach Boys:
"I only recall meeting him once - that was when we were invited to Dennis's home, to have… dinner."
Manson was disturbingly adept at manipulating introductions,
meeting both Neil Young, who allegedly referred to Manson's musical talents as being "quite good,"
and producer and songwriter Terry Melcher. And Melcher’s home, in fact, was the intended target
the night pregnant actress Sharon Tate and five others were murdered by members of "The Family."
But the celebrity with the strangest connection to Manson was probably Angela Lansbury, whose
daughter, Deirdre "Didi" Lansbury, actually fell in with The Family for a brief time.
According to Guinn, Didi was still in high school when she met Manson, who brought her
into the fold because she let him spend freely with her mother's credit cards. Luckily for Didi,
the scam didn't last long, and her usefulness to The Family ran out. It’s still terrifying
to think how easily the charismatic madman duped her and other celebrities of the time.
In 1980, Jack Nicholson stepped into the utterly terrifying shoes of Jack Torrance,
a writer and caretaker of the Overlook Hotel in The Shining. While the film became a cult classic,
Nicholson’s creepy performance makes one wonder how the actor played a sadistic killer so easily.
Nicholson actually sat in on two very high-profile murder trials prior to landing the lead role.
According to Nicholson: A Biography, the actor had been friends with Sharon Tate,
and showed up to the courtroom of the 1970 Charles Manson murder trial almost every day.
Later in the '70s, Nicholson bought a vacation home in Aspen, Colorado, his neighbors being
French pop singer/actress Claudine Longet and her Olympic skier husband, Vladimir "Spider" Sabich.
In 1976, Longet killed her husband, claiming Sabich was showing her how to use a gun when
it accidentally discharged. Remarkably, she only received a thirty-day sentence.
It's widely believed that Longet attacked Sabich in a jealous frenzy, as the skier was allegedly
looking to leave her because he was unwilling to give up his playboy lifestyle, as reported
in GQ. Nicholson was at the Longet trial too, where, according to Nicholson: A Biography,
"[He was] mystified by the lovely face of a woman driven to kill.”
While Superman may be invincible, the same couldn’t be said about George Reeves,
who played the red-and-blue caped crusader in the '50s TV series, The Adventures of Superman.
As recounted by Biography, Reeves gained major success when he took on the role of Clark Kent
in 1952. Along the way, as dramatized in the 2006 film Hollywoodland, he began an affair
with Toni Mannix, the wife of MGM executive Eddie Mannix. Allegedly, Eddie knew all about
it. But the offscreen intrigue really began when the actor's series was canceled in 1957.
“We’re canceled.”
Shortly after, George broke up with Toni and began
dating Leonore Lemmon. According to The Guardian, it was, quote,
“a mighty blow" to Toni — especially after George put a restraining order in place.
In June 1959, police were called to George’s home in Los Angeles,
where he was found on his bed with a bullet through his head.
“Coroner's ruling it indicated suicide.”
Many have speculated that it was really murder, with Toni or Eddie to blame. Not much came out
in the years afterward, but that changed in 1999. That was when Beverly Hills publicist
Edward Lozzi revealed that he knew what had happened and only waited to talk until all the
key players in the crime were dead. As Lozzi dished on Extra, Toni reportedly confessed
to him on her deathbed that Eddie had his, quote, "thugs" come and kill Reeves for her.
When Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her Los Angeles home in August 1962,
the cause of death was listed as a suicide due to
an overdose of sedatives. But many have speculated that foul play was involved.
As revealed by Marilyn Monroe: The Biography, she had an affair with President John F. Kennedy — but
he wasn't the only Kennedy she was sweet on. As biographer James Spada told People,
she was supposedly, quote, "passed off" to brother Bobby Kennedy. But Spada also alleged that Bobby
was present the night of Monroe's death. Though he didn’t call either Kennedy brother a murderer,
he suggested a cover-up of the affair would still have been imperative. According to him,
"The Kennedys could not risk this coming out, because it could have brought down the President."
Definitely more of a coincidence than an outright connection,
The Washington Post has reported that, in 1963, actor Bill Paxton witnessed one of
John. F. Kennedy’s last public speeches before the president was assassinated in Dallas.
After returning to Dallas in 2007, and tracking down KTVT-TV's video footage of the day,
Paxton was able to find himself in the crowd, then age 8, seated atop the shoulders of a man he'd
met on that fateful day of November 22nd, 1963. The photo was published by the Dallas Observer,
proving the late actor-director had seen JFK in person on the day he died.
Speaking with Texas Monthly and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram,
Paxton recalled hearing about Kennedy's death. He was at recess at the Catholic
school he attended when the students were told to return to the classroom:
“I remember the nuns were all crying, and they told us to put our heads down on the desks,
and then the news came through on the radio that [President Kennedy] had died.”
Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle was at the apex
of his career when his association with the death of Virginia Rappe sent him plummeting.
The year was 1921, and Arbuckle had just signed a deal with Paramount Pictures which would pay
him $3 million over three years to star in 18 silent films. To celebrate Arbuckle's success,
a friend threw a party, which is where Arbuckle encountered actress Virginia Rappe and her friend,
convicted fraudster Maude Delmont. Four days later, Rappe died of a ruptured bladder,
and Delmont went straight to the press, accusing Arbuckle of having sexually assaulted Rappe.
At his trial, Arbuckle maintained he was never alone with Rappe and helped move her
to another room after he found her vomiting in the bathroom. Arbuckle’s defense also
presented evidence that Rappe suffered from a chronic bladder condition, and that her autopsy
didn’t reveal any signs of assault. After three trials — two hung juries
and an acquittal — Arbuckle tried to return to his career,
but he was barred from appearing on screen. He died ten years later, in relative obscurity.
Who would have ever thought comedic silent film legend Charlie Chaplin could have been wrapped
up in someone's death? Both the movie The Cat's Meow and TV series Drunk History have
explored the possibility. As recounted in The Vintage News, newspaper publisher
William Randolph Hearst hosted producer and famous silent-flick director
Thomas Ince on his yacht to celebrate Ince's birthday in 1924. The star-studded party included
Chaplin and Marion Davies, who was Hearst's mistress and Chaplin's co-star in The Gold Rush.
Ince, who was known to have ulcers, suddenly left the boat after some stomach irritation
and was said to have died three days later in his Los Angeles home. While the official cause
of death was listed as heart failure, rumors flew that Hearst actually shot
Ince — by mistake. The Vintage News has revealed that some even claimed the Los
Angeles Times ran the following headline that they quickly took out of circulation:
"Movie Producer Shot on Hearst Yacht!"
According to the New England Historical Society, Davies was allegedly having an
affair with her co-star, and Hearst's shot – if he fired one – was intended to be for Chaplin,
with Ince accidentally getting in the way. What made things even more suspicious,
as reported in The Guardian, was that Ince's corpse was very quickly cremated after his death,
preventing a potential gunshot wound from being discovered.
Soul legend Sam Cooke was brutally slain in a seedy LA motel in 1964,
and to this day, the details surrounding his death don't make much sense. According to People,
the crooner was dining at an upscale restaurant with friends and Elisa Boyer,
reportedly a romantic interest, while his wife, Barbara Campbell, was at home.
Although Cooke made plans to meet his friends at a club later on,
he instead ended up 15 miles away at the Hacienda Motel,
where he checked in with Boyer. She claimed the singer then tried to rape her, but she managed
to escape with both of their clothes — along with Cooke's wallet. The crooner was allegedly furious
and ran to the motel manager Bertha Franklin, whom he believed was hiding Boyer. In self-defense,
Franklin shot Cooke, who fell to the ground, dead, and then she beat him with a broomstick.
A lot of the story doesn't make sense, such as Cooke being shot with a .22 pistol while
the gun registered to Franklin was a .32. But perhaps the biggest clue of something amiss
was what gospel singer Etta James claimed in her biography, Rage to Survive. As it turns out, James
actually saw Cooke's body before he was buried and claimed his head was almost, quote, "disconnected
from his shoulders," with the corpse, quote, “badly mangled." As she wrote,
"No woman with a broomstick could have inflicted that kind of beating against a strong,
full-grown man."
As reported by NBC News, The Doors were in their heyday in the mid-to-late '60s,
yet by the early '70s, frontman Jim Morrison succumbed to alcoholism, and after recording
the band's final album in 1971, he moved to Paris. In July, he was found dead in his
bathtub by his girlfriend, Pamela Courson, who claimed the singer was, quote, "feeling ill"
and had decided to take a bath. The official cause of death was listed as heart failure.
Interestingly enough, singer Marianne Faithfull, fellow '60s icon and ex-girlfriend of Mick Jagger,
finally had something to say about Morrison's death — in 2014. She spoke to MoJo magazine,
claiming that her heroin-dealing boyfriend at the time, Jean de Breteuil,
indirectly caused the rock star's death by giving him heroin, leading to an overdose.
Rap legend Tupac Shakur died on September 13th, 1996,
from drive-by gunshot wounds received six days prior,
when he was leaving a Las Vegas boxing match with Suge Knight, the former CEO of Death Row Records.
Theories abound on who to blame, with the 2018 TV miniseries Unsolved: The Murders of Tupac and the
Notorious B.I.G. having recently explored the case. A decade earlier, the Los Angeles Times
ran a story suggesting rapper/actor Sean “Diddy” Combs was behind the killing. Relying on alleged
FBI reports, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Chuck Philips claimed that an attack on Shakur at Quad
Studios two years before his death was, quote, "orchestrated" by Diddy as retaliation for Shakur
not signing with Diddy's record label. Combs immediately rejected the claims, and the newspaper
retracted its story a month later, with Philips stating the FBI reports were, quote, “fabricated.”
The incident hasn’t stopped others from blaming Combs though.
In 2011, former LAPD detective Greg Kading published Murder Rap,
alleging the complicity of both Combs and Knight. Yet again, Diddy denied the claims.
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts,
please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).