Poor health, extreme OCD, or just being tired of it all — which celebs decided that being alone
in their final days was better than staying in the public eye? Stay tuned to find out.
The world was shocked when pioneering rock star David Bowie died of cancer in 2016,
at age 69. Other than those closest to the musician,
no one knew Bowie was gravely ill. Always one with reclusive tendencies,
Bowie hid himself from the public before he died. His final interview was nine whole years before
his death, when he spoke about his unforgettable guest slot on Ricky Gervais' sitcom "Extras."
"Sort of chased ratings and made it lowest common denominator sort of comedy, catchphrases and wigs,
I think I've sold out to be honest, but -" "Yeah."
As Rolling Stone noted about his low profile -
"He grew so secretive that he chided one of his closest collaborators, Tony Visconti,
for revealing that they watched British comedy during studio breaks."
During his final years, he also hid his identity from the public,
with William Boyd writing in The Guardian that Bowie often went out in public carrying a Greek
newspaper to make onlookers think that he was, quote, "just some Greek guy who looks like him."
After making one final public appearance in December 2015, Bowie was never seen again.
According to those closest to him, Michael Jackson died a virtual recluse.
The King of Pop's seclusion was precipitated by the many child abuse allegations he faced.
According to the Australian news agency ABC, despite being acquitted on all charges,
he largely disappeared from public life following his infamous trial. Despite dying in isolation,
Jackson had high hopes for a comeback with his "This is it!" tour. However, as The Independent
noted, he only agreed to do the tour because he had no other option, facing financial ruin in
the aftermath of the trial and various other legal issues. A source told the Daily Mail -
"The money was just unbelievable and all his financial people were telling him he was facing
bankruptcy. But Michael still resisted. He didn't think he could pull it off."
Of course, the concert sadly never materialized,
as Jackson died before it could begin. He was 50 years old.
Queen superstar Freddie Mercury spent his final years in isolation,
largely due to the bigotry surrounding AIDS, with which Mercury was diagnosed
in 1987. He died in 1991 at the age of 45, just one day after publicly revealing his diagnosis.
The Guardian reported that Mercury spent the last two years of his life hidden away
in his London mansion. His bandmate and friend Brian May explained to The Telegraph that press
intrusion into Mercury's private life led to his need for insulation. Tellingly,
Mercury recorded music toward the end of his life, singing,
"I don't want pity. Just a safe place to hide."
Moreover, Mercury didn't want the public to see him in the throes of the deadly illness,
with his best friend Mary Austin telling the Daily Mail -
"On one occasion he turned to me and said sadly, 'To think I used to be so handsome.'
I got up and had to leave the room. It was too upsetting."
As noted by Australian news agency ABC, chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer lived out his final
years as a fugitive. According to The New York Times, following an illegal 1992 chess match
in then-Yugoslavia, which was under sanction by the U.S. government, Fischer was a wanted man.
Fischer's legacy was sullied by his reputation as a controversy magnet. In a bizarre move,
he briefly emerged from hiding following 9/11 to praise the horrific tragedy. As
chronicled by The Atlantic, Fischer spent his final years peddling racist
theories and surrounding himself with Nazi memorabilia. Despite being of Jewish origin,
Fischer erroneously claimed that his downfall was the result of a Jewish conspiracy.
According to the Los Angeles Times, by 2005,
Fischer was in hiding in Iceland, where he died three years later, aged 64.
Famed for directing iconic '80s films such as "The Breakfast Club" and "Sixteen Candles,"
John Hughes was characterized by his secretive persona, largely keeping to himself.
In a 2010 Vanity Fair article, it was revealed that John Hughes didn't have many friends,
having been irreparably devastated by the death of his close pal and collaborator John Candy in 1994,
which was a major catalyst for his decision to stop directing films. Instead,
Hughes decided to focus on his family life, with his son, John Hughes III saying -
"I think he looked at family as a sort of wall. It gave him a sort of
protection for not getting drawn out of the house. We were his social activity."
So, when Hughes died suddenly of a heart attack in 2009,
aged just 59, there were reports that the late director was, quote,
"a recluse who disappeared somewhere in Illinois.", according to Roger Ebert.
Cult comic Bill Hicks' influence on the comedy landscape is undeniable.
"Saw a sign by the road in Tennessee once that said 'Dirt for sale.'
What a great country we live in huh?"
His status as such a legendary and influential figure seems difficult
to reconcile with his youth: He was a mere 32-years-old at the time of his 1994
death from pancreatic cancer, an extremely rare illness for anyone under the age of 50.
As chronicled by Entertainment Weekly, after making his final public appearance at Carolines
Comedy Club, where the ailing comic performed for just over half an hour, Hicks disappeared from
public view and returned to his parents' house to die. His brother revealed to the outlet -
"You could tell his mental outlook had changed. He said to me, 'You know, man, I've been working
my whole life for this thing to be coming together, and now I find out the joke's on me.'"
Secluded in his parents' home, and reportedly secretive about his condition, Dan Hind told
The Independent that Hicks, quote, "spent his last few weeks re-reading 'Lord of the Rings'."
Layne Staley was the frontman of the iconic grunge band, Alice In Chains. Toward the end of
his all-too-brief life, he became a recluse. Refusing to speak to those who loved him,
Staley's friends and family had no idea that he was slowly wasting away in his apartment.
According to Far Out Magazine, during his final years he neglected himself to an extreme extent,
which resulted in a bout of gangrene. In his heartbreaking final interview, he admitted -
"I know I'm near death. I did crack and heroin for years. I
never wanted to end my life this way. I know I have no chance. It's too late."
According to Billboard, Staley was found dead on April 5, 2002,
but due to his reclusiveness, no one found his body until it had begun to
decompose, and the 34-year-old had to be identified through post mortem tests.
Zsa Zsa Gabor was a flamboyant, glamorous socialite who soaked up the media spotlight.
But the erstwhile party girl spent her last years as a recluse
due to ill health before her death in 2016.
According to TMZ, Gabor's husband, Frederic Prinz Von Anhalt, attempted to make her final
years as happy as possible, but in an interview with RadarOnline two years before her death,
Gabor's daughter, Francesca Hilton, said her mother's solitary life
was far from happy, and that she wasn't always allowed to see her.
"Yeah sure, I mean Francesca can visit her mother I mean but I don't want anything negative here."
"Every time I go to the hospital they say they
don't know what name she's under, they can't tell me."
According to Express, there have also been claims that Von
Anhalt purposely kept Gabor a prisoner in her home, with author Wendy Leigh alleging -
"Frederic now makes all public statements on Zsa Zsa's behalf, monitors all her calls
and bans her from receiving visitors. He also has complete control over her finances,
including the £10 million mausoleum where she is a prisoner."
However, Von Anhalt insisted that Gabor's decision to go into hiding was her own, telling Express -
"She just doesn't want anyone to see her in a wheelchair.
Zsa Zsa wants to be remembered in her prime."
After some erratic behavior, Pink Floyd's original frontman
Syd Barrett was expelled from the band in 1968 and went into hiding. According to The Guardian,
he moved into his mother Winifred's basement in Cambridge and boarded up the windows to, quote,
"keep out the eyes of the press and fans." He died in that very home in 2006, at age 60.
In 1975, Barrett briefly emerged from hiding to check in on his former bandmates recording
their classic album "Wish You Were Here," but according to accounts in the documentary
"The Story of Wish You Were Here," no one recognized him because he looked so different.
But Barrett's recess from isolation was fleeting, and he soon returned to his
mother's house. In 2001, Roger Waters told The Guardian that he never spoke to him after 1975.
Acting legend Marlon Brando went from highly publicized
superstar to recluse towards the end of his life. As director Stevan Riley told
the Los Angeles Times, the actor was a, quote, "prisoner of his own fame."
As reported by The Telegraph, Brando avoided social interactions during the
last few years of his life and would only communicate with friends over the phone.
His retreat from public life followed the tragic death of his daughter Cheyenne in 1995,
which was precipitated by Brando's son killing Cheyenne's allegedly abusive boyfriend.
Brando was known for his reclusive tendencies, but as his health deteriorated later in life,
he retreated further, not wanting to upset his friends and family with news of his imminent
demise. His daughter Rebecca recounted their last conversation to GQ, saying -
"It was just a few weeks before he died. He didn't want everyone […] to know how
bad he was. We expressed our love for one another and that was it."
Brando died in 2004, aged 80.
Hollywood icon Greta Garbo was famous for her reclusive persona,
having given up her career at the age of 35 to lead a solitary life.
Auction house Sotheby's sold a collection of letters written by Garbo in which she
expressed her unrelenting sadness and loneliness, writing in one -
"I am almost always alone and talk to myself.
I drive to the beach and take walks and that's always marvellous. But that's it."
Moreover, her struggles within Hollywood shone a light on her
motivation for quitting the biz, as she wrote -
"It's been a difficult time, it all went wrong."
Of Garbo's last days, the Los Angeles Times wrote,
"She was a brooding old woman beset with health problems, living a ghostly existence, shuttling
between her home and the hospital and bidding farewell to close friends as she neared death."
Garbo's friend, Raymond Daum, told the outlet that
in the lead-up to her death in 1990 she was more withdrawn from people,
and she had once told him that she had an aversion to social interaction, saying -
"I can't help it. I was born that way."
Billionaire Howard Hughes was a renowned innovator who experienced lifelong mental
illness at a time when mental health conditions were stigmatized and poorly understood.
In recent years, the magnate's illness has been characterized as obsessive compulsive disorder,
which led to him shielding himself from the outside world. Raymond D. Fowler, who conducted
a psychological autopsy on Hughes, explained to the American Psychological Association -
"He was convinced that he was going to be contaminated from the outside."
James Phelan's seminal novel about the billionaire's final years,
"Howard Hughes: The Hidden Years," detailed the detrimental effects of Hughes' reclusiveness. His
once-pristine appearance had been reduced to long, unkempt hair and a beard that reached his waist,
while, quote, "his fingernails were two inches long, and his toenails grew and grew until they
resembled yellow corkscrews." According to The New York Times, his reclusiveness was so severe
that, at the time of the 70-year-old's death in 1976, he had weighed only 87 pounds.
Former "Glee" star Mark Salling died by suicide in 2018, at age 35. At the time of his demise,
Salling faced several years in prison after pleading guilty
to possessing over 50,000 child sex abuse images. Following his plea deal, the actor
reportedly went into hiding as he awaited his incarceration, with a source telling People -
"He was close with his family, but as far as friends go — he maybe had
those acquaintances he communicated with every once in a while, but he pretty much
isolated himself. He didn't really have a relationship with too many people,"
An ex-friend told Us Magazine that the isolation may not have been self-imposed, however,
due to his pals wanting to cut all ties with him. According to the former friend -
"He was in a dark place. He was very lonely. He was very depressed. He was
going to prison soon. Whoever was in his life pretty much cut him off."
If you or someone you know may be the victim of child abuse,
please contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline
at 1-800-4-A-Child (1-800-422-4453) or contact their live chat services.