Is death final? Not if you're one of these celebs. While a handful of A-listers have
been brought back to life thanks to the magic of technology, there are a select few who
have actually been resurrected. Here are the celebs who died and were brought back to life.
Before Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx got sober in 2001 and became a passionate recovery advocate,
heroin nearly killed him. He wrote in a 2017 Los Angeles Times op-ed:
"As a matter of fact, it did. For two minutes in 1987 I was pronounced
clinically dead from an overdose."
Sixx was partying at Hollywood's Franklin Plaza Apartments when his heart gave out
due to a toxic mixture of heroin, cocaine, and alcohol. He admitted:
"I remember very little, but I know someone called an ambulance."
Newsweek pieced together the timeline, noting it was December 23rd when his dealer injected
him with the fatal dose. Before two shots of adrenaline brought the Motley Crue bassist
back to life, he had an out-of-body experience. Writing about the ordeal in The Dirt, Sixx noted:
"It felt as if something very gentle was grabbing my head and pulling me upward.
Above me, everything was bright white. I looked down and realized that I had left my body."
The deadly experience inspired the hit single "Kickstart My Heart." However,
according to Steven Adler , there were no adrenaline shots. He told Australia's Triple M:
"I dragged him into the shower with a broken hand [...] I put
the cold water on [...] and I started slapping him in the face with my cast."
When paramedics arrived, they, quote, "just pumped his chest with their hands and that was it."
Slash was partying in San Francisco when he experienced his brief trip to the other side.
He told Louder in 2015 that he had decided to indulge in
heroin — among other drugs — after a nasty fight with his fiancée.
In an interview with The Guardian, Slash remembered,
"These drug dealers came to my hotel room at 5am. They had everything and I took all of it."
He later went out into the hallway,
asked a maid where the elevator was, and collapsed. He told BBC Radio 5:
"I remember blacking out and then I remember there's a thing that happens
when paramedics wake you up out of a deep death thing like that where it's just, like,
this huge shock of energy and lights and voices [...] it's an unmistakable feeling."
What happened next? Slash explained to Louder:
"I came round in the hospital and checked myself out because we had a show the next
night [...] I guess that puts Axl not getting up on stage into perspective."
In June 2014, SNL star Tracy Morgan was left in critical condition when a tractor-trailer rammed
into the back of his limo bus – which caused it to overturn.
Three other passengers who were in the vehicle with Morgan were also taken to hospital,
while the SNL comic's longtime friend, fellow comedian and writer James McNair lost his life.
"He was a good man. It just hurts me to see that he's gone."
According to The Washington Post, Morgan suffered a broken leg, nose,
and ribs and was in a coma for two weeks. After regaining consciousness,
he experienced memory trouble, in addition to frequent headaches and nosebleeds.
Morgan eventually made a triumphant return to Saturday Night Live in October 2015.
During an interview with Complex, he revealed he died while in hospital:
"You're never going to be normal after you go through something like that. [...] I went to the
other side. This is not something I'm making up [...] Do you know what God said to me? He said,
'Your room ain't ready. I still got something for you to do.'
And here I am, doing an interview with you."
While most rock stars on this list experienced death due to drugs,
Josh Homme was having surgery on his leg in 2010 when complications arose. He told NME,
"I died on the table."
Although the Kyuss and Queens Of The Stone Age founder kept quiet
about the ordeal for a long time, Homme eventually revealed on the WTF podcast
that he had contracted MRSA – an antibiotic-resistant staph infection:
"I couldn't shake it because my immune system was so destroyed. People die of that all the time."
And so did he.
It happened as doctors were trying to put an oxygen tube down his throat.
He described the experience:
"There was no 'tunnel' [...] I kind of choked to death."
Today, he's thankful for the experience.
He explained in the podcast that being bedridden changed his life for the better:
"I was stuck in a room for four months and I had all these tubes
in my leg [...] It did the greatest thing it could
ever do to me [...] I'm really thankful for it because I know what's important."
Ozzy Osbourne has experienced more crazy moments in his life than most celebrities.
The wildest, though, was when he died in an ATV accident in 2003 – and then came back to life.
The moment was caught on-camera by the MTV crew as they were filming The Osbournes, where Ozzy
could be seen lying next to his ATV after riding across the fields of his British country estate.
Luckily, a security guard was close by, and it's thanks to him that the legendary
rocker survived. Sharon Osbourne told The Mirror:
"Thank God the security guard was there to revive him. He resuscitated him
and got him breathing and his pulse going again."
Though he suffered numerous injuries, he eventually made a full recovery.
It was July 13th, 1996, when Pantera frontman Phil Anselmo overdosed on heroin.
"I overdosed, and killed myself for about four minutes."
Noting that he felt, quote, "embarrassed," he vowed to never touch drugs again.
Asked if he remembers anything from his brush with death, he said:
"If you can imagine how you felt before you were born, it was that
level of insignificance and impossibility, so I stand hard by my anti-theist views."
When it comes to near-death experiences, Al Jourgensen , founder and frontman of industrial
metal band Ministry, is in a league of his own, being that he has battled heroin addiction for
nearly two decades. According to Loudwire, he has died from overdoses three separate times.
In the end, however,
it wasn't dying that motivated him to get clean — but an arachnid. As he told Louder:
"I was sleeping on some heroin dealer's couch, clinging onto the one last guitar that I hadn't
pawned yet, and I got this spider bite. The doctor wanted to take my f---ing arm off. I
was at death's door [...] I had a $500 a day habit, I'd gone through all my savings and
pawned off all but one of my guitars. I'd hit rock bottom [...] A light bulb went on over my
head and it all made sense: s--- now or get off the pot. If you want to die, die today."
If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, please call the Substance Abuse
and Mental Health Administration's 24/7 National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP. That's 1-800-662-4357.