Celebrities whose cause of death was covered up

Liberace's AIDs-related death was initially attributed to "a combination of pernicious anemia, emphysema and heart disease."

I simply LOATHE the perniciousness of anemia!

[Quote] Platt was found dead in his Santa Monica apartment on March 19, 1974, at the age of 58.[5] Initial reports indicated the cause of death was a heart attack, but Platt's son later said that his father died from suicide after a long struggle with untreated depression.[6]

How does on treat depression? Asking for a friend.

With antidepressants, how else.

I thought Liberace starved to death on the watermelon diet

Bob Saget, probably.

A few weeks back, someone described how Paul Benedict (Mr. Bentley on the Jeffersons) was murdered and the crime was covered up.

The whole Bob Saget thing was just weird

Saget's widow was/is a piece of work. She wanted to be in the limelight as his widow but didn't want to be asked any questions about his death. That's not how it works, honey. If you want your fifteen minutes of fame, you have to talk to everyone who shoves a microphone in your face. You can't just pap stroll.

Dear Ann Landers,

I find I am weirdly attracted to DL threads like this. Is there something wrong with me?

love always//Tootsie

Andy Warhol's death from AIDS complications has been covered up from the beginning.

George Reeves (Adventures of Superman, etc.) died by suicide, although "No one in Hollywood believed the suicide story."

Natalie Wood, of course

R6 Isnt it widely accepted he OD’d on coke.

I bet a lot of deaths from classic Hollywood stars were covered up due to being murdered by the mafia.

I believe some organized crime killed Sam Cooke, not necessarily the mob.

R6 "Bob Saget, probably. "

Bob Saget, definitely. His death has all the hallmarks of a paid sex worker hook-up gone bad.

Did we ever get a cause of death for Ray Liotta?

Isaac Asimov died of AIDS from blood transfusions. The family covered that up for decades.

R18 Didn’t Arthur Ashe’s family also try to cover up his death. It’s sad that AIDS phobia was so rampant, even people who died from non dangerous lifestyles were covered up.

Gay director James Whale killed himself but his death was initially reported as an accidental drowning

R20 Lawd. He was born in the 19th century.

I will always wonder what Sagat was really up to.

Marilyn (if you believe the rumors)

Brittany Murphy's death and her husband 's death were probably covered up.

We still don't know how Phillip McKeon died. He was 55 and they said it was a long illness but they won't say what it was.

There was something weird about Jonathan Crombie’s death

Jonathan Crombie

Ricky Wilson from the B-52's. His cause of death was initially giving as lymph cancer rather than AIDS. He died the same time as Rock Hudson, so you can kind of understand his family wanting to avoid that sort of media storm.

Since then though the band have been honest about it and done lots of fundraising for HIV charities.

R28 In the mid 1980s there was no effective treatment for AIDS, so for some it ended up being a rather quick death sentence, so once HIV became full blown AIDS, some would end up dying in a matter of weeks or months from a variety of diseases due to lack of immunity.

People who thought Saget was a sweet boy next door type obviously never went to one of his stand up shows. He was filthy. There's no telling what he got up to in private.

Warhol was ill from being shot in the 60’s, and he waited too late to have surgery. I don’t think he received adequate post op care, either. Gall bladder surgery was major surgery until laparoscopic was an option. Maybe he was HIV positive, but I don’t think it really made a difference. I think he would have mentioned something in his diaries if he was sick with AIDS. His life is pretty well documented.

I had a wonderful uncle who went into cardiac arrest in his forties, an hour after his gallbladder surgery, in the mid 80s. Sadly, it rocked my family to its core.

If I recall correctly, Patti Labelle called former trio member Sarah Dash up onstage to sing on a Saturday...

and Sarah was dead on a Tuesday, cause of death not disclosed.

I looked up Ray Liotta’s cause of death. From Wikipedia:

An autopsy report released in 2023 concluded that Liotta's cause of death was respiratory failure, pulmonary edema, and heart failure, with atherosclerosis cited as an underlying issue.

No cover up here.

Michael Hutchence - suicide or autoerotic asphyxiation gone Wrong

George Michael. I think he killed himself on Christmas and was already sick/dying from HIV anyway. He probably did have fatty liver and heart congestion but that's not what did it, I don't think. I think he purposely killed himself / OD'd.

Jock Zonfrillo from Australian Masterchef

Jeffrey Epstein

R30, that's interesting. I always got a creepy, pervy vibe from him on America's Funniest Home Videos.

Actor Nick Adams of 'The Rebel' fame (you young'uns won't remember that series). The last several years of his life saw career decline and several low budget movies on his resume. He was also the rumored lover of none other than James Dean & Elvis Presley, et al. He was supposed to have dinner with a friend one evening and when he didn't arrive the friend went to his house and saw him through a window slumped over dead against his bedroom wall. The coroner found that he had enough of multiple drugs in his system to kill a horse. This was at a time when he was reportedly planning to write a tell-all book revealing the sexual secrets of many highly placed Hollywood personalities. Some of his friends believed he was murdered for the rest of their lives.

^^^That photo is all fucked up^^^

Dd they put another head on someone's body?

R19, Arthur Ashe was all over TV talking about his AIDS diagnosis after a blood transfusion, there was no cover up.

Modern dance great Alvin Ailey died of AIDS in his 50s, yet didn’t want it to be public to spare his mother of the stigma associated with the disease in 1989.

Jim Henson's death was surprising. And even though they explained it with a bacterial infection, people still thought that his cause of death was AIDS related. I would have found the bacterial infection totally plausible. But there was a sentence in his Wikipedia profile that I find odd.

[quote] Henson was having trouble breathing when he woke up at around 2:00 a.m. EDT on May 15, and he began coughing up blood. He suggested to his wife that he might be dying, but he did not want to take time off from his schedule [a Muppets recording session] to visit a hospital for his illness, feeling that it would resolve on its own.

He suggested he might be dying, but didn't want to take time off from his schedule to go a doctor?

^^^That photo is all fucked up^^^

No it's not. Nick Adams had an exceptional body. I've seen him in TV shows and movies and he was quite a dish.

[quote] He suggested he might be dying, but didn't want to take time off from his schedule to go a doctor?

It was the [italic]Muppets.[/italic]

You do not want to disappoint Miss Piggy.

I agree about Bob Saget. Very shady. Likely some type of drugs/sex worker scenario.

[quote]He was 55 and they said it was a long illness but they won't say what it was.

Potomac Horse Fever.

Henson had bacterial pneumonia. If he had gone to the doctor and had antibiotics, he probably would have been fine. As he chose not to, he became septic and died.

Eva Gabor died suddenly in Mexico of a “virus.” Hmm, I’ve been very suspicious of that since it happened in 1995.

The little boy from Mary Poppins. About 10 years after the movie it was reported that he died after travelling in the far east. Frim Liver problems or jaundice. There's a big rumour ge was so down on his luck that he was homeless and a rent boy but Disney paid his family to cover it up. Another Bobby Driscoll. Sad either way.

Kid from Mary Poppins, I had no idea he died so young: