It only makes sense that any celebrity will have to leave the public eye sooner or later, either through growing obscurity, a commitment to personal privacy, or at the time of their death. Sadly, some of these deaths occur prematurely, often as the result of accident or disease, and fans are left with a sense of intense bereavement. This motivates fans to clamor for any details about their favorite star's last moments, and sometimes this information is forthcoming. In all the cases to come, stars' final words have actually been recorded — or are at least thought to be accurate, based on the testimony of others. These are the haunting last words of celebrities.
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00:00The last words you speak in this life are a pretty big deal, so you better get them
00:05right. In the case of these celebrities, their final words left a pretty haunting impression
00:10among their family, friends, and fans.
00:14Old Blue Eyes, Francis Albert Sinatra, had a truly stunning career, both in the scope
00:20of his achievements and the length of his time in the limelight. He began performing
00:25music as a teenager and by his mid-twenties was starting to attract attention from far
00:30and wide. He became a sensation during the war years in the 1940s, launching a career
00:36that, with minor slumps, would not truly settle until his health began to fail him in the
00:411990s.
00:43At the end of his long and storied life, Sinatra's last words were few and were spoken only to
00:49his grief-stricken wife, Barbara. Lying in a Los Angeles hospital bed after a heart attack,
00:55Sinatra said,
00:56"'I'm losing it.'"
00:57Sinatra lost consciousness and passed away shortly after speaking these words, showing
01:02a prescience about his situation that may actually be seen as comforting.
01:08Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was not a celebrity in the traditional sense, at least not at
01:14the start of his career. Before the 2000s, Jobs was better defined as a tech entrepreneur
01:19and businessman, and of course he remained those things to the end of his life, a life
01:24cut short in October 2011 by pancreatic cancer. In the last decade or so of his life, as Jobs
01:31presided over Apple's rolling out of products like the iPod, iPhone, iPad, and ever-improved
01:38versions of the beloved Macintosh computers, he became a celebrity with an almost cult-like
01:44following. Clad in his signature black turtleneck, Jobs could command the attention of thousands
01:50in auditoriums, and many more watching remotely, as he unveiled Apple's newest creations and
01:56explained the implications they had for the world beyond.
02:00Today, we're introducing iPhone 4, the fourth generation iPhone.
02:09At the end of his eight-year battle with cancer, it seems as though he were looking into a
02:13world beyond as well. Jobs' last words, as heard by relatives, were,
02:18Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Oh, wow.
02:23Much like Frank Sinatra, who seemed to have known the end was upon him, so too did James
02:28Brown, the hardest-working man in show business. Brown's final words were strikingly similar
02:34to those of Sinatra as well. On the morning of Christmas 2006, Brown suffered congestive
02:40heart failure and uttered the words,
02:42I'm going away tonight, to his longtime friend and manager, Charles Bobbitt.
02:47Bobbitt initially didn't believe Brown was in any real danger but quickly realized the
02:52severity of the situation when Brown slipped into unconsciousness and took his final breaths.
02:59The godfather of soul had spent more than half a century putting on high-energy performances
03:04with his band, and his infamous drug abuse had done irreparable damage to his body.
03:09How did all of this trouble begin?
03:11Living in America.
03:17Brown was not the type to settle into retirement, though. Despite being weak, confused, and
03:23near death in the final days of 2006, Brown was scheduled to play a New Year's Eve show
03:28just a few days later.
03:32Looking back on the life and death of John Belushi, the latter of which occurred on March
03:365th, 1982, it's hard to believe the actor and comedian was just 33 years old when he
03:42died. From never-to-be-forgotten roles in movies like The Blues Brothers and Animal
03:48House to his time as one of the original seven cast members on Saturday Night Live, it's
03:53easy to think the man had been around much longer.
03:57More than a decade of hard drug use and a generally unhealthy lifestyle had wreaked
04:02havoc on the actor's body, and he looked to be a good decade older than he actually was
04:07by the last days of his life. His actual death came as a result of a drug overdose, after
04:12he was injected with a so-called speedball, a mixture of heroin and cocaine. His friend
04:19and drug dealer, Catherine Smith, was the one who injected the narcotics into Belushi
04:24and was the person who heard his last words,
04:27Just don't leave me alone.
04:28Smith did leave him alone, though, and would later serve time for manslaughter for the
04:33actor's tragic death.
04:36Despite becoming a real-life princess, the life story of Diana, Princess of Wales, was
04:41anything but a happily ever after tale. It was a life that commenced with an unhappy
04:47childhood in a broken home, and one in which she was rejected by much of her new family
04:52after marriage. It was a life in which a husband's affair led to a painfully public divorce,
04:58and a life cut short by tragedy. Unbeknownst to many, Diana did not die immediately following
05:04the tragic car crash both caused and documented by paparazzi who were tailing her car. In
05:10the immediate aftermath of the car crash, Diana reportedly had time to look about and,
05:16in confusion, say,
05:18My God, what happened?
05:20as she saw the lifeless bodies of two other passengers in the vehicle. The specific cause
05:25of Princess Diana's death was a tear to a vein in her lungs caused by the crash, doctors
05:31later found. It was a rare injury and, only adding to the tragedy, one that could have
05:36been avoided had Diana worn a seatbelt.
05:40When Heath Ledger died of an accidental prescription drug overdose in January 2008, he was at a
05:46point in which his career should have blasted off into the stratosphere. Instead, it was
05:52cut short at age 28. His final words show that the actor had no intention of dying,
05:58but he was indeed in some deep state of denial. On his last night, the Australian actor told
06:03his sister over the phone,
06:05Katie, Katie, I'm fine. I know what I'm doing.
06:09Ledger, who had earlier said he just needed to get some sleep, confided to his sister
06:14that he had taken several different prescription medications and said his fateful and far from
06:20accurate last words in response to her warning him against mixing so many different drugs.
06:25The Toxicology Report run on Ledger found a deadly mix of sleeping pills and opioids
06:30in his system at the time of his death. When he died, Ledger was father to a toddler. He
06:36had an Academy Award-winning role as the Joker in The Dark Knight in the Can, and every indication
06:42he believed he would indeed be fine and live on.
06:45I think you and I are destined to do this forever.
06:50The similarities between the lives and deaths of John Belushi and Chris Farley are so striking as
06:56to be unsettling. It's almost as if these two men's lives followed the same script.
07:01Like Belushi, Farley cut his teeth in comedy at the famed Second City Theatre in Chicago,
07:07and went on to national and even international fame, thanks to his years as a cast member on
07:12Saturday Night Live in the 1990s. Farley later ended up landing starring roles in several
07:19films that are unlikely to ever be forgotten, most notably his performance alongside SNL
07:24co-star David Spade in the comedy Tummy Boy.
07:28Tragically, Farley was just 33 when he died from a major drug overdose. His last known words are
07:34almost a word-for-word rehashing of Belushi's, too. Farley's last words spoken to another person
07:41were,
07:41"...don't leave me."
07:42His final words were spoken to a reported sex worker who, before leaving him to die alone in
07:48his Chicago apartment, stole his watch and took pictures of the actor and comedian as he lay on
07:54the floor, near death. The medical examiner said Farley had alcohol, cocaine, morphine,
08:01and marijuana in his system when he died, just months after participating in a rehab program.
08:07Everything about legendary fashion designer Coco Chanel was larger than life,
08:12right down to her last words. Born into poverty, Chanel pulled herself up by her bootstraps,
08:18using her wit, charm, and her undeniable ability as a designer and businesswoman
08:23to launch an empire that would include clothes, accessories, perfumes, and more.
08:29During World War II, Chanel became romantically involved with a Nazi intelligence officer,
08:35and when her nephew was imprisoned by the Germans, she even made a deal to use her contacts
08:40in European high society to work as a spy for the Nazis in exchange for his release.
08:46By the time of her death in 1971, the 87-year-old Chanel, or at least her brand,
08:52was a household name. Chanel clearly knew when the end was imminent,
08:57even though she didn't seem ill despite her advanced age. True to her character,
09:01her final words were a flourish that topped off an amazing, if controversial, life.
09:07On January 10th, 1971, Chanel reportedly said to her maid, Celine,
09:13"'You see, this is how you die.'" And shortly thereafter, she did just that,
09:19her bed becoming a deathbed.
09:21The last words spoken by legendary actor and comedian Groucho Marx would be haunting and
09:27tragic if spoken by most people lying on their deathbeds. But when Marx said,
09:32This is no way to live. Shortly before dying, he was making one last quip for the ages.
09:38So in this case, his last words are actually pretty hilarious, and it's okay to laugh.
09:43He was in on the joke.
09:44Marx was 86 years old when death came for him in 1977. He had been in poor health for two months,
09:51suffering from respiratory ailments that worsened into the pneumonia that would eventually kill him.
09:57Marx seems to have been well aware he was near the end,
10:00and his last words were perhaps the ultimate example of superb comic timing.
10:06Legendary singer Bob Marley was only 36 years old when he died in 1981,
10:12a fact that is hard to believe when one considers the outsized impact a man had
10:17on music and culture at large. What's less surprising is that his last known words,
10:22spoken to his son Ziggy, were sage and sorrowful,
10:26uttered shortly before succumbing to complications of a malignant form of melanoma that,
10:32over the course of half a decade, spread from one of his toes throughout his entire body.
10:37The cancer that killed Marley may well have been treated had he allowed the amputation of his toe,
10:43but his Rastafarian faith forbade such an operation.
10:46And also, in keeping with the type of messaging he had espoused his whole life,
10:51Marley's last words to Ziggy were,
10:54Money can't buy life.
10:55One can speculate that he meant money cannot buy the treatment needed to sustain life,
11:00but more likely Marley meant money cannot bring happiness and fulfillment in life.
11:05Only a life well-lived can do that.
11:08My riches is life, forever.
11:10Say what you will about John Lennon and Yoko Ono's relationship breaking up the Beatles,
11:15or about Lennon's notorious arrogance and eccentricities, he was an excellent musician,
11:21and he was a human being who deserved to live a lot longer than he did.
11:25But due to the actions of Mark Chapman, who was determined to kill a famous person and
11:30resented Lennon's comments about the Beatles being bigger than Jesus, his life was cut short.
11:36Chapman shot Lennon in the back multiple times at close range on December 8,
11:411980. His last words were long thought to be the gut-wrenching,
11:45I'm shot, I'm shot. But it later came out that his last spoken word could also have been a soft,
11:52yes, whispered in response to being asked if he was John Lennon.
11:57If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, please call the Substance
12:01Abuse and Mental Health Administration's 24-7 National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.
12:08That's 1-800-662-4357.