Alas, poor Bill Murray.note
Jeremy: I..I'm sorry! I.. I don't know...w..why I'm... crying...?
Brooke: Well, I do.
Jeremy: Y..You do?
Brooke: And I totally understand! They're saying it was a freak hockey accident.
Jeremy: What are you talking about...?
Brooke: Oh my God...You don't know?! Eminem's dead!
Brooke: Well, I do.
Jeremy: Y..You do?
Brooke: And I totally understand! They're saying it was a freak hockey accident.
Jeremy: What are you talking about...?
Brooke: Oh my God...You don't know?! Eminem's dead!
When works of fiction include real people, the general rule is to portray them in a way that does not differ wildly from how they are in real life. But sometimes writers feel the need to stretch the truth somewhat in order to serve the story they want to tell, especially in works of speculative fiction. One way of doing this is to kill off the still living real person in a clever way. If this occurs in performed media, the person in question might even participate (often to poke fun at themselves). At times, this can also be used as a Take That! against a public figure that the creators do not like.
Please note that the celebrity portrayed as dying must be alive at the time of the work's release. Contrast with Fictionalized Death Account, in which a deceased historical figure is killed off in a way that does not resemble their actual death. See also Death by Cameo, Celebrity Survivor, Dead Star Walking and Celebrities Hang Out in Heaven.
This trope is NOT to be confused with a real person faking their own death. You want the Real Life section of Faking the Dead for that.
As this is a Death Trope, unmarked spoilers abound. Beware.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- The Legend of Koizumi: George H.W. Bush and Dmitri Medvedev both sacrifice themselves and Colin Powell and Pope Benedict XVI are also killed off.
Comic Books
- In 2000 AD, President Al Gore is killed by aliens during the Fourth World War. He is succeeded by Vice President Mario Cuomo who ends up shooting himself.
- In The Avengers, President Ronald Reagan is killed by a bomb planted by Kang the Conqueror.
- The Boys: George W. Bush managed to kill himself in an accident with a chainsaw, leading to a president who orders the 9/11 planes shot down. And would have succeeded, if it hadn't been for Vought's stooge screwing it up and causing a plane to kamikaze into the Brooklyn Bridge and setting off the War on Terror anyway.
- In Fantastic Four, President George H. W. Bush dies of pneumonia.
- In Once & Future, Boris Johnson gets his head ripped off on national television by King Arthur after Boris revealed the Holy Grail against Hempleworth's advice.
- The Secret Service has Mark Hamill appear as a kidnapping victim, only to die when the rescuing agent's parachute doesn't deploy correctly.
- In the 1996 comic book Warrior, a demon takes over the body of The Ultimate Warrior and goes on a killing spree. Victims include Pope John Paul II, Nelson Mandela, and George W. Bush.
- Watchmen: Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein are found dead in a garage in the '70s, the implication being that the Comedian killed them to prevent the Watergate scandal.
Fan Works
- Tricksters and Gods
: Stephenie Meyer is murdered by Dracula, who exsanguinates her and leaves her drained corpse.
- The Cabin: Melanie meets this fate thanks to being processed. Well, Emma had something to say about that, once Melanie's body goes missing.
Films — Animated
- The Simpsons Movie opens with Green Day performing at Lake Springfield until their barge sinks and they drown into Lake Springfield's toxic waters. It's at their funeral that Grandpa Simpson gets his vision warning about a disaster befalling Springfield involving "Eepa".
- South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut:
- The film is set roughly in its release year of 1999, where "It's been six weeks since Saddam Hussein was killed by a pack of wild boars, and the world is still glad to be rid of him." The real Saddam Hussein would be hanged in 2006.
- Bill Gates is shot to death at one point in the film. Though he later showed up alive in the series with a bandage over the bullet wound.
- Conan O'Brien jumps out of a window out of guilt after turning Terrence and Phillip in.
Films — Live-Action
- 2012 has a brief gag where the Governor of California, unnamed but heavily implied to be Arnold Schwarzenegger given his thick Germanic accent, his references to the Action Heroes he played in the movies, Jackson calling him "an actor... reading a script", and the fact that he really was Governor of California when the film was made,note is giving a press conference telling people that the worst of the recent earthquakes is over. As if on cue, the Big One begins, and the TV in Kate's house shows Arnie's press conference being destroyed by the earthquake just before the TV gets smashed, with it implied that he died in the earthquake.
- Anna and the Apocalypse: Justin Bieber is explicitly stated to have been turned into a zombie in the film.
- Casino: Done in a Roman à Clef way. Mobster Artie Piscano dies of a heart attack during an FBI raid on his home. His real-life inspiration, Carl DeLuna, was still alive at the time the movie was made.
- Deadpool 2 has Deadpool shooting Ryan Reynolds in the head to prevent him from making Green Lantern (2011).
- Death of a President portrays the assassination of then-President George W. Bush.
- Game-Over Man: After a gunman holds an L.A. party hostage, he demonstrates his authority by killing Steve-O, who at first believes the takeover to be a prank orchestrated by Johnny Knoxville. His jackass and Wildboyz co-star Chris Pontius mourns his death on the news later in the film. Also, Donald Faison is executed with a pointblank shot to the head, Flying Lotus' head explodes by his bomb collar and Joel McHale is stabbed in the head with a high-heeled shoe by Sugar Lyn Beard in a forced battle to the death.
- Gremlins 2: The New Batch: Film critic Leonard Maltin, who disliked the first Gremlins (1984), is shown giving the movie a bad review and is then mauled to death by Gremlins.
- Hitler, Dead or Alive: This 1942 movie has Hitler ironically die from getting shot by an SS officer who fails to recognize him after his mustache gets shaved off by some American gangsters.
- Saddam Hussein is killed off in both Hot Shots! films, first by a bomb and then by having a piano dropped on him. Hussein was alive and in power when both films were made.
- In The Interview, Kim Jong-un's helicopter is shot down by James Franco's character, killing him.
- jackass: The Movie features an after-credits scene where the cast reunites for the sequel sixty years later, with the gang all extremely elderly. The crew are then blown up by land mines, ran over by trucks, and mauled by tigers, with the exception of Steve-O, who survives the ordeal and giggles.
- In Jersey Shore Shark Attack, Joey Fatone gets eaten by the sharks.
- Jubilee takes place in an alternate timeline where Queen Elizabeth II was killed by muggers in the late seventies. The real Queen Elizabeth II lived until 2022.
- In Meet the Spartans, the This! Is! Sparta! scene parody has a number of real life celebrities knocked down into the well after the Persian emissary, starting with Britney Spears.
- In Mega Python vs. Gatoroid, Micky Dolenz is eaten by a giant python during a benefit concert.
- In A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, Freddy Krueger kills Zsa Zsa Gabor while she is appearing on a talk show.
- In the infamous short film No Pressure, both Gillian Anderson and former footballer David Ginola are blown up for refusing to commit to cutting their carbon emissions by ten percent.
- Penn & Teller Get Killed ends with Teller accidentally shooting Penn dead and then turning the gun on himself.
- In Planet Terror, Muldoon says he killed Osama bin Laden (who was alive but in hiding at the time the film was made).
- In Postal, George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden (still alive at the time) are killed by a nuclear blast, Uwe Boll gets shot in the crotch and dies, and Verne Troyer is "violated to death" by chimpanzees.
- In Punk Rock Holocaust, members of multiple bands on the Vans Warped Tour, including Simple Plan, are brutally murdered.
- The short film Sam Did It features a morgue attendant who is tasked with performing an autopsy on his idol, Alfred Molina.
- Scary Movie series:
- In Scary Movie 3, Simon Cowell is shot to death by rappers when he criticizes their singing.
- Scary Movie 4 opens with Shaquille O'Neal and Phil McGraw trapped in a Saw-style Death Trap. Phil cuts off his own foot to escape his chains but dies of blood loss, while Shaq is poisoned to death.
- In Scary Movie 5, Charlie Sheen dies when Lindsay Lohan hits him with her car.
- In Seed of Chucky, Britney Spears is killed when Chucky runs her off the road. Also, the main plot concerns Chucky and Tiffany trying to transfer their souls into the bodies of Redman and Jennifer Tilly (the latter of whom is Tiffany's voice actress and subjected to many jokes about her real-life career) so they can become human again. Redman gets killed, while the ending reveals that Tiffany managed to successfully switch bodies with Jennifer, who died when, trapped in doll form, Chucky hacked her up. Mention is also made of Martha Stewart being put to death.
- Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! has Jared Fogle, Brad Keselowski, and George R. R. Martin all killed by sharks.
- In Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda, Conan O'Brien gets stabbed through the mouth by the Sharktopus' tentacles.
- Studio 666: Every Foo Fighters member except Dave Grohl dies during the film. This became Harsher in Hindsight when Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins died suddenly only one month after the movie premiered.
- The horror comedy short Super Brainy Zombies stars a bunch of British YouTubers as themselves, including TomSka, Emma Blackery, charlieissocoollike and doddleoddle. Many of them get turned into zombies and are subsequently killed by survivors of the zombie apocalypse. Mention is also made of Sandra Bullock getting eaten alive.
- Super Troopers 2 has Fred Savage killed by a speeding fire truck.
- Plenty of celebrities die in Team America: World Police. Alec Baldwin gets shot by Kim Jong Il, Samuel L. Jackson gets decapitated, Michael Moore blows himself up, Matt Damon's neck is snapped, Susan Sarandon falls to her death, Tim Robbins is burnt to death, George Clooney is blown up by a grenade, etc. Kim Jong Il, who is the Big Bad, seemingly dies at the end of the movie, but is then revealed to have been an alien cockroach piloting a robot body.
- In This Is the End, various celebrities such as James Franco, Seth Rogen, Danny McBride, Jonah Hill, and Mindy Kaling are killed off during the Apocalypse. At the end, however, we see that Celebrities Hang Out in Heaven, as the characters who didn't get sent to Hell upon death are treated to a Backstreet Boys concert.
- Auto executive Lee Iacocca is shot during an assassination attempt on Adrian Veidt in 1985 in the film version of Watchmen. In real life, Iacocca lived until 2019.
- Weird: The Al Yankovic Story ends with "Weird Al" Yankovic getting killed after Madonna orchestrates an assassination attempt on him at an awards show in 1985. The real-life Weird Al is still very much alive to this day, having co-wrote the script and having a minor role as a different character.
- Y2K (2024): When the protagonists encounter Fred Durst, he reveals that the rest of Limp Bizkit were all killed when the Millennium Bug hit during a New Year's concert they were playing, with him the only one to make it out. They later find Wes Borland still alive, albeit captured and assimilated by the machines.
- In Zombieland, Bill Murray is shot in the chest when he pretends to be a zombie and dies shortly afterwards. Previously in the scene there's an off-screen case, Murray mentions he passed by a zombified Eddie Van Halen.
- The sequel shows NBC's Al Roker, Grace Randolph from Beyond the Trailer, MTV's Josh Horowitz, and Lili Estefan from El Gordo y La Flaca, as some of the first victims of The Virus during a press junket for Garfield 3: Flabby Tabby.
- Zoolander 2: Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, Lenny Kravitz, Demi Lovato, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen and Usher all are shot to death by assassins.
Literature
- In 11/22/63, Bill Clinton dies of a heart attack at the 2004 Democratic Convention.
- In Harry Turtledove's And The Last Trump Shall Sound, Donald Trump dies during a second coronavirus outbreak in 2024.
- In John Birmingham's Axis of Time novels, President Hillary Clinton is martyred by a suicide bomber.
- Be More Chill: In the book and its musical adaptation, the SQUIP arranges for Eminem to die through a freak hockey accident, just so Jeremy can appear upset about it and get sympathy from girls.
- The Dark Tower: Stephen King dies at the end of one book in the series, a clear nod to his near fatal accident when he was hit by a vehicle in real life.
- Doctor Who Novelisations: For the fifteenth anniversary of "Rose", Russell T. Davies wrote an additional chapter to his novelization of the episode which is heavily implied to depict Boris Johnson as having been crushed to death by a steel beam as a consequence of said episode in 2005. As a result, the Boris Johnson who became Prime Minister in 2019 is actually an Auton that absorbed his body to become a new entity.
- Emberverse:
- Elizabeth II is described as dying of "heartbreak and overwork" a year after the Change.
- Pope John Paul II is killed by a mob in the Vatican days after the Change.
- Bill Gates died not too long after, and his skeletal remains are discovered in his mansion by a PPA salvage team.
- The Enemy is a series of Young Adult novels set in a world where all adults note and older teenagers have turned into zombie-like creatures with an overwhelming urge to kill and eat children. Several real life adult celebrities are mentioned (including Jamie Oliver, Meryl Streep, Soulja Boy and others) and, though their fate is not explicitly stated, it is implied that they are either dead or have joined the ranks of the "sickos."note All of them were still alive when the books were written.
- In The Fireman, radio host Glenn Beck burns up during a broadcast and J. K. Rowling is mentioned as being gunned down for using her wealth to give refuge to those afflicted with the plague. Martha Quinn (one of the original MTV VJs) is heard over the Internet as a spokesperson for an island where Dragonscale victims can seek safety and medical treatment. By the time Harper learns about the island, it's been shut down and Martha has been dead for some time.
- In "History" by Isaac Asimov, it is mentioned that Adolf Hitler died in Madagascar (implied to be in exile after defeat, as later confirmed by the writer). The story was written in 1941.
- In the short story "Mahogany Dreams" by Lyn Nichols contained in the anthology Alternate Tyrants edited by Mike Resnick, President Ronald Reagan is successfully assassinated by John Hinckley Jr.
- In Gretchen Felker-Martin's novel Manhunt, it is mentioned that J. K. Rowling died in a fire at her mansion sometime prior to the events of the story. (She incorrectly believed she and her Amazon Brigade of bodyguards were completely safe from the rage virus, not realizing that XX chromosomes don't actually stop people's testorone levels rising enough for the "T-rex" to turn them...until one bodyguard raged out and kicked off a chain of disasters that burned the mansion down.)
- In The Onion Book of Known Knowledge, Pete Rose is claimed to have killed himself on national TV out of shame at his infamous gambling scandal.
- Tom Clancy's Politika began with the then-still living Boris Yeltsin dying of a heart attack in 1999.
- In Poul Anderson's The Psychotechnic League, Richard Nixon is killed in a nuclear war.
- In the Timeline-191 book Settling Accounts: Drive to the East, Jimmy Carter is an 18-year-old sailor in the Confederate States Navy and is killed by an army major in battle.
- In Amelia Wheeler's novelette "We will not allow him to live!", Bill Clinton and Al Gore are both killed by a car bomb.
- In the 1972 novel Who Killed Enoch Powell?, Conservative Party politician Enoch Powell is assassinated. In real life, he died of natural causes in 1998.
- Wild Cards: Elizabeth II died of the titular virus in the 1940s before she could become Queen.
- World War Z:
- Ruben Studdard is killed (alongside his agent) when a grenade detonates in his hand at the celebrity house.
- Geraldo Rivera is swarmed and killed by zombies at Yonkers.
- It's heavily implied that Bill Maher, Ann Coulter, and Paris Hilton were all killed in the Long Island celebrity house, though how is not mentioned.
Live-Action TV
- In an episode of Big Wolf on Campus, Corey Feldman plays himself as a vampire and gets killed with a wooden stake through the heart.
- The Boys (2019) episode "One Shots" features a coked-up Mister Marathon inadvertently killing his house guests, which includes Will Forte, Craig Robinson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Kumail Nanjiani, and Seth Rogen. It's also mentioned that Bill Hader and Channing Tatum have also been killed by Vought.
- Sisters Meg and Jennifer Tilly both die in Chucky. Meg is stabbed to death by Tiffany Valentine and Jennifer (in doll form) gets hit by a truck. Also, Gina Gershon murders Joe Pantoliano after discovering that he has been sleeping with Jennifer/Tiffany, and Liv Morgan gets stabbed to death by Chucky, playing off a clip from a Real Life podcast interview where she said that she wanted to be killed by Chucky.
- Dead Set: Big Brother host Davina McCall gets killed and zombified after the Zombie Apocalypse reaches the set of the show.
- Doctor Who:
- In "Aliens of London", the Prime Minister killed by the Slitheen heavily resembles (and is confirmed by Word of God as intended to be) Tony Blair.
- In "Army of Ghosts", real-life TV presenter Alistair Appleton is strangled by a Cyberman live on Ghostwatch once the "ghosts" are revealed to be them.
- The episode "Last of the Time Lords" implies that Bill Gates was one of the people the Master had killed.
- Narrowly subverted in "The Church on Ruby Road", where a wheelchair-bound Davina McCall is almost impaled by the top ornament of a falling Christmas tree, before the Doctor (having travelled back in time) pushes her out of the way in the nick of time.
- In "The Interstellar Song Contest'', the holographic Graham Norton notes that he is "long since dead", presumably as a result of the destruction of Earth. Averted with Rylan Clark who nearly freezes to death but is quickly revived. Ultimately subverted, since the destruction of Earth is averted in the season finale.
- An episode of Fishing with John had Willem Dafoe dying of starvation.
- Frontline: The first episode has Brooke interviewing "living legend" Ugly Dave Gray, who dies offscreen and forces them to turn the segment into an In Memoriam at the last minute.
Brooke: [on the phone to line producer Emma] Listen, have you got a pen? Can you change the voiceover from, "Tonight we meet a living legend," to "Tonight we remember a living legend"?
- Also happens to Ugly Dave Gray in the Double the Fist episode "Fear Factory".
- The Final Cut, the last in the original House of Cards (UK) trilogy, opens with the state funeral of Margaret Thatcher who was still alive at the time.
- The Grand Tour had a segment called Celebrity Brain Crash in which various celebrities die horribly before they can make it to the studio to be interviewed. Examples include Jeremy Renner falling to his death while skydiving, Simon Pegg drowning in the Thames, Jimmy Carr crashing his jet ski into a boat, Tim Burton dying in a submarine accident and Charlize Theron (played by a stand in) getting eaten by a lion.
- One I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson sketch about a man inviting his doctor to go nightclubbing with him ends with a bouncer announcing to the patrons that all clubs are closing early due to a tragedy in the club community: Kim Kardashian was decapitated after a deck collapsed at a rival club.
- The 1976 TV special Joys (a parody of Jaws) has Bob Hope and many of his celebrity friends killed off by a mysterious figure ultimately revealed as Johnny Carson.
- This happens twice in season 4 of the Danish series Klovn:
- At the start of one episode, Jarl Friis-Mikkelsen, a famous Danish TV host/actor/singer who also had a recurring role As Himself in season 3, suddenly drops dead from a heart attack at a bowling alley. The remainder of the episode is then about the main character and his best friend trying to cover up Jarl's true place of death (at least in Denmark, going bowling in the suburbs is considered a bit of a unsophisticated working-class activity which they think is a bad legacy for a celebrated entertainer).
- In another episode, Nelson Mandela's death is reported on the radio. The episode aired in 2006, i.e. 7 years before the real Nelson Mandela died. This leads to a Cringe Comedy scene when the main character is in a taxi with a black driver. After the radio announcement, the driver pulls over to have two minutes of silence for Mandela while the main character (who is obsessed with fairness) desperately tries to make the driver turn off the taximeter as long as the car is holding still, only to be accused of not caring about Mandela and his achievements.
- In The Last Man on Earth, it is mentioned that President Mike Pence succumbed to the mysterious virus that wiped out most of humanity, as did Cher.
- Jean-Claude Van Damme made a guest appearance on Las Vegas as himself in which a stunt was sabotaged and he fell to his death.
- Possibly in The Leftovers. Gary Busey, and the entire main cast of Perfect Strangers, are among the 1% of the population who Departed. Except Mark Linn-Baker, who survived, but faked his own Departure due to the experience of all his castmates disappearing. If we believe Nora at the end, they actually didn't die, but were mysteriously transported to another world or dimension. This is left ambiguous, though, and the whole world mourns them as if they died.
- The first series of Little Britain had a series of sketches about Liz, a woman who never shuts up about the fact that she was Mollie Sugden's bridesmaid, and her weary husband, Clive. In the final Liz and Clive sketch, they actually meet Sugden. Clive urges Liz to go and say hello, but Liz refuses to, so Clive does himself, reminding Sugden that Liz was a bridesmaid at her wedding. When Sudgen drops the bombshell that she's never actually met Liz, Liz throws a knife into her back which kills her instantly.
- In the Louie episode "Elevator Part 4" a news report appears about Hurricane Jasmine Forsythe, which destroyed Florida, causing the death of LeBron James (and the rest of the Miami Heat and 12 million other people).
- In 2006, a six-part miniseries of Monty Python clip shows were released called Monty Python's Personal Best. Each episode had a different wraparound format. The John Cleese episode features the actor in makeup that made him look twenty years older than he was, being interviewed. The final gag was Cleese supposedly dying of a heart attack on screen and the interviewer running away. Many viewers thought that Cleese had actually died, but he's still with us.
- In the Night of Too Many Stars TV special, Steve Buscemi dies after eating peanuts (to which he is allergic) and being shot by Vincent D'Onofrio. Also, Bob Barker dies after fighting Adam Sandler and Sandler dies of the Ebola virus.
- This trope provided the Couch Gag for the short lived comedy series Police Squad!. Each episode had a "special guest star" whose only function was to be killed during the opening credits. The stars so dispatched were Lorne Greene, Georg Stanford Brown, Robert Goulet, William Shatner, Florence Henderson note and William Conrad.
- Primeval: Nigel Marven appears in one episode, filming a TV segment about an anomaly, and is eaten by the Giganotosaurus that emerges from it.
- Quantum Leap: In the original history, Jackie Kennedy was also assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald. The episode was made two years prior to her real death.
- A Saturday Night Live sketch from The '90s had John Denver presenting at the Nobel Prize ceremony, accidentally infecting himself with the Magenta Virus, and dying. The sketch aired some time before his fatal plane crash.
- Another SNL sketch, featuring an earthquake interrupting a game of Hollywood Squares, causing the game board to collapse and lead to the deaths or grave injuries of Fran Drescher, Fred Savage, Gilbert Gottfried, Louie Anderson, and Marie Osmond, among others.
- In the Sliders episode "Greatfellas", Ronald Reagan dies while serving as Governor of California in 1998.
- In the Twilight Zone episode "A World of His Own", Rod Serling appears as himself and becomes another one of Gregory West's victims when Gregory erases him.
- The final scene of Two and a Half Men has creator Chuck Lorre crushed to death by a falling piano.
- Ultraman Tiga has production company sponsored racer Haruchika Aoki appear in one episode As Himself, a love interest of Mayumi who gets killed when Gazort II wrecks the plane he’s on. He subsequently return in Ultraman Dyna as a ghost who gives Mayumi closure over his death.
- The series finale of Veep has former President Selina Meyer's funeral interrupted by the news that Tom Hanks has died.
- Season 4 of What We Do in the Shadows (2019) has Sofia Coppola and her husband, musician Thomas Mars, eaten by vampires as one of many celebrities lured to Nadja's nightclub by the enigmatic "Celebrity Special" as a special perk for celebrities, not knowing that it actually refers to them as the special for vampires.
- Wonder Man (2026), set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, reveals that people with superpowers are no longer allowed to perform in film and television in the MCU due to a stunt gone wrong: Josh Gad disappeared into a portal created by a superpowered actor and was never seen again.
- In the Zombie Apocalypse series Z Nation:
- George R. R. Martin (a cameo by the man himself) has become a zombie and is kept in a sort of museum by a crazy Evil Nerd.
- Alvin Murphy claims there's the still moving hand of George Clooney as attraction in his striptease joint/casino business in Season 5.
Music
- Fitting his inspiration from South Park, Eminem portrays the deaths of numerous living celebrities in his music. Usually at the hands of his murderous alter-ego, Slim Shady.
- In "Criminal", Slim Shady has Dr. Dre Bound and Gagged and shoots him, which explains why Dre's "dead — he's locked in my basement!" in "The Real Slim Shady" (earlier on the album, but written after).
- He's killed off himself numerous times, such as having Slim Shady commit Murder-Suicide at the end of Encore and detailing Eminem's kidnap and murder by a Loony Fan in "Bad Guy". "Castle/Arose" dramatises Eminem's death from an overdose. In "The Adventures Of Moon Man & Slim Shady", he dies of COVID due to inconsiderate people refusing to wear masks.
- His Relapse Slasher Movie character does a lot of celebrity murder. Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan get offed by a serial killer in "Same Song And Dance", Ivanka Trump ends up dead in the trunk of his car in "Framed", and it's generally assumed that the 'Dakota' who he kills and eats in "Music Box"/"Psycho" is Dakota Fanning. "Oh No" dedicates a whole verse to murdering Perez Hilton (as a Take That! for his body-shaming of Eminem for gaining, then losing weight), chopping up his body, and finding places to keep the pieces.
- During his The Eminem Show tour, Eminem would do a skit where Moby would get shot on stage by Obie Trice to lead in to "Without Me".
- The track "Can-i-bitch", made in retaliation for the Pet Shop Boys song "The Night I Fell in Love" (where the narrator, a teenage boy, has a homosexual encounter with a rapper heavily implied to be Eminiem), has Eminem and Dr. Dre run the Pet Shop Boys over.
- Tyler, the Creator: In "Yonkers," he discusses robbing Hayley Williams, crashing B.o.B's airplane, and stabbing Bruno Mars.
Podcasts
- Are You Afraid of the Dark Universe? has had this crop up a few times.
- The Phantom of The Phantom of the Opera opens with John Riddle, while playing Raul in a stage production of Phantom, being killed by a light falling from the ceiling and crushing him.
- The stinger of their remake of Mystery Men shows the Spice Girls being delivered to Ahmanet as a token from Osiris. She doesn't care about him or them, so she decapitates them and sends their heads back.
Theatre
- The 47th has Donald Trump suffer a fatal heart attack. It also features the funeral of Jimmy Carter two years before his actual death.
- King Charles III begins after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, who was alive when the play premiered in 2014. Implied in the case of Prince Philip, who is absent from the play but did not die until 2021.
Theme Parks
- Universal Studios:
- The version of Revenge of the Mummy at Universal Studios Orlando has a Framing Device of production on the titular film, a fictional sequel to The Mummy (1999), being stalked by the real Imhotep due to the use of actual ancient Egyptian artifacts during the production. The ride ends with Brendan Fraser, who had acted like a primadonna throughout the preshow and refused to wear the Medjai symbol that the crew used to protect themselves from Imhotep's curse, welcoming riders back to the station before angrily demanding a coffee. Imhotep shows up to hand him one. Brendan accepts, then notices the shriveled, mummified hand that gave him the coffee and starts screaming before a Smash to Black.
- At Orlando's Halloween Horror Nights event in 2018, the Vamp '85: New Year's Eve scare zone was themed around a New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square in The '80s getting attacked by vampires. Among the many scareactors were parodies of '80s celebrities who had been killed and turned into vampires, including LL Cool J (who took over the hosting duties from the panicked news crew), Cyndi Lauper, Debbie Harry and Madonna.
Video Games
- Newgrounds' Assassin series of Adobe Flash games and animations revolves around killing annoying and/or overexposed celebrities.
- The live-action trailer for Battlefield 6 does this as a Take That! to the perceived Denser and Wackier trend of military shooters at the time (including the Call of Duty games and some previous Battlefield games like 2042), specifically the growing focus on celebrity cameos and flashy cosmetics that would be more at home in a game like Grand Theft Auto Online or Fortnite than anything. The trailer opens with actor Zac Efron, country singer Morgan Wallen, NBA player Jimmy Butler, and MMA fighter Paddy Pimblett dressed in Mildly Military uniforms like the heroes of schlocky '80s action movies carrying weapons with brightly-colored skins and charms hanging from them. Before they can even get a sentence out, however, they're blown to smithereens by a missile, whereupon a squad of unnamed soldiers with proper uniforms and equipment step forward and serve as the focus for the rest of the trailer, as if to say that This Is Reality and this game won't be like its more glamorous, over-the-top competitors.
"Who was that?" "Doesn't matter. Let's move."
- In Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, Phil Collins can die if the player fails to keep him safe during the Kill Phil mission.
- High on Life has Jack Black and Susan Sarandon appearing in a brief cameo before the second phase of the Final Boss, Garmantuous. When Garmantuous discovers these aren't the two most important people to the Bounty Hunter (as Kenny was expecting them to be the Bounty Hunter's parents) despite hearing them being loved by other humans, he has them blown up messily.
- Hitman (2016): One Elusive Target is Gary Busey, whom 47 was hired to assassinate for bailing on a commercial he was appearing in.
- Hong Kong '97: Deng Xiaoping (or "Tong Shau Ping", as the game calls him) is said to have recently died, and the Chinese government converted his body into an "ultimate weapon". He was still alive when the game was released, though in an eerie coincidence, he really would die in 1997 as the game implies he did.
- In Saints Row: The Third, the mayor of Steelport is Burt Reynolds voicing himself. The next-to-last mission has the player chasing down an escaping villain when they get the notification that some of their allies, including Reynolds, are being held hostage at a landmark. If the player continues pursuit of the villain, the hostage taker will destroy the landmark and kill the hostages, again including Reynolds.
- In The New Order: Last Days of Europe, set in an Alternate-History Nazi Victory scenario where the world is divided in a three-way Cold War between the US, Germany, and Japan, The British Invasion never happened due to the UK being under the Nazi heel, and so The Beach Boys emerge as the biggest rock band in 1960s America... until the Manson Family murders Brian and Dennis Wilson at a party, together with producer Terry Melcher, Doris Day, Mark Lindsay, and Brian's wife Marilyn, in an alternate version of the Tate-LaBianca murders. The surviving members of the Beach Boys (one of whom, Mike Love, was also at the party but survived his injuries) decide to dissolve the band afterwards out of respect for the Wilsons' memory.
Web Animation
- DEATH BATTLE!: The episode "Justin Bieber vs. Rebecca Black" would have inevitably ended with an example of this, given the premise and rules of the show, but few expected it to happen in such an over-the-top manner. Justin dies when one of Rebecca's (underage) friends deliberately rams him with a car, pinning him to a wall. Rebecca was riding in the back of said car and stood up in lieu of using her seatbelt, so she was thrown from the wreck with fatal consequences. The Jonas Brothers stumble across the wreck and get killed when the car blows up, which also propels the sword Justin was carrying straight into Miley Cyrus' forehead, pointy end first.
Webcomics
- Team Fortress 2: In Ring of Fired, Tom Jones turns out to be the roommate of Merasmus the wizard, and he is promptly killed by Merasmus's old roommate the Soldier. Later, in The Naked and the Dead, Tom Jones is seen in heaven but God has him killed again before the singer can break the Scout's mistaken belief that Tom Jones is his father.
Web Original
- The Biden Express:
- Dick Cheney suffers a fatal heart attack after a heated argument with Newt Gingrich.
- Al Franken gets assassinated in Sarajevo.
- Blue Skies in Camelot:
- Bob Dylan dies in a motorcycle crash.
- Barbra Streisand is among those killed by the Manson family.
- Steven Tyler is killed in a motorcycle accident in Boston in 1981.
- Tex Watson is executed in 1970.
- The Final Minutes:
- Ed Sheeran is explicitly named as one of the casualties of The Tiangong Incident, specifically when parts of Tiangong-1 strike Optus Stadium.
- Part of Zombie Plague has Caracol's emergency broadcast identify Colombian singer Carlos Vives as leading a group of hybrid mutants before announcing that the mutated singer will be destroyed as quickly as possible.
- A Giant Sucking Sound has several examples. George H.W. Bush is killed in a 1993 attack by Iraqi security forces, Steven Spielberg is killed by Stormfront, David Duke is executed by electric chair, Stephen King dies as a result of a car accident, etc.
- Kentucky Fried Politics:
- Elton John and Robert Downey Jr. both succumb to drug overdoses.
- Dan Aykroyd dies in a plane crash.
- Bill Cosby passes away in 2001 after complications from diabetes.
- O. J. Simpson is murdered by his fiancé Nicole Brown.
- John Hinckley Jr. is one of the first American soldiers killed during the intervention in Uganda.
- Kevin Sorbo suffers a fatal brain aneurysm.
- George R. R. Martin dies from SARS disease complications in 2005.
- The Leapfrogged Console Wars:
- Prince Charles and Prince William die in an IRA car bomb on March 1, 1996.
- George R.R. Martin dies of a heart attack in April 1996.
- J. K. Rowling also dies as the result of an IRA car bomb.
- New Deal Coalition Retained:
- Jane Fonda winds up being executed for treason after being convicted of aiding the Viet Cong.
- Political campaign manager Alex Jones (IOTL a radio host and conspiracy theorist) ends up killing himself in this story after learning that President Ted Bundy, whom he enthusiastically supported and worked to get elected, was a serial killer.
- The Onion: One 2005 article has investigators discover the real Michael Jackson's corpse at Neverland Ranch, leading to the horrifying discovery that he was replaced by... something in the late 1980s.
- Player Two Start: Shigeru Miyamoto is killed in the year 2000 after he's hit by a car while riding his bicycle. Other celebrities killed off include Shonda Rhimes (killed by Chris Chandler, who subsequently committed suicide), Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Nicole Sullivan (were on board American Airlines Flight 11 on 9/11), Angelina Jolie (killed in the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami), Gordon Ramsay (died in a fire at Las Vegas' Caesar's Palace), Hayao Miyazaki, Nobunaga Shimazaki, Risa Taneda, Kenji Nojima, Kenichi Suzumura, Maaya Sakamoto, Yuu Kobayashi, Takuma Terashima, and Tite Kubo (all died in the Kadokawa Massacre), and Hideo Kojima would die of a stroke on August 20, 2020.
- SCP Foundation:
- In the alternate universe shown in SCP-4991, >So this is how the world ends. Not with a bang, but a shitpost, depicts an apocalyptic event where man-eating bugs ravage the world, told through social media posts. One of them is a tweet from BTS that simply says "숨을 못 쉬겠어"Translation, implying that the bugs attacked the band and killed them. Travis Scott and Donald Trump also make posts during this time, though their fates are left unclear.
- In SCP-4444, George W. Bush is rendered brain dead in a hunting accident and later taken off life support so that Lachlan Cairns (a senior Foundation official with Body Surf abilities that allow him to possess and reanimate dead bodies) can assume his identity.
- SCP-6004 mentions that Scott Morrison and Gladys Berejiklian were killed by the Rainbow Serpent when it began its rampage.
- In the alternate universe shown in SCP-4991
Web Videos
- CollegeHumor:
- "Chris Brown's Publicist" features a hapless publicist trying to deal with Chris Brown's antics, including his killing Sisqo, Usher, and Mýa, all of whom are still alive.
- "If Things Turned Out Differently" has President Howard Dean dying from avian bird flu.
- Funny or Die: One video parodying a famous scene from American Psycho has Huey Lewis murder Weird Al with an axe.
- Jreg: Parodied in the video "Modern Day Political Satire" where Donald Trump is killed by a Trump-hating comedian's preferred candidate on an in-universe satirical TV show; since the whole video is about mocking lazy, cliched anti-Trump humor, this bit is intended as a shot at the idea that Trump's death would also kill what he represents or is seen to represent.
Western Animation
- American Dad!:
- In "Stan of Arabia, Part 1", Stan kills Jay Leno via Neck Snap while the latter is making a quip about Stan's relationship with his wife.
- In "Lost in Space", Sinbad gets killed by aliens. His ghost returns in a Shout-Out to Star Wars.
- Cuba Gooding Jr. gets impaled by Francine in "The Adventures of Twill Ongenbone And His Boy Jabari" while in the role of an "angry tribal chief". Stan visits his funeral and returns an Oscar of his Roger bought online.
- In "(You Gotta) Strike For Your Right", it turns out Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan had himself buried alive as part of an elaborate scavenger hunt, underestimating how long it would take for people to find the clues, and starved to death.
- Aqua Teen Hunger Force: In the episode "Spirit Journey Formation Anniversary" a stubborn Zakk Wylde is killed when he is caught in the crossfire of two animatronic scorpions who complained about the birthday song Shake wrote.
- In the BoJack Horseman episode "Underground", Zach Braff is killed and cannibalized during a cave-in at Mr. Peanutbutter's fundraiser.
- Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix has Cody Rhodes be blown up by an Explosive Leash implanted into his skull as a warning to the other Warden's Ghosts of what will happen should they step out of line.
- By the very nature of its premise, every episode of Celebrity Deathmatch ends with at least one instance of this.
- The Cleveland Show: Julia Roberts briefly shows up at the end of "Cleveland Live" just to be crushed under a falling stage light.
- In an episode of Clone High, John Stamos dies after being stabbed in the eye with a crown.
- Close Enough: The episode "The Canine Guy" has "Weird Al" Yankovic being mauled to death by a bear.
- Family Guy:
- In "I Never Met the Dead Man", Meg runs over William Shatner and he dies.
- In "Not All Dogs Go to Heaven", Stewie kills Denise Crosby with a laser.
- James Woods is assassinated in "And Then There Were Fewer", though he is brought back to life in "Tom Tucker: The Man and His Dream".
- In the "Family Guy Viewer Mail 2" segment "Chap of the Manor", Elizabeth II is killed when her carriage crashes inside a tunnel.
- In "The Courtship of Stewie's Father," then Disney CEO Michael Eisner is eaten by crocodiles.
- In ""The Woof of Wall Street", Brian and Stewie attempt to pants James Cameron with a submersible while he's searching the Titanic, but end up accidentally tearing him in half.
- Harley Quinn:
- Howie Mandel is blown up by the Joker in "A High Bar".
- Billy Bob Thornton is mauled to death by Catwoman's pet tiger in "The 83rd Annual Villy Awards".
- Queen Elizabeth II is implied to fall to her death after Harley pushes her out of a plane in "Harlivy"; though Harley claims she had a parachute.
- Both Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are killed while attending MalCon in "The First Person to Come Back From a Business Conference Without Chlamydia".
- Inside Job: In "My Big Flat Earth Wedding", Amazon's founder, Jeff Bezos, is eaten by a Kraken. Later, in "Mole Hunt", Oprah Winfrey falls down a bottomless pit.
- The Simpsons:
- In the "Treehouse Of Horror VII" segment "Citizen Kang", Homer accidentally sends incumbent president Bill Clinton and his Republican presidential opponent Bob Dole out of an airlock into space.
- In the "Treehouse of Horror IX" segment "Starship Poopers", Jerry Springer is strangled to death by the alien Maggie.
- In the "Treehouse of Horror X" segment "Life's A Glitch, Then You Die", the following people are incinerated by the sun: Ross Perot, Spike Lee, Dan Quayle, Courtney Love, Tonya Harding, Al Sharpton, Tom Arnold, Pauly Shore and Rosie O'Donnell.
- In "Helter Shelter", after TV ratings for the family's reality show begin to decline when the family stops fighting with one another, the producers send actor David Lander as his character Squiggy from Laverne & Shirley to stir things up. When that fails to get anybody fighting again, the producers deliberately set out to make the family miserable by relocating the 19th Century house to a river and watching it float downstream and over a waterfall, destroying the house and killing "Squiggy" in the process.
- "Treehouse Of Horror XVII" has the first segment with Homer as a giant mutant blob who eats people. Doctor Phil tries to get Homer to listen to reason, only to get eaten himself. Homer remarks that he tastes just like Jeffrey Tambor.
- The "Treehouse of Horror XIX" segment "How To Get Ahead In Dead-vertising" is built around this, as Homer gets the job of murdering celebrities so they can be used in advertising without their permission. We see three of these murders depicted: He drowns George Clooney in extra-deep quicksand, then stabs, chokes, and bludgeons Prince with his own guitar, and hits Neil Armstrong with the golf club at the National Air & Space Museum. Mentions are also made of Kate Winslet being killed.
- "Treehouse of Horror XXV" opens with Kang and Kodos announcing various celebrities appearing in the special (George Clooney, Prince, Kanye West, John Travolta, Clint Eastwood, etc.) only to reveal they killed them all and used their bodies to spell out the title card.
- Smiling Friends has Bill Nye die in a hot air balloon accident in "Pim Finally Turns Green".
- South Park has done this a lot. Justin Bieber was killed by Cthulhu, Rosie O'Donnell was eaten by Cartman's Trapper Keeper, Britney Spears was sacrificed to ensure a good harvest... The list goes on and on. This sometimes results in celebrity characters making an Unexplained Recovery so that the show can make fun of them some more, such as Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.
- In The Venture Bros., the villain King Gorilla is serving a life sentence in prison for, to quote fellow villain Phantom Limb, "eviscerating and sodomizing Vince Neil on live television".