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Joe Cocker And Leslie Nielsen Have Also Died As Of January 2016, But They Died Years Ago

By Danny Cox
Published on: 16:32 PST, Jan 28, 2016

January of 2016 has been incredibly difficult for fans of celebrities around the world. Celebrity deaths in 2016 have already been so plentiful in January alone, and it’s enough for the whole year. It’s heartbreaking to wake up each day and see a new death announcement. As of Thursday, everyone was passing around the death announcements of legendary singer Joe Cocker and comedic actor Leslie Nielsen. Little do they realize they’ve been dead for years.

David Bowie, Abe Vigoda, Alan Rickman, and so many others have passed away in January of this year and it’s been a month of pure sadness. It makes so many wonder then why people are bringing about more sadness by reliving the deaths of those that have been gone for years.

In the last year, Disney legend Annette Funicello and Golden Girls star Rue McClanahan both had their deaths brought back up. Now, it’s Cocker and Nielsen who everyone thinks has passed away once more.

leslie nielsen dies
Photo by CBS via Getty Images

Once again, someone sees a death notice of someone or just learns of their death and shares it on social media. They don’t pay much attention to the date that the celebrity died, and it ends up starting a wave of crazed posts mourning that person’s death.

Unfortunately, no one really bothers to look at the date or do their research before just sharing the same article and then it goes viral again.

Leslie Nielsen passed away on Nov. 28, 2010, at the age of 84, as reported by Fox News. The truly hilarious comedic actor was famous for Airplane, The Naked Gun, and so many other movies and TV shows over a long and storied career.

His agent, John S. Kelly, confirmed back in November of 2010 that Nielsen had passed away in his home due to complications from pneumonia.

“We are saddened by the passing of beloved actor Leslie Nielsen, probably best remembered as Lt. Frank Drebin in ‘The Naked Gun’ series of pictures, but who enjoyed a more than 60-year career in motion pictures and television.”

Sad as it is, Leslie Nielsen did not just die. He’s been dead over five years now, but his death announcement is making the social media rounds yet again, and he isn’t the only one.

Many are saddened today to learn that legendary singer and musician Joe Cocker is dead. Twitter and Facebook have been filled with tributes to Cocker and his long history in music due to his passing.

Once more, a lot of people fail to realize that Joe Cocker has indeed died, but he’s been dead since Dec. 22, 2014. A little bit less time has passed since Nielsen died, but a lot of people still are of the belief that Cocker has just died within the last day or two.

As reported by the BBC, Cocker passed away at the age of 70 after a battle with lung cancer. A true legend in the music industry and all the world was lost when Cocker died, and it is still sad, but there’s no need to keep bringing up the sad past.

On Thursday, there was another tragic loss that added to the long list of 2016 celebrity deaths and it was that of Jefferson Starship founding guitarist, Paul Kantner. He died at the age of 74 from multiple organ failure and septic shock after having a heart attack earlier in the week.

The world has lost so many legends this year already, and it’s hard to accept those celebrities that have left us all too soon. Bringing back up the deaths of celebrities such as Joe Cocker and Leslie Nielsen from years ago, makes things that much harder. Celebrity deaths are coming about far too often in 2016, so let’s do some fact-checking first before freaking everyone out even more.

[Image by Andreas Rentz, Kevin Winter/Getty Images]

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