To ask if you've ever felt like this about a celebrity's death

[twelveminutespast]

I didn't know Caroline and she didn't know me, but I can't shake this feeling of sadness about her death. It's really stopped me in my tracks.

To know that someone else felt like life wasn't worth living is just the most horrendous and awful thing to me. I do believe she would have made it through the court case the other side. I'm wondering what she was thinking during her final moments.

I feel so saddened.

Has anyone else ever felt like this about a celebrity when they've passed? If so, who? It probably sounds really pathetic as I didn't know her, but I can't stop thinking about it

I think they decided to go ahead with this maybe to make an example of her/celebrities.
We’ve had Cheryl Cole, Sean Penn, can't remember right now but quite a few celebrities who have assault convictions and who have not lost their career.
If she did do it, it was very wrong and she would have deserved the conviction.
But nobody deserves this end. It's so sad it came to this and I agree that she should have been sectioned for her own protection.

* Username109876* With Gary Speed, there is a question over whether that ghastly paedophile who abused those young footballers had any connection with it all. Apparently Gary was within that same group of young boys.

Yeah I just read that as well, that would explain a lot :(

Kelvin Fletcher is the latest target on the Daily Mail. Constant articles about him allegedly texting someone else and cheating, without any proof, his wife has recently given birth. Awful how they set out to ruin people.

I think feeling sad is normal, "heartbroken" or "devastated" over a stranger is a weird form of attention seeking

I felt/feel pretty sad about Pete Duel's suicide.

I wasn't around when he actually died (too young) his TV series was something my mother introduced me too when I was a teen and I fell in love with the series. When I look learnt he committed suicide just as his career was taking off, it just seemed so sad. He was a talented man although I understand a bit tortured from interviews with his friends and co-stars.

No, I've never felt like that, not even about famous people whose work I really valued. I think it's part of the excessive and vicarious interest people have in celebrities' lives, and I think it's a really bad thing, for the famous and for society.

I agree. I'm also concerned about the simplistic explanation of #bekind going about. Suicide should never be framed as a reasonable response to online trolling (or media hounding). It is a complex thing rarely due to a single factor, as the Samaritans emphasise, and because it is also imitational, it is reckless to frame any person's sad death by suicide as down to one thing.

It is sad though, OP. And I'm sorry you're feeling shitty about Caroline's death.

I have never watched any programme she presented and wasn’t really aware of her until the court case was reported.
I have today read some news reports.

My feeling is one of real sadness and anger that a clearly vulnerable woman seemed to have been further damaged by media and social media activities. Further sickened that these are continuing today. Sick and tired of where we’ve got to that someone’s difficulties can be picked over for ‘entertainment’.
There’s always been an element of this but it just seems we’ve lost an ability as a society to respect others’ problems and get on with our own lives.

Also feel I want to send support to all those with mental health problems and to all of Caroline Flack’s family and friends.

A friend of mine committed suicide some time ago and it’s a terrible thing to try to understand and come to any kind of terms with.

Deborah Orr. I read her in the Guardian and Independent and followed her on Twitter and then she was gone.

Robin Williams

Also Victoria Wood (even though hers wasn’t suicide) I was so upset by it.

Rik Mayall. So sudden and unexpected and I loved everything he did when I was growing up.

I have never heard of Caroline Flack before. There has been a lot of news coverage for someone that most people will have never heard of, same as that basketball player in America. Hysterical media.. Get a grip

I felt really sad about Victoria Wood.

This has reminded me of a neighbour I used to have who's dd committed suicide leaving behind a young child.
I had been talking at length to her about a month before it happened and she had said how much she loved visiting her mum's , how much nicer and friendlier it was than where she lived. On the day she ended her life, in a local beauty spot, by coincidence I had taken d's there and was told there was an issue by the police. I did not know at the time that the body they had found was my neighbour's daughter. I felt sadness and guilt and wondered if I had gotten there earlier would I have been able to prevent it. Still saddens me to this day.

River Phoenix. I was gutted.

Amy Winehouse for me.

I've never taken much notice of Caroline Flack but I have felt very tearful over her death.

Sawyer Sweeten's suicide (one of the twin boys from Everybody Loves Raymond). His twin brother and older sister were also in the show, awful for them and their family.

Robin Williams. Still can watch his films without feeling so sad for the loss of that massive talent.

Cory Monteith and Robin Williams really affected me , I was really shaken up and couldn’t stop thinking about it and how they must’ve been feeling . I also feel very sad about Caroline too.

I've felt deeply saddened by the deaths of artists who just couldn't get over their various addictions. Particularly George Michael and Sean Hughes (just because I liked their work) but also Amy Winehouse and Whitney. If only the rehab could have worked one time.

You hear and read of people living fantastic lives after being at rock bottom with addiction. And yet others can't turn their lives around. It is deeply upsetting.

I feel shocked over Caroline Flack’s death, not because I knew her personally or was even a particularly big fan, but because I was very familiar with her work, she was young and this was so unexpected. She was only a few years older than I am which has maybe touched a nerve. It’s incredibly sad for her and her family.

I think the reason it’s so shocking when a celebrity dies is that you know of them when they’re alive. Lots of non-famous people who die in tragic circumstances make the news because they have died, so you didn’t know of them beforehand.

I think feeling sad is normal, "heartbroken" or "devastated" over a stranger is a weird form of attention seeking

I think some pretty vulnerable people will be reading this thread and feel affected by comments like this.

People have so many reasons for feeling heartbroken at this news. Lots of people have lost loved ones to suicide. Lots of people have felt suicidal, sometimes on multiple occasions. If you've sat on your own at a very dark point and felt like you desperately want to die but then you can't go through with it then any time you get the news of someone else doing it you get pushed back to that very lonely, extremely sad place and yes, your heart does break for this other human being who sat with the same feelings but actually went through with it.

If you're struggling with this news, I get you, I am too. Don't pay any attention to people who write bollocks about 'attention seeking.' Lucky them that they don't get it.

I don't care about Caroline because she was a celebrity. I care about her as a human being I saw glimpses of on Strictly and she was someone who was vulnerable and who felt alone and desperate. And she'd got herself into a mess and clearly needed input but male abusers get away with it all the time. With the right support she would have been ok.

Amy Winehouse for me, so young, talented, and if she'd said 'yes, yes, yes' to rehab, preventable.

Also Peaches Geldof, again, young and with 2 babies, and like an echo of her mother's death.

I remember being stunned when I heard that Kurt Cobain had died.
Been a tough week here as one of my friends unexpected died (not clear how, but she was in her 40's), and another friend was viciously attacked and left for dead in the street. Have just heard that a local girl we were raising money for (for treatment for a serious illness) has died - early teens.

John Lennon as a teenager and David Bowie as it was so sudden,

I also remember Christopher Reeve, he was so brave😢

Gary Rhodes was sad as well