BuzzFeed compiled 18 replies to a Reddit question asking which celebrity stories felt especially tragic. The accounts include Kobe Bryant and daughter Gianna, Naya Rivera, Robin Williams and Aaliyah, and span fatal crashes, illness, suicide and murder.
In 2020, Naya Rivera’s four-year-old son was found alone on their pontoon boat at Lake Piru. Authorities believed the unanchored boat drifted while they were swimming and Rivera got him back aboard before she drowned. Robin Williams died by suicide in 2014; an autopsy later found he had undiagnosed Lewy body dementia. Chadwick Boseman died of stage IV colon cancer in 2020, four years after his stage III diagnosis.
Vanessa Bryant alleged that first responders shared photos from the helicopter crash site where Kobe and Gianna died; county lawyers said the photos were not publicly disseminated. The article reports a $16 million invasion-of-privacy award in 2022 and a settlement of nearly $29 million in 2023. Actor Rebecca Schaeffer was murdered by a stalker in 1989; California passed its first anti-stalking laws the following year.
