August 18, 2011 8:00 am

12 famous people who sadly overdosed

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famous people who overdosed 12 famous people who sadly overdosed

Fame and drugs go together like ketchup and mustard, like Bert and Ernie, like Britney Spears and insanity, like Pete Doherty and, well, drugs. But sometimes famous people take it a little too far and then the next thing they know, they’re floating up to heaven and watching their bodies get carried out in a body bag while flashbulbs pop and fans cry. Yes, thanks to their inability to do drugs like responsible adults, the following 12 famous folks are doomed to spend eternity trying to avoid Peter Venkman and the boys. Yes, it’s sad, but at least I finally gave Dan Aykroyd a plot for Ghostbusters 3. You’re welcome, Dan. You’re welcome.

12 John Belushi
John Belushi made everyone laugh as the wild man star of Saturday Night Live and Animal House, but the sad reality is that the real life Belushi was a little too close to the caricature of a party animal he so famously created. Sure, maybe movie star Belushi could down a fifth of Jack and walk away unscathed, but real life Belushi couldn’t quite rise to the occasion following a fatal speedball (a mixture of heroin and cocaine) overdose. Famously, Robin Williams hung out with Belushi that fateful night which leads me to one inescapable conclusion: God missed his intended target. After all, it’s often said that God has a sense of humor and, well, it’s the only logical explanation. I mean, come on, I refuse to believe that God could be a fan of Patch Adams. You know I’m right.

11 Len Bias
Every Celtics fan reading this just felt their jaw clench and their soul cry out in agony, and why not? I mean, after all, Len Bias was supposed to be the man to take the torch from Larry Bird and carry the Celtics dynasty into the ‘90s. But before Bias could ever even throw on a Boston uniform, he died of a cocaine overdose. There are those who say that Len Bias could have been one of the all-time greats, but the only lists that Len Bias will ever appear on are ones like this one. He’s a Hall of Fame cautionary tale, not a Hall of Fame basketball player and that’s a shame.

10 Chris Farley
Chris Farley idolized John Belushi. Just like Belushi, Farley went on to fame as the wild man star of Saturday Night Live and just like Belushi, Farley went on to bigger success as a movie star. But also just like Belushi, Farley died at the age of 33 of a speedball overdose. Oddly enough, that’s the same age as Jesus when he died, and what most people don’t know is that back in Jesus’ day “Crucifixion” was slang for a cocaine/heroin overdose. It’s in the Bible if you don’t believe me. Besides, you’ve seen Jesus’ hair and beard, right? Don’t tell me he didn’t like to party. I guess, in the end, history really does repeat itself and 2,000 years from now, people will no doubt be celebrating the life of Chris Farley in the Bible Part II: The Empire Strikes Back.

9 Anna Nicole Smith
Sadly, when Anna Nicole Smith overdosed on a variety of drugs while vacationing in the Bahamas, nobody was really all that surprised. After all, her life was basically one long, slow motion train wreck. Think about it. Can any of you actually picture Anna Nicole Smith as an old lady? How would her beloved husband, J. Howard Marshall, recognize her in the afterlife? I mean, aside from her giant plastic boobs and vapid expression? He didn’t marry her so she could go off and get old on him. He wanted his trophy bride and goddammit, he wasn’t just going to sit around and let her get all old and wrinkly like him. Now, I’m not saying that his ghost gave her those drugs, but how else would someone as responsible as Anna Nicole Smith mix up drugs and overdose like that? I mean, after all, she was a scientist and I refuse to believe that a Nobel nominated chemist like her, one of the great minds of our time, would make such a simple mistake. In that light, “a ghost did it” is the only reasonable explanation.

8 Keith Moon
Wild, self-destructive, absurdly talented, Keith Moon, the drummer for The Who, ironically died of an overdose because he was desperately trying to stay sober. Indeed, after years of having his ass kicked by alcoholism, Moon began to take a sedative which would combat his desire for booze. Told to take one pill each time he felt the need to drink -– but no more than three in a single day — Moon took 32 pills and promptly died. It was later revealed that six pills were enough to kill him. The other 26 were never even digested. Keith Moon died as he lived –- completely over the top. Even in sobriety he was reckless and wild. I will not make the obvious “Well, at least he died before he got old” joke. Nope, I won’t do it. It’s important to have standards.

7 Howard Hughes
The eccentric billionaire reportedly died of a doctor administered morphine overdose, which was later said to be “the highest clinical level ever recorded.” Well, shit. If you’re gonna go out, you might as well go out big, you know? But honestly, the morphine overdose was really just a formality when you consider that Hughes had fatally overdosed on insanity years before. Given what we know about Hughes, a simple drug overdose almost seems too pedestrian. Like, you’d almost expect that he would have died trying to fly to the sun with wings made from cloned Pterodactyls or something like that. But in the end, I guess morphine was good enough. At least he died happy, or at least really, really pain free.

6 River Phoenix
Maybe the best actor of his generation, the world was shocked when River Phoenix died from a speedball overdose (Quick lesson from this list? Don’t do speedballs.) But really, should people have been that surprised that a dude named River was into drugs? I mean, this was a guy whose parents named his sister “Rain Joan of Arc Bottom” (Bottom is the Phoenix clans’ real last name.) I’m guessing drugs were not really frowned upon too heavily. Sadly, River Phoenix’s speedball overdose came at the age of 23, which means that he was a decade short of the magic age of 33, which we’ve already established is the accepted age for a speedball death, as proven by John Belushi, Chris Farley and Jesus. Therefore, clearly, we can only conclude that River Phoenix was a false prophet. Sad but true. I don’t like it either. I just go by what the Bible says.

5 Michael Jackson
Oh, Michael Jackson. Of course, MJ had a weird death. It would have freaked more people out if he would have died of old age in his bed surrounded by loved ones (in this case, loved ones can be assumed to mean Bubbles the Chimp, a couple of random kids, maybe a clown, a magician and Corey Feldman.) As it is, a simple sleeping pill overdose is almost too mundane. Wait, you mean no one’s sure whether it was accidental? And that nobody’s sure if he did it himself or if a doctor did it? And there have been rumors that he faked his own death? Ahhhhh, there’s the crazy we all know and love. Hell, for all we know, Michael’s chimp finally had enough and took matters into his own hands. After all, that chimp probably saw some weird and wild shit in his day. He had to get out before he lost his mind completely. Who knows? Maybe Mike ran out of Jesus Juice, got depressed and hit the eject button of life? Maybe he saw a naked lady, got scared and did what he had to do? I don’t know and frankly, neither does anyone else. All any of us know is that the dude is dead and we’re just hoping and praying that he doesn’t come back as a dancing zombie, as prophesized in “Thriller.”

4 Heath Ledger
People were shocked when Heath Ledger died following an accidental mixture of prescription drugs, but honestly, how do you think the guy coped after failing to bring Gotham City to its knees? I mean, you’d be popping a few pain killers too if you got your ass kicked by Batman. After all, people did say that Ledger got a little too into the character of the Joker. The weirdest part of the story, though, was undoubtedly the involvement of Mary Kate Olsen, who was reportedly contacted by Ledger’s masseuse after she found his body and who sent her security to check on the scene before the fuzz could get there. I mean, sure, in some corner of this dark, strange world known as the Internet I’m sure there’s fanfiction about the Joker, the Olsen twins and a boatload of prescription drugs, but I don’t think any of us really foresaw… this. The lesson? Reality is almost always more messed up than anything we can create. Oh, and Mary Kate Olsen might be the Angel of Death, but I’m pretty sure some of you at least already suspected that.

3 Sigmund Freud
Riddled with cancer, in pain, and convinced that the rest of his life would be nothing but misery, Sigmund Freud convinced a doctor friend of his to give him the ol’ Morphine ride to Heaven. So, apparently, not only was Freud the father of psychoanalysis (and he’d probably have some bullshit to say about my choice of the word “father” here) he was also the father of assisted suicide. Somewhere in the afterlife, I’m sure he and Dr. Jack Kevorkian are arguing over who gets the credit, but no matter who wins that argument, Freud has something that no one can ever take away from him: his award winning appearance in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Yes, you may remember him for his work in the field of psychoanalysis and others may remember him for being a staunch advocate of cocaine use, while still others may remember him for his morphine overdose, but I’ll always remember him as the dude who got his mouth sucked into the hose of a vacuum cleaner. Godspeed, Sigmund, at least you helped Bill and Ted get their A in history before you rode that river of morphine to the great beyond.

2 Jim Morrison
Officially, Jim Morrison, infamous lead singer for The Doors and noted Val Kilmer muse, died of ordinary heart failure, which sounds plausible until you remember that Morrison was only 27 years old, and usually 27 year-olds don’t just drop dead of heart failure. So that makes it that much more believable that Morrison died of a heroin overdose in the bathtub of his Parisian hotel room. Of course, since no autopsy was ever performed, no one can say for sure what killed Jim Morrison, but even his longtime girlfriend, Pamela Courson, who found Jim’s body, said it was a heroin overdose. So… yeah, it was probably a heroin overdose. Since then, there have been countless rumors that Morrison is still alive, that he faked his death and is hanging out with Elvis and JFK in Bigfoot’s cave, but the truth is probably that he liked the drugs a little too much and that the drugs didn’t really like him back. It happens. Especially to young rock stars with millions of dollars and a god complex.

1 Marilyn Monroe
This is probably the third or fourth time Marilyn Monroe has popped up in the top spot of one of these articles here at Guyism, and whether it’s because she got boned by a president, went nuts and got thrown in the crazy house or because she overdosed on barbiturates, it’s clear that Marilyn Monroe led a very interesting and very tragic (and let’s face it, almost impossibly ridiculous) life. In retrospect, it’s obvious that this was how Marilyn’s life would draw to its unseemly close. In the end, her only escape lay at the bottom of a bottle of pills. Of course, everyone from the Kennedys to the Mob to the CIA have since been blamed for her death but let’s face it, by all accounts, Marilyn Monroe was a very sad and a very, very messed up chick. If anyone, throughout history, could have been picked out as the poster girl for a barbiturate overdose, it would have been Marilyn Monroe. She is almost the patron saint of swallowing a bunch of pills and drifting off into a never ending sleep. And that’s why she’s number one — yet again –- on one of these lists.