When Amy Winehouse died of alcohol poisoning in 2011, I felt bad for singer, but I wasn’t surprised to hear the bad news. When TV’s Batman, Adam West died from leukemia in 2017, I felt sad because I was a huge fan and felt that I was just starting to get to know him. When the oldest person to host Saturday Night Live, Betty White, passed away in 2021 at the ripe old age of 99, it was expected but still felt like it was too soon. And then came Matthew Perry. What do you do with that?
Matthew Perry was found unresponsive in his hot tub on October 28, 2023. Some reports say that he drowned, but the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office have said that they are taking “addition investigative steps” as to how he died and the answer won’t be known for some time. On November 2, Yahoo News reported that initial toxicology tests showed that there were “no meth or fentanyl” in his system and further tests are being conducted.
I was saddened to hear about Perry’s death. He was a little younger than me and he was my favorite “friend” from Friends. Over the years, his struggles with drugs and alcohol became more common knowledge, but in recent years, he appeared to have gotten better. He even wrote a book about it. Ironically, it was exactly one year before his death that a television interview he did with Diane Sawyer aired on ABC. During the interview, he talked about the book, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir, about how he almost died and how he was dealing with his then current health issues. He still had that great sense of humor. Everything seemed like it was going to be okay. News of his passing was truly a surprise.
As a rule, I am not overwhelmed by the news of celebrity’s deaths. Most of the time it’s news that I just sort of shrug off or I’m not moved at all. It’s sad to say, but sometimes I am under the impression that they had died years earlier. But for some people, hearing the news that a celebrity has died can hit them pretty hard. So, why do celebrity deaths affect us so much since most of the time, we never knew them personally?
“Although it might be confusing as to why they mean so much to us, grieving a celebrity’s death is completely normal,” says Gina Moffa, a grief and trauma therapist and author of the book, Moving On Doesn’t Mean Letting Go. “When it comes to famous people, since they show us so much more of themselves, we have a ‘parasocial relationship’ with them. This means, we have a one-sided relationship, where we extend our care and attention, perhaps in watching their shows or movies, going to concerts, etc., but they are unaware that we exist!
“We can become more and more connected to their lives, and they may come to feel like a close friend, or someone elicits a deep emotion of connectedness to us. We can count on these people to bring us joy, humor, a sense of safety, or maybe they connect us to times in our lives that were better. No matter what the reason, they played a role in our lives and it was real. Whatever the connection, it can feel like a real loss, and one that deserves to be honored. Symbolic connection to a celebrity is no less a loss than any other loss in our life, and although it can feel confusing, it’s a normal reaction to feel grief in this parasocial relationship.”
Sometimes, feeling bad about a celebrity dying can make us feel that there is something wrong with us. Why are we getting so caught up with this person? In short, celebrities are people too. Sure, we won’t grieve for them as hard or as long as we would for a family member or close friend, but we still grieve.
Aniesa Hanson, Ph.D. scoffs at that notion. She told Psychology Today, “Mourning the death of a celebrity we’ve admired is just as important as any other death. Grief is grief. Ignoring your feelings of grief won’t make you grieve faster—it can actually do the opposite.”
Shavonne Moore-Lobban, a licensed psychologist once told USA Today, “When people experience sudden loss, they may feel shocked, disbelief, confused and even in denial. The suddenness of the loss may be too much to process and feel too unreal for a person to immediately grasp. Sudden loss can be more shocking and people can feel less ‘prepared’ than they might with expected loss. However, it is still hard to prepare for anything that is life-altering, whether a person knew it was coming.”
Tom Kersting, a psychotherapist has said that actors, athletes and musicians can often leave positive imprints on our minds and memories.
“For example, Tom Petty’s passing can trigger past memories of his songs that can take a person back to that specific time in life,” he told Reader’s Digest. “An actor’s death can bring back memories of a movie he or she did, triggering memories from that time in your own life.”
So how does one cope? Kersting says that it is helpful to focus on how that celebrity affected you in a positive way.
“As a long-time Grateful Dead fan, I remember how I felt when Jerry Garcia died,” he says. “Although I was sad about his passing, I smiled at the same time because his music created countless positive experiences for me with friends that I will never forget. So, the key is to be grateful for the positive memories and fixate on that rather than on the sadness.”
While some people grieve, others find it as an opportunity to vent. I find it sad that when some celebrities pass away, people can’t resist the urge to let everyone know on social media about how that celebrity isn’t worth the hype or take the time to list in their own words about the star’s faults. How is that supposed to make that person’s mother or father feel. Regardless of how famous they were while alive, that celebrity was still a person.
And for those wondering about Perry’s spiritual life, he wrote in his memoir that during his lowest point, he prayed out to God saying, “God, please help me, show me that you are here,” at which point he began to cry uncontrollably. “I wasn’t crying because I was sad — I was crying because for the first time in my life, I felt OK. I felt safe, taken care of. He saved me that day, and for all days, no matter what.”
Main Images: Photography by Amanda Elizabeth from Pixabay, Matthew Perry image: Wikipedia
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