5 men who died so ridiculously because of stupidity that they could have earned the right to win the Darwin Award (6 photos)

Famous men who ended their lives because of their banal stupidity, self-confidence or arrogance.





Jon-Erik Hexam



Young actor Jon-Erik Hexam was a successful Hollywood star in the 1980s. He periodically received leading roles, appeared on the covers of major American magazines, which wrote that he was a rising young film star with a limitless future. He also had an enviable height and muscular physique, which made him a favorite among female audiences.

On October 12, 1984, the actor was filming a TV series at the 20th Century Studio, where in one of the scenes his character was supposed to be armed with a .44 Magnum pistol, so he was given a working pistol and blank cartridges as props.

According to Paul Connelly's book Fade to Black: A Book of Film Obituaries: "After several hours, the director didn't like the footage, so the whole crew was called off for a break to let the director and writers figure out how to reshoot some of the bad scenes.

At this moment, Hexam, who was waiting for the reshoot stage, felt boredom, and decided to relieve it by unloading the revolver, leaving one blank cartridge in it. He spun the drum and, imitating roulette, put the revolver to his head, and then pulled the trigger, unaware of the danger."

You can imagine what happened next. Even a blank round was enough to pierce a skull at such close range with a .44 Magnum. The doctors present on the set tried to provide first aid to the actor and quickly took him to the clinic, where the best surgeons fought for his life for several hours.

But a week later he was taken off life support.

Steve Irwin





Famous Australian naturalist and journalist Steve Irwin became famous for his TV shows about wildlife and animals, such as The Crocodile Hunter.

Of course he was a truly good guy with a big heart. He clearly loved animals and dedicated his life to protecting them. But this does not change the fact that he often scared animals for his own benefit and mesmerizing footage for television. He also took the real risks when interacting with dangerous animals lightly.

That is, he acted quite stupidly.

This is exactly what happened when Steve Irwin and his cameraman scuba dived to film large stingrays off the Great Barrier Reef. Soon the stingray attacked Irwin, hitting him in the heart with its poisonous tail and the journalist died.

But what made this stingray attack Irwin? Many fishermen are well aware that it is easy to make a stingray feel threatened by sneaking up on it from above, from behind, or driving it into a corner. Irwin knew this too. But according to cameraman Irwin, he did both. To make the stingray feel threatened and raise its tail for the most impressive shots.

Intentionally threatening the stingray, Steve Irwin positioned himself so that the animal felt threatened. And he paid for it with his life.

Dan Matthews of PETA released the following statement following the journalist's death:

“It's no surprise that Steve Irwin died provoking a dangerous animal for his cheap 'reality' show. He built his entire career on teasing scared wild animals and showing them off on camera.”

Jim Henson



Actor and puppeteer Jim Henson, who created the famous Kermit the Frog and other Sesame Street Muppets that entertained millions of preschoolers and their parents around the world, ended his life in a truly crazy way.

He is believed to have contracted a rare, dangerous form of bacterial pneumonia called group A streptococcus and took the lozenges to relieve the pain. But the craziest thing is that he categorically refused to go to the hospital because of his affiliation with Jehovah's Witnesses. He said that his faith forbade him to go to the hospital

“I’m just tired,” he reportedly told his daughter Cheryl. It soon became obvious that Henson was not getting better, but only getting worse. Apparently, the pneumonia in the actor’s body reminded him of a regular flu.

It was only when he started coughing up blood that his family rushed him to the hospital against his will. But by then it was too late - his organs began to fail, and his body did not respond to antibiotics.

Dr. David Gelmont, the director of the clinic that tried to save the actor, said that Jim Henson could have been saved if he had arrived at the hospital just a day or two earlier.

Claude Francois



Claude Francois is a French singer who was very popular in the sixties and seventies of the last century.

Claude Francois became famous for adapting American and English rock 'n' roll hits for French audiences, and when disco music became popular in the seventies, he successfully adapted to the new wave.

On March 11, 1978, after a short stay in Switzerland, he returned to his apartment in Paris. Deciding to take a bath, Francois noticed that the lamp on the wall was hanging crookedly. Standing in the bathtub, with wet hands, he began to adjust the electric lamp to fix it. He began to adjust the electrical wire of the lamp and at that moment he was electrocuted.

Soon the singer's body was discovered by his fiancee, Kathleen. She pulled Francois out of the bath and called an ambulance, but the singer could not be saved.

At the time of his death he was 39 years old.

John Kennedy Jr



John F. Kennedy Jr., son of the late US President John F. Kennedy, died in a plane crash in 1999 along with his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and her sister Lauren Bessette.

But the remarkable thing here is that everything happened because of the stupidity of John Kennedy Jr. It was he who was the pilot of the private PA-32 Saratoga aircraft, without having any serious piloting experience. It turned out that at the time of the ill-fated flight, Kennedy had flown only 70 hours with an instructor, had no experience of piloting in the dark, and was not ready to perform a complex flight at night in poor visibility on his own. As a result, the plane fell into the Atlantic Ocean at great speed.

The results of the investigation of the incident confirmed the fact that if at the critical moment the autopilot on the plane had been turned on, then no disorientation in space would have occurred and everything would have been normal. That is, in the whole situation, only the pilot was to blame, who, without sufficient experience, decided to turn off the autopilot and take full control of the plane.

Do you know any other similar cases about famous people? Share your messages in the comments.