Losing a celebrity is always sad news. Whether you're a fan or you're just shocked by the details of a tragic death, there's no denying that a celebrity's passing can be hard to bear.
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00:00It's always sad when a celebrity dies, and some deaths are depressing at face value because
00:05they come too early or involve tragic accidents.
00:08But what's really creepy and bizarre is when different celebrities die in really similar
00:12ways.
00:13When two relatively young people died only months apart in the same house, people naturally
00:18assumed something weird must be going on.
00:20But no one has ever been able to prove that the deaths of actress Brittany Murphy at 32
00:25and her husband, Simon Monjack, five months later at 40 were anything other than common
00:29illnesses.
00:30When Murphy died suddenly in her house in 2009, rumors swirled that it was because of
00:35anorexia or illegal drugs.
00:37But when the autopsy came back, it showed she died of acute pneumonia and severe anemia,
00:42and while there were drugs in her body, they were all over-the-counter meds.
00:46Monjack said she had been suffering flu-like symptoms and was tired before she died, but
00:50that was all.
00:51Monjack had a heart condition and was overweight, but when he suddenly died five months after
00:55Murphy in the same house, it was also to pneumonia and anemia just like his wife.
01:00But some don't believe this was a simple coincidence.
01:02There have been theories that their house was full of toxic mold, or that metal present
01:06in Murphy's hair meant she was poisoned, or that her mother killed them both.
01:10As it stands now, though, there is no conclusive evidence for any of this.
01:14The similarities between the deaths of Edward Kennedy and John McCain, two political heavyweights,
01:19were impossible to ignore.
01:21When John McCain announced he was ill, The New York Times even ran an article titled
01:25Eerie Parallels Between John McCain and Edward Kennedy.
01:28Both were diagnosed with the same relatively rare and aggressive form of brain cancer while
01:33in the middle of major health care debates in the Senate.
01:36Both lived just over a year after being diagnosed, and both died on the same day, August 25th,
01:41nine years apart.
01:43Kennedy announced he had glioblastoma in 2008.
01:46He disappeared from the Senate while he had treatment but returned for a key Medicare
01:50vote.
01:51When he died 15 months later at age 77, McCain gave a eulogy at his memorial service.
01:56Even though they sat on different sides of the aisle in Congress, they were good friends.
02:00McCain received his own diagnosis of glioblastoma in 2017.
02:05He voted against repealing Obamacare days after he announced his diagnosis.
02:09He also left the Senate for a while to receive treatment, but he still died 13 months after
02:13being diagnosed in 2018 at age 81.
02:17But Ted and I shared the sentiment that a fight not joined was a fight not enjoyed."
02:23Natalie Wood's passing is one of the most infamous, unexplained deaths in Hollywood
02:27history.
02:28That's why it's absolutely bizarre that just over four years later, another beautiful actress
02:33met an eerily similar fate.
02:35Both Wood and Carol Wayne, famous for appearing in sketches on The Tonight Show with Johnny
02:39Carson, mysteriously drowned in the Pacific Ocean after arguments with their significant
02:44others.
02:45On Thanksgiving weekend in 1981, Wood was on a yacht off the coast of California with
02:50her husband Robert Wagner, as well as Christopher Walken and the boat's captain.
02:54She was found dead at age 43 in the water on November 29th, which was odd, since she
02:59was famously afraid of the ocean.
03:01The captain swore he saw a fight between Wood and Wagner the night before she was found.
03:05Despite this, and the bruises on Wood's body, her death was ruled accidental.
03:10In January 1985, Carol Wayne was vacationing with friends and her boyfriend Edward Durston
03:15on the Pacific coast of Mexico.
03:17She was later found floating dead in the ocean.
03:20Like Wood, she was afraid of water and couldn't swim.
03:23It was reported that the last time Wayne was seen alive, she and Durston were having a
03:26massive argument.
03:28Suspicions were raised, but her death was also ruled accidental.
03:32She was just 42.
03:33Comedians metaphorically die on stage all the time, but it's rare that their lives literally
03:39end there, which makes the deaths of Tommy Cooper and Ian Cognito all the weirder.
03:43Both British funnymen suffered heart attacks in front of live audiences almost 35 years
03:49to the day apart, and since comedians often do strange things in their acts, neither audience
03:54thought anything was wrong at the time.
03:56Cooper was performing on the hit TV program Live From Her Majesties on April 15th, 1984.
04:02Millions tuned in to watch.
04:04Cooper was in the middle of his routine when he suddenly dropped to his knees.
04:07Since he was known for slapstick and improv, no one, not even the people backstage, thought
04:11anything bad had happened.
04:13The audience kept laughing.
04:15Eventually, the presenter figured out it wasn't a joke and called for a commercial break.
04:19Cooper was taken to the hospital, where he was declared dead.
04:22On April 11th, 2019, Ian Cognito was performing a stand-up set in England.
04:27He was also known for his flamboyant performances, and he had made a joke about having a heart
04:32attack or stroke only minutes earlier.
04:34When he sat down, put his head back, and started twitching, it seemed like just a funny callback.
04:39Once again, the audience laughed as the comedian died of a heart attack.
04:42After a few minutes, someone finally called an ambulance, but Cognito was gone.
04:47On December 31st, 1997, Michael L. Kennedy, the son of political giant Robert F. Kennedy,
04:53died after colliding with a tree while skiing with his family.
04:56Less than a week later, almost the exact same thing happened to politician and musician
05:00Sonny Bono.
05:02Both men had crazy youths of excess and fame, and both became more serious once they got
05:06older, and then they both met their end the same way.
05:10Kennedy was in Aspen, Colorado with his extended family when the tragedy happened.
05:14In hindsight, it seems obvious someone was going to get hurt.
05:16The Kennedy family had apparently been playing football on skis for generations.
05:21While Michael was an extremely talented skier, that afternoon he lost control and crashed
05:26into a tree, resulting in major head injuries.
05:29Tests to stabilize him failed, and he was pronounced dead at a hospital about 90 minutes
05:33later.
05:34Six days later, Congressman Bono was skiing with his own family in California.
05:37He left in the afternoon to go ski alone, and when he didn't come back that evening,
05:41his family reported him missing.
05:43The ski patrol found Bono in a wooded area.
05:45He, too, had collided into a tree sometime in the afternoon, resulting in massive head
05:50injuries that killed him.
05:51Actors Teresa Graves, Dennis Patrick, and Royce Applegate might not be household names,
05:57but they all found a decent amount of fame around the same era.
06:00Their careers even overlapped, with Graves and Patrick both appearing in episodes of
06:04The Rookies, while Patrick and Applegate both showed up on Dallas, The Streets of San Francisco,
06:09and The Mod Squad.
06:10Unfortunately, their deaths in house fires in Los Angeles also overlapped over the same
06:1412-week period.
06:16On October 10, 2002, Teresa Graves, who starred on the 70s show Get Christy Love, was alone
06:21in her house when a faulty space heater started a fire that caused major damage.
06:26She was found unconscious but couldn't be revived at the hospital.
06:29She was 54.
06:31Just three days later, 84-year-old Dennis Patrick was home with his dog when a fire
06:35started.
06:36Sadly, both he and the dog died and were found next to each other after firefighters doused
06:40the flames.
06:41Royce Applegate appeared in dozens of TV shows and films over his career, but on January
06:461, 2003, less than three months after Graves and Patrick passed, his L.A. home caught fire.
06:52He was found dead at the age of 63.
06:55While heroin overdoses are not unheard of in celebrity circles, the similarities in
07:00the deaths of comedian Lenny Bruce and actors Robert Pastorelli and Philip Seymour Hoffman
07:04make them even more depressing.
07:06All three men died in their 40s, but Bruce was the youngest.
07:09The counterculture comedian was arrested numerous times, including for drug possession.
07:14In 1966, he was found dead on his bathroom floor of a heroin overdose, the needle still
07:19sticking out of his arm.
07:21He was just 40.
07:22Pastorelli was most famous for starring on the CBS sitcom Murphy Brown.
07:26He battled a heroin addiction and was being investigated for his girlfriend's death when
07:30he died.
07:31But his death was ruled accidental when he overdosed in 2004.
07:34He was found dead on the floor of his bathroom with a needle in his arm at the age of 49.
07:39Hoffman was one of the greatest actors of his generation, and while he had battled drug
07:43addiction in his youth, he'd been sober 23 years by 2012.
07:48But that year, he fell off the wagon.
07:50The following year, he went into rehab.
07:52Sadly, it wasn't enough.
07:54In 2014, he, too, was found dead on his bathroom floor of an overdose with a needle still in
07:59his arm.
08:00He was 46.
08:01There's things I want to do, you know, there's things I want to do, and I'm not gonna do
08:05them if I keep doing this.
08:07John Gregory Dunn was a journalist, screenwriter, and novelist happily married to the author
08:11Joan Didion, with whom he had one daughter.
08:14Michael Whitney was an actor unhappily married to the much more famous model Twiggy, with
08:19whom he, too, had one daughter.
08:21And while their deaths happened almost exactly 20 years apart, they had some odd similarities.
08:26Whitney was already estranged from his wife of six years when he sat down to dinner with
08:30his young daughter at a restaurant in New York City on November 30, 1983.
08:35But he didn't get to enjoy the meal, as he suffered a massive heart attack.
08:39He was rushed to a hospital, but doctors failed to revive him.
08:42Twiggy was onstage in a play at the time and wasn't told of her husband's passing until
08:46the show ended.
08:47Dunn was also sitting down to dinner with family in New York City, this time with his
08:51wife at their home, when he died on December 30, 2003.
08:55He also died of a massive heart attack before he could enjoy his last meal with his loved
08:59ones.
09:00Parallels and natural deaths are one thing, but similarities in murder are even more disturbing.
09:06Actor Phil Hartman and NFL star Steve McNair were both shot in their sleep by women with
09:10substance abuse issues with whom they had deteriorating romantic relationships.
09:15And both women then killed themselves.
09:17Hartman found fame on Saturday Night Live and then branched out successfully into other
09:21TV shows and movies.
09:23But his marriage was tumultuous, and his wife Brynn had issues with cocaine and alcohol.
09:28On the night that he died, he and Brynn had an argument over her drug use.
09:32Then Hartman went to bed.
09:33At some point, Brynn got out one of their guns and shot her sleeping husband three times
09:37in the head and chest.
09:39She got drunk, made some phone calls, drove to a friend's house, and then went back home
09:43to see what she'd done.
09:44The police showed up.
09:45Eventually, Brynn locked herself in the bathroom and took her own life.
09:49McNair was married but had a girlfriend on the side.
09:51His lover, Sahel Kazemi, knew he was cheating on her with even more women, so she cheated
09:56on him back.
09:57Two days before she killed him, she got a DUI.
10:00Knowing their relationship was unraveling, she bought a gun, and as he slept on his couch
10:04in 2009, she shot him four times in the head and chest.
10:08She then turned the gun on herself.
10:11If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide
10:15Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK.