10 Celebrities Who Passed in 2024 That We Weren’t Ready to Say Goodbye to

The year 2024 is not even close to being over, but we’ve already been rocked numerous times by the passing of celebrities we all felt we knew personally. They felt like an ongoing part of our lives, like people who would be around forever. Here’s our rundown of 2024’s celebrity deaths that we just weren’t ready to say goodbye to.

1. Shelley Duvall

On July 11, Shelley Duvall passed away from diabetes complications at the age of 75. She was unmistakable with her unique look, and she always distinguished herself in movie performances like “The Shining,” “Nashville” and “Popeye,” in which she played Olive Oyl, the role Duvall was born to play.

2. Richard Simmons

Richard Simmons was a fitness instructor and television personality who hawked weight-loss products, like his “Sweatin’ to the Oldies” line of aerobics videos. His extroverted and silly persona endeared him to millions, and when people like David Letterman and Howard Stern made fun of him, which they did mercilessly, he was always there to laugh along. He died on July 13 after a fall in his home, just one day after his 76th birthday.

3. Shannen Doherty

Shannen Doherty played several television characters and became warmly welcomed in viewers’ homes on such shows as “Little House on the Prairie,” “Beverly Hills, 90210” and “Charmed.” In 2015, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and spent the next several years in treatment, but sadly, she was never able to stop the spread of the disease through her body. She died on July 13 at the age of 53, breaking the hearts of “90210” fans worldwide.

4. Bob Newhart

If you like deadpan humor, Bob Newhart was the comedian and actor you can thank for pioneering it on network television on “The Bob Newhart Show.” He was active in television and movies his entire life, more recently appearing on “The Big Bang Theory” and “Young Sheldon.” Newhart died after a short illness on July 18 at 94 years of age.

5. Ruth Westheimer

Ruth Westheimer, better known as Dr. Ruth, died on July 12 at 96 from an undisclosed cause. A Holocaust survivor, the extremely tiny woman fought in the Israeli War of Independence during the 1940s and was trained as a sniper. It was not until 1970, when she was 42 years old, that she became an intimacy therapist. A decade later, Westheimer was hosting her own radio show, but her 1985 television program, “The Dr. Ruth Show,” made her a media superstar. It is hard to overstate how much Westheimer normalized discussing the previously taboo topic of human intimacy openly.

6. Morgan Spurlock

Documentarian Morgan Spurlock died at 53 on May 23 from complications related to cancer. His passing was shocking, not just because he was so young, but also because his 2004 documentary “Super-Size Me” made many people equate him with the pursuit of healthy lifestyles. During the #MeToo era, he was called out for sexual misconduct, which he admitted to, and it pretty much ended his career as a documentarian. Still, it was unpleasant to see an apparently healthy man pass away at 53.

7. Dabney Coleman

Like Bob Newhart, actor Dabney Coleman had spent decades making people laugh and was in his 90s when he passed away. But while Newhart had a reserved, deadpan style, Coleman specialized in playing the biggest jerk in whatever movie he happened to be in. He did so with great mastery, as in 1980’s “9 to 5,” in which he played a tyrannical and handsy boss to a cast including Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton and Lily Tomlin. Coleman died on May 16 at age 92 from cardiac arrest, but we will always remember him from his portrayals of the most colossally unpleasant fictional characters in existence.

8. Steve Albini

Fans of 90s indie rock were shocked on May 7 to hear that musician and audio engineer Steve Albini had died of a heart attack at age 61. Casual music fans may not have heard of him, but his work on such albums as the Pixies’ “Surfer Rosa,” PJ Harvey’s “Rid of Me” and Nirvana’s “In Utero” distinguished him and made him one of history’s most well-known audio engineers. Albini famously refused to bill himself as a “producer,” and he never took royalties from any artist he worked with, despite that being a widespread practice in the music industry.

9. Joe Flaherty

Like his fellow “SCTV” cast members, Joe Flaherty was very, very funny. He created memorable recurring cast members for the show as Count Floyd and the fictional station manager Guy Caballero, who went around in a wheelchair that he didn’t need (and would sometimes stand up from) to gain sympathy he didn’t deserve. Flaherty also played the role of curmudgeonly suburban dad, Harold Weir, on the criminally underrated “Freaks and Geeks,” and showed much more range than his reputation suggested. He died on April 1 at the age of 82, and we are all worse off for it.

10. Toby Keith

Country singer Toby Keith died on February 5 at the age of 61 from stomach cancer. His passing was a shock to fans despite his announcement that he had been sick a couple of years earlier, in part because his public persona as a rowdy country boy made a lot of people forget that he was just as vulnerable as the rest of us. Eerily, he died just days after the Country Music Hall of Fame had voted to induct him.