These celebrities have survived the tragic and completely unexpected deaths of their closest people.
Keanu Reeves
Keanu Reeves is known for his reclusive way of life; he does not make any comments about his personal life and, as a rule, is seen all alone everywhere. Reeves’ reason for this behavior is the failing attempt to create a happy family, which ended in a tragic way. In 1999, when the star of The Matrix was 34 years old, he was going to become a father for the first time, but Reeves’s and his girlfriend’s, movie actress Jennifer Syme’s, daughter was stillborn. A year and a half later, Syme died in a car accident.
Keanu recollects that he was in London, on the filming set, when his girlfriend Jennifer phoned and sobbed so much that he could not understand anything. It was not long before the birth of their girl Ava (the couple had already come up with the name for her) when a scheduled ultrasound examination showed that the baby was dead. Sixteen months later Jennifer herself died. Then only work – The Matrix in particular – saved the actor, but that’s when he became a hermit, an invisible man. Instead of anguish and anger, he got hope for the future. For example, Keanu hopes to fall in love again and start a family. In an interview, Keanu Reeves admits that perhaps one day life will have everything settled in its proper place. However, the 53-year-old actor is still lonely.
Petra Nemcova
The life of Czech model Petra Nemcova abruptly changed after a trip to Thailand in 2004. Petra went to Phuket with her boyfriend, English photographer Simon Atlee, and thought she was going to have a romantic trip, but in reality everything turned out to be a real nightmare. The strongest ever tsunami struck the island and killed 280,000 people, including Simon Atlee, whose body could be found only a few months after the tragedy. Petra survived by holding onto the top of the palm tree for more than eight hours until the rescuers found her. She spent more than three weeks in a Thai hospital and more than a month in a hospital in the Czech Republic.
Having recovered from the tragedy, Petra Nemcova founded The Happy Hearts Fund, aimed at providing help in the field of healthcare and donation, as well as supporting the orphans, who survived the tsunami in Southeast Asia on December 26, 2004. Since then, the model has been actively engaged in charity and trying to help those who have experienced the same horror as herself.
Liam Neeson
Liam Neeson and Natasha Richardson were an exemplary couple. The marriage, in which the actors had lived fifteen years, seemed ideal but ended tragically because of an absurd accident. Together with the children, they went to a ski resort. Richardson was skiing on a training track without a helmet, fell and hit her head hard. She turned down an offer of immediate hospitalization, which, according to the doctors, was a fatal mistake. Because of the delay for a few hours, the condition of the 45-year-old actress worsened, and she was delivered to the hospital already in a coma, where she was disconnected from the life support system after the death of the brain.
Roman Polanski
Actress and model Sharon Tate, the wife of one of the most famous and talented filmmakers in the world, Roman Polanski, was killed at the age of 26 years by the members of the cult of maniac Charles Manson. At the time of the murder, Tate was in her last months of pregnancy. The actress was found in her and Polanski’s house hanging on a nylon rope thrown across the ceiling beam with a lot of stab wounds on her body. All her friends, who had returned from the party with her were killed too, and on the front door the criminals wrote the word “Pig” with blood.
Yoko Ono
Artist Yoko Ono and a member of the legendary The Beatles band John Lennon
became victims of the inadequate and cruel behavior of a person with an unhealthy psychic condition. American watchman Mark Chapman was so obsessed with Lennon that he began to associate himself with him and then flew across the ocean to take an autograph from the idol. Then he shot the musician five times in the back. Chapman has been in prison for thirty-seven years, asking for an early release. Each time, Yoko Ono makes a written request to refuse him an act of pardon, considering the man dangerous for her family.
Sia
Australian singer Sia moved to London, where she dreamed of becoming a famous singer. There the beginning artist met a guy named Dan, whom she considers her first true love. Inspired by the feelings, dreams and big plans, the couple went on a journey, from which Dan was the first to return… While Sia was staying for a week in Thailand, her lover was hit by a car in London. The singer managed to fly to the funeral, and after the farewell ceremony plunged into depression for several years. She tried to get rid of depression with the help of alcohol, illegal drugs, and doctors.
Meryl Streep
John became Meryl’s first man. Even the difference in age and popularity did not interfere (the 40-year-old actor was already actively acting in films, while the 27-year-old Broadway actress only dreamed of appearances on the big screen). Cazale contributed to the promotion of his girlfriend in Hollywood by engaging her in the film “Julia.” The couple also played together in “The Deer Hunter”, which brought Streep her first nomination for the “Oscar” award.
The actress’ career quickly went up the hill, and when she decided to go to Australia to shoot the “Holocaust” series, John did not interfere with her plans, keeping silent about his terrible diagnosis: the doctors found the actor was ill with cancer. A few months later Meryl returned to their apartment in New York and found the groom in a terrible state: due to illness, he could no longer get out of bed. The last three months of Cazale’s life, she was always at his bedside.
The beloved man’s death became a lesson for the rest of Meryl’s life: she firmly decided to put her personal life on the first place. And with her second soulmate, sculptor Don Gummer, it happened this way. The couple raised four children away from camera flashes, in a northern village in America. The couple tries to manage without the help of domestic workers and nannies and shares household duties equally.
Pierce Brosnan
The actors met in the late 1970s at the casting for the next James Bond film. The role of a fatal temptress in the film “For Your Eyes Only” was eventually given to Cassandra, but Pierce met the woman of his dreams. In 1980, the couple got married. Pierce adopted the children from his wife’s first marriage (Charlotte and Christopher), and later Pierce and Cassandra had a son, Sean.
The trouble came to the family when Harris was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1987. After four years of fighting the disease, the actress died.
Brosnan continued upbringing the children and later his grandchildren. Unfortunately, his adopted daughter Charlotte also died of cancer. After her death in 2013, the actor actively helped her widowed husband with the upbringing of the kids.
Pierce himself was supported by journalist Keely Shaye. In 1994, the girl came to an interview with the famous actor, but their relationship soon developed into something bigger than that. The girl fell in love with Pierce’s family and started to run their household. The artist also had a run of good luck in his career: he finally got the role of James Bond in the movies.
Paul McCartney
During her first meeting with McCartney in 1967, Linda worked as a photographer and took pictures of The Beatles for the magazine. A year later, the young people accidentally encountered in New York and from that moment they decided not to part. They got married in March 1969 and moved to live in a farm in western Sussex. Paul dedicated his songs to Linda (the most famous of them is Maybe I’m Amazed) and taught her to play keyboard instruments.
After The Beatles had split, McCartney started the Wings band. Included was also his wife. Linda never tried to build her own career, she did not charge any fees for her performance in the band. She kept the entire household without the help of a servant and did not even know her husband’s true income. Their children – Mary, Stella and James – were sent to the most ordinary school to protect them from a superiority complex.
In 1995, Linda was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had been fighting desperately for three years, but in 1998 she died.
After Linda’s death, Paul was actively engaged in a solo career. His second marriage was registered with Heather Mills in 2002. The relationship ended with mutual accusations and Paul’s large payments in 2008. Three years later, the musician went to the altar with Nancy Shevell.
