People Are Talking About The Most Shocking Celebrity Deaths That Don't Get Enough Attention
BuzzFeed
·14-min read
Recently, Reddit user lammastide posed the question, "Which lesser-known celebrity death really affected you/do you think about often?" to the people of r/popculturechat. Here were their devastating responses:
Warning: Mentions of child abuse, assault, domestic violence, and murder.
1."Nelsan Ellis aka Lafayette from True Blood. That show was huge at the time, and somehow after it ended, I didn't really see him in anything else. I think he did a great job with that character for its time, and I've wanted to see more of him in other roles before his untimely death at apparently only 39. I'm not sure what else he was struggling with (only read about alcohol) or if he had any other medical history, but his passing was really sudden to me."
2."Adrienne Shelly is mine. I loved her so much and dragged my mom to see Waitress opening weekend because of her (and my childhood crush on Keri Russell)."
3."Dominique Dunne. Murdered by her abusive boyfriend who all but got away with it. The injustice burns me."
4."Lee Thompson Young, I loved The Famous Jett Jackson. I was heartbroken when he died. His mental health issues were so disheartening."
5."Christina Grimmie. She was shot by a crazed 'fan' in the meet and greet line after her concert. I used to watch her videos alllll the time in middle/high school, and I was devastated when she was killed right as she started releasing her own albums. I really think she would have been big, but now we will never know. I think about her a lot."
6."Mia Zapata's murder always upsets me. That some fucking loser piece of shit raped and killed her makes me so angry. She was a fucking amazing frontwoman in an emerging music scene and would have absolutely gone on to be massive. Enormous loss."
7."Every couple of days I think about Naya Rivera and how she died. It always makes me feel strange."
8."Anton Yelchin's death. It was such a bizarre random accident ending the life of a wonderful actor. I've liked him in everything I saw him in, and I still sometimes think about the work he could have done."
9."Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes for me. I watched the documentary she was working on before her death, and it haunts me. She was an incredible artist with so much damn potential that we never got to see realized."
10."Judith Barsi breaks my heart every time I think of her. She was the voice of Ducky in The Land Before Time and Anne-Marie in All Dogs Go to Heaven. Just so sad."
11."I just learned of Kirsty MacColl's freak accident death while diving in Mexico with her kids, and it's also horrifying, from the accident itself to the way the Mexican government handled it. It's so sad and will probably stick with me for a while."
12."Peaches Geldof dying the same way her mother did. And her babies being found next to her body."
13."Jonathan Brandis. I had the biggest crush on him as a teenager. SeaQuest DSV was my favorite show. It was heartbreaking to hear he had passed."
14."Phil Hartman. He was such a funny guy. His comedic timing was chef’s kiss."
15."Elizabeth Wurtzel, author of Prozac Nation and other books speaking candidly about mental illness and addiction. She was a trailblazer along with Susanna Kaysen when it came to bravely giving a voice to mental illness in a time where it was taboo to speak about it. She passed February 2020, and I still think of her often."
16."Grant Imahara, his death was a big one for me. He was still so young."
17."Chi Chi DeVayne. The moment I saw her on Drag Race, I loved her. She was so talented, so beautiful in drag and out, and just so sweet and charismatic. I followed her so closely during her battle with scleroderma, and she died in August 2020, so there wasn't much else to focus on besides the BLM marches and staying home otherwise. It felt so futile, watching her try to seek donations so she could get medical care (seriously fuck US 'healthcare'), seeing her beautiful face grow thinner and more sickly by the day. I think about her all the time. She was truly a gorgeous person inside and out, and the world [will] be so much less lovely without her in it."
18."Jeff Buckley. I’ve always loved his music, but when I was a teenager and found out that he was dead, it totally reached new proportions. I used to sit in my room and cry to his music, thinking that we had a connection beyond this simple thing called ‘life.’ I also had a ridiculous crush on him."
19."Brad Renfro, a great actor in Bully and Sleepers who died too soon."
20."Stephen 'tWitch' Boss. That hit me HARD. I used to watch So You Think You Can Dance religiously, and he was one of my favorite contestants ever. Then he became an all-star, met his wife on the show, and was a judge for a season or two…such an incredibly talented dancer."
21.Finally, "IDK if this counts as 'lesser known,' but I wish we knew what happened to Brittany Murphy. I have so many questions. Like, how does a young rich woman just die from pneumonia? And then her husband five months later, too? I don’t think we’ll ever know the answers."
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
Opening up about the unusual reason she stopped living with her mum, Mel B’s daughter Phoenix said she moved out of their family home due to her mother’s underwear policy.
After he was snapped kissing a mystery woman, a source has said Natalie Portman is not “surprised” her ex-husband Benjamin Millepied moved on “pretty quickly” after their divorce.
"I had an item fall into the bottom of my cart and didn't notice it. I immediately returned to the store to explain and pay for the item. I was detained, and the police were called for a $10 item."
Now that Trump has secured a second term in the White House, he could theoretically make history as the first president to run the country from a prison cell