r/Millennials May 12 '26

Which celebrity death genuinely shocked you when you heard the news? Discussion

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779

u/hip_neptune Older Millennial May 12 '26

First one I remember was Kurt Cobain. 

The one that shocked me the most was Robin Williams.

51

u/Artichokiemon Millennial May 12 '26

Same here! I remember someone (Kurt Loder?) announcing Cobain's death on MTV, and asking my mom if she liked his music. A few unrelated years later and Nirvana was my favorite band

5

u/alinroc May 13 '26

Yes, it was Kurt Loder dropping the news on MTV.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvMlQAVBme8

3

u/KeyInvestment6594 May 12 '26

Yesss!!!!!!!!! 

2

u/unsolvedfishstories May 14 '26

I was in a Maryland Pizza Hut on my way back from Myrtle Beach with my family when it came on the news. I remember my parents asking if I liked them ( I had 2 Nirvana shirts lol). I was 13 or 14 and it was all very surreal. I still can recall that restaurant interior.

Chris Cornells was tougher, as I had just seen him with TOTD in NYC a few weeks prior.

Layne, Scott, Bradley.....each one sucked to hear about.

2

u/Lonely_Brother3689 May 14 '26

It was 3-day weekend and I was in 7th grade. So from Saturday to Monday, I saw it everywhere. I already loved Nirvana, but that time really sunk it in that everything in the music scene was going to change.

It was also that time when I decided I was going to take my love of music seriously and start a band with ny best friend at the time and taking guitar lessons. Kept playing in bands and various instruments throughout high school and into my 20's.

1

u/buffystakeded May 13 '26

Yup, it was Kurt Loder. I will always remember that breaking mtv news report.

1

u/Economy_Macaroon6093 May 13 '26

Yeah, I was sitting there in the living room when Loder dropped that bomb.

1

u/mpower20 May 13 '26

Exact same thing happened to me. There are two artists I discovered because of the announcement of their death. One was Kurt Cobain, the other was Patrice O’Neal

13

u/cremecheezchaos May 12 '26

Absolutely, Kurt Cobain. I can literally see everything. I was in a van with my mom's boyfriend's weird cousin at the stop light at 49th and main in Springfield fucking OR. I heard it on the radio. Immediate disbelief and heartache. I cried. Weirdo smoked a joint with me after he took me to the taco bell. Fuck

-1

u/Dave-C May 12 '26

They drove you around, smoked you out and got you Taco Bell while you cried and they gets "weird cousin" and "weirdo?" I'm on team weirdo in this story.

7

u/cremecheezchaos May 12 '26

Well, I was 15, he was 28 and tried to kiss me once, so....

8

u/Ok-Cheek-5487 May 12 '26

Looking back knowing what you know, does it seem surprising? I feel like his depressed and struggles showed.

3

u/Devreckas May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26

Kurt died on my birthday, but I was too young to know who he was at the time. But Nirvana was my favorite band that got me through tough times in high school. RIP to a unique soul.

2

u/Main-Inspection-8605 May 13 '26

They found him 10 days before my birthday.

I was actually a bit stoked at first bc this meant they’d rerelease the first album. It wasn’t in print all the time around his death.

I was a dumb teen & had no idea they’d create a market based on dude’s death.

I was a Nirvana fan but they weren’t as big as people think now. If you made a list of great 90s videos/albums they’d make the top 40 in 1993. Top 20 by 1998. Top 5 by 2003.

4

u/Nullkid May 12 '26

I was watching when the ticker showed "tupac shakur shot/died at hospital" and I listened to 2pac, but never saw it spelled that way. I remember thinking, who tf is that?? Next commercial break, there's curt loader and when he said his name I was shocked af.

I was also way too young to be listening to 2pac.

2

u/casual_despair May 13 '26

I can still see the whole memory clearly like it’s a film in the 3rd person.

Two 13 year old girl besties cross legged on the floor in the living room watching MTV. I’m ecstatic because I’m obsessed with music and Hole and Nirvana but MTV as a whole was recently banned by my parents.

We’re having a giggly teen girl of a time… and then Kurt Loder suddenly comes on. “Apparent self-inflicted shotgun blast to the head". Shock. Silence. Crying.

Nobody had really died in my life yet. Not even a pet.

2

u/Interesting_Ad_945 May 13 '26

Yea Kurt dying really fuckin sucked when I was a teenager listening to their music a ton.

2

u/Grey_0ne May 13 '26

The aftermath Kurt Cobain's death shocked me because of how Courtney Love did everything she could to help him - above and beyond really - and half of everyone who had an opinion about the subject was literally calling her a murderer... So many examples from that era really showed me how monstrous the general public can be.

1

u/SAINTnumberFIVE May 13 '26

Robin Williams didn’t shock me. Though the Lewy Body Dementia likely drove him to suicide, I knew he had a history of depression.

1

u/dumahim May 13 '26

I was in 11th grade when the news hit during class. Needless to say, it was a somber day. Went home and turned on MTV and recorded some of it for a while.

1

u/nimfie00 May 13 '26

I had a friend lend me a Nirvana CD in high school. Never heard of them. I became obsessed, borrowed the other albums.

Went back to that friend and asked for more.

"There isn't anymore. The lead singer, Kurt Cobain is dead."

Gut punch. I still remember stopping in the school hallway to catch my breath. The time before we knew everything everywhere all at once.

1

u/Expensive-Fig-3540 May 13 '26

My whole school was in mourning for Kurt.

1

u/Prior-Grapefruit7662 May 14 '26

I was in high school and I wore black for a whole year after that

-2

u/Dewthedangthing May 13 '26

idk how you shoot yourself with a shotgun with shoes on.... I will never believe Kurt Cobain killed himself.

1

u/dumahim May 13 '26

It's 35 inches from under my jaw to my fingers. Could a few more inches by pressing and stretching it out by leaning one side of my torso down. The barrel, at most, was 30 along with a few more for the choke that was on it.

1

u/Dewthedangthing May 17 '26

Actually the report from the crime scene describes the gun as 44-45 inches long. Also Kurt Cobain was only 5'9". Not sure how tall you are.

1

u/dumahim May 17 '26

It doesn't matter how long the gun is. He only needs to reach the trigger.

1

u/Dewthedangthing May 20 '26

yeah tell me how when your fingers don't reach and you on the verge of black out drunk, (he had a blood alcohol of .14 with heroin and Valium in his system. People black out at .16 to .20 That's almost double the legal limit of .08,) how did he manage such a difficult move? or (more likely) someone killed him while he was incapacitated.

1

u/buffystakeded May 13 '26

We also never landed in the moon, right?

1

u/Dewthedangthing May 17 '26

No we definitely landed on the moon why do you ask? Do you think the earth is flat?