What is the first celebrity death you remember?

[ClassicStripe]

My daughter has been asking lots of questions about today’s tragic news (a boy at school told her about it) and it made me think this is probably the first celebrity death she has taken note of and will probably be the first one she remembered. The first celebrity death I remember is Princess Diana. I was about the same age DD is now.

Michael Jackson

Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin.. l was 12..
Then l remember others who are in the ' 27' club.. all dying at the age of 27.. but different years..
Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones. Jim Morrison of The Doors..
Then in later years.. Kurt Cobaine and Amy Winehouse.. all age 27

This thread is definitely revealing our age brackets!😂

River Phoenix. I was a teen at the time. I remember going out to the paper shop and buying newspapers covering the story.

Freddie Mercury I think I was 10 I remember talking about it at school and i still remember the sum front page which had him surrounded by a union jack flag.

Michael Jackson. I was 10.

Princess Diana. My mom was so upset; their royal wedding happened in the same year I was born.

John Candy 😢

Liberace

A helluva lot of 70s kids.

Elvis Presley - I was 12 and my mum was really upset by it. I’m sure there were others before then, but this is the one I actually remember properly.

Mine too. I'd just started secondary school and didn't really know who he was. My friends were devastated and it's what introduced me to Queen.

Ayrton Senna is the other one I really remember. My dad was watching the race and he was devastated. I remember him sobbing down the phone, which was the first time I'd heard him cry.

John Lennon - although I probably remember it more because my mother was furious with me for being stupid because I didn't understand what 'The beetle's dead, the beetle, you know' meant (yes, I thought she was talking about a bug). My brother told me after I escaped her anger and was nursing a slap around the head that she meant John Lennon from the Beatles 'Oh, I know who he is. OK'.

She wasn't even a fan.

After that, I didn't really pay attention - there were multiple tabloid articles about Karen Carpenter that she read constantly and made a point of telling me all about - and once it became relevant to me, Muddy Waters, Dennis Wilson, Marvin Gaye, Count Basie and Cliff Burton.

Freddie Mercury, I was 12 I think, and I remember saying to my dad that they were only playing his music because he'd died, being completely unaware of how huge Queen were 😳

Princess Grace of Monaco! My mum loved her!

Not a celebrity as such but King George VI. I think I may be the oldest here.

Showing my age as it was a long time ago but I still remember hearing about the death of an athlete called Lillian Board. For some reason it really stuck with me even though I was only nine at the time (1970). She was only 22 and being an athlete I would have seen her as fit and healthy so it was a shock.

Winston Churchill 1965. I was 12 and we had a day off school on the day of his State Funeral.

Lady Di what died

Eric Morecambe - my family were really shocked and upset. I knew who he was but wasn’t really old enough to have watched M&W

Freddie Mercury. I was 14 so I would have been aware of celebrity deaths before that, but I think that’s the first one where it was someone I had actually heard of and who wasn’t old. And I wasn’t into Queen at the time but still thought it was sad because some of the kids at school were homophobic about Freddie and the cause of his death.

(I realised some years later that Mercury was one of the greatest gifts to music the world has ever seen).

I remember a few but the biggest one I remember (as in like remember exactly where I was type thing) was heath ledger and then Michael Jackson

Elvis. I wasn’t quite 2, my dad was dropping me and my mum off at my grandparents’ very early that morning and called onto the newsagent en route to buy his paper, as ever.
I remember him getting into the car and putting in on my mum’s knee (she was in the passenger seat) and I remember her gasp. I remember the early morning light and not quite understanding what had happened.
I don’t remember any of the emotion, or what happened subsequently, but I can take myself back to outside the newsagents that morning. Neither mum nor dad remembered it when I later recounted it to them

President Kennedy

Princess Dianna I think, I was almost 11 and remember it being on the TV. I don't really remember much about the royals before that but it obviously got my attention somehow.