Obituaries for 2025

[Cyber Liberty]

Wow. Anyone else feels old?
Rest in peace and thank you for the music-

I was born in the same year as Donny....

[verga]

Mike Rinder, Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath Co-Host, Dead at 69 — Read His Parting Words
https://tvline.com/news/mike-rinder-dead-scientology-and-the-aftermath-cause-of-death-1235395973/

[Gefn]

Mike Rinder, Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath Co-Host, Dead at 69 — Read His Parting Words
https://tvline.com/news/mike-rinder-dead-scientology-and-the-aftermath-cause-of-death-1235395973/

I liked him on that show. RIP

[Gefn]

World’s oldest person Tomiko Itooka dies at 116

TOKYO — The world’s oldest person, Japanese woman Tomiko Itooka, has died at the age of 116, the city of Ashiya where she lived announced on Saturday, January 4.

Itooka, who had four children and five grandchildren, died on December 29 at a nursing home where she resided since 2019, the southern city’s mayor said in a statement.

https://www.msn.com/en-ph/society-culture-and-history/social-issues/world-s-oldest-person-tomiko-itooka-dies-at-116/ar-AA1wYtCH?ocid=TobArticle

[Gefn]

Jeff Baena, writer-director married to Aubrey Plaza, dead at 47

Jeff Baena, an independent filmmaker best known for directing “Life After Beth” and co-writing “I Heart Huckabees,” died Friday, according to the Los Angeles County medical examiner. He was 47.

Baena had been married to actor Aubrey Plaza since 2021. The couple collaborated on several films, including in 2014’s “Life After Beth,” in which Plaza had a starring role.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/jeff-baena-aubrey-plaza-husband-dead-rcna186237

[mountaineer]

Mike Rinder, Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath Co-Host, Dead at 69

He did good work, trying to expose that group's many crimes.

My Friend, My Hero: Mike Rinder
Yashar Ali
Jan 05, 2025

I am heartbroken to share the news that my friend Mike Rinder has passed away after a nearly two-year battle with cancer.

Mike was not only my friend; he was one of my heroes, and I will always be grateful to my dear friend Leah Remini for introducing me to Mike eight years ago.

For those of you who have never watched Leah’s series on A&E, Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath, or seen Mike in other documentaries, Mike was a top official in Scientology for decades before escaping in 2007. ...

When he was in Scientology, no one received more abuse at the hands of David Miscavige than Mike. He endured dozens of beatings by Miscavige himself. For years, he was kept in “The Hole,” a prison that David Miscavige set up on a Scientology base where he held Scientology officials he wanted to torture. Mike lived in The Hole for years, where he endured harsh interrogations and ate slop (literally) from a bucket.

After enduring dozens of beatings, being held prisoner, and undergoing psychologically devastating interrogations and threats, Mike fled Scientology with nothing but his passport and a briefcase. ...

https://www.thereset.news/p/my-friend-my-hero-mike-rinder

[jmyrlefuller]

Folk singer Peter Yarrow dies at 86.

More to come...

[Gefn]

Peter Yarrow of folk-music trio Peter, Paul and Mary dies at 86

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Peter Yarrow, the singer-songwriter best known as one-third of Peter, Paul and Mary, the folk-music trio whose impassioned harmonies transfixed millions as they lifted their voices in favor of civil rights and against war, has died. He was 86.

Yarrow, who also co-wrote the group’s most enduring song, “Puff the Magic Dragon,” died Tuesday in New York, publicist Ken Sunshine said. Yarrow had bladder cancer for the past four years.

“Our fearless dragon is tired and has entered the last chapter of his magnificent life. The world knows Peter Yarrow the iconic folk activist, but the human being behind the legend is every bit as generous, creative, passionate, playful, and wise as his lyrics suggest,” his daughter Bethany said in a statement.

https://apnews.com/article/peter-yarrow-dies-paul-mary-767c223e40c243199b0d0875e29a5efc

[jmyrlefuller]

Curiously absent from that eulogy is the part where he had a 14 year old girl do things for him not fit for putting her.

[GrouchoTex]

I liked him on that show. RIP

I did too

[MeganC]

I rather loathe "folk music". It's almost always pro-Communist, the singers are mostly feminists and eunuchs, and the fans are mostly pathetic touchy-feely liberals.

[Timber Rattler]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z15pxWUXvLY


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKOrpyO0z48

[mountaineer]

Curiously absent from that eulogy is the part where he had a 14 year old girl do things for him not fit for putting her.

Here's that part of the story:

After recording their last No. 1 hit, a 1969 cover of John Denver's "Leaving on a Jet Plane," the trio split up the following year to pursue solo careers.

That same year Yarrow had pleaded guilty to taking indecent liberties with a 14-year-old girl who had come to his hotel room with her older sister to ask for autographs. The pair found him naked when he answered the door and let them in. Yarrow, who resumed his career after serving three months in jail, was pardoned by President Jimmy Carter in 1981. Over the decades, he apologized repeatedly.

"I fully support the current movements demanding equal rights for all and refusing to allow continued abuse and injury — most particularly of a sexual nature, of which I am, with great sorrow, guilty," he told The New York Times in 2019 after being disinvited from a festival over the sentence.

AP via WTAE

[PeteS in CA]

I rather loathe "folk music". It's almost always pro-Communist, the singers are mostly feminists and eunuchs, and the fans are mostly pathetic touchy-feely liberals.

That is true of much 1960s music. Whether malicious or clueless, much damage was done. It's the music with which I grew up and enjoyed, so some of it is painful to hear, as I've worked with refugees and children of refugees from Vietnam.

[verga]

Folk singer Peter Yarrow dies at 86.

More to come...

WOW That is a shame. RIP Great song writer/ singer.

[Cyber Liberty]

That is true of much 1960s music. Whether malicious or clueless, much damage was done. It's the music with which I grew up and enjoyed, so some of it is painful to hear, as I've worked with refugees and children of refugees from Vietnam.

Martin Mull:  Remember the Great Folk Music scare of the 60's and 70's?  We were terrified that crap was going to catch on....

[jmyrlefuller]

Here's that part of the story:AP via WTAE

Oh, it went beyond just letting them in the hotel room while he was naked. He made her touch his nether regions until... well... I'll let the rest speak for itself. And he may have had others.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210517122113/https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/05/17/peter-yarrow-carter-pardon-assault/

To date, he is the only sex offender to have received a presidential pardon.

[Cyber Liberty]

Oh, it went beyond just letting them in the hotel room while he was naked. He made her touch his nether regions until... well... I'll let the rest speak for itself. And he may have had others.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210517122113/https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/05/17/peter-yarrow-carter-pardon-assault/

To date, he is the only sex offender to have received a presidential pardon.

Nowadays, we just don't charge them in the first place, or hand out ridiculously light sentences.   

[berdie]

Fun Fact: You can two-step to Puff The Magic Dragon.

[Free Vulcan]

Went to one of their concerts in the early 90's. It was so New Age it freaked me out. The atmosphere in there was oppressive.

[Fishrrman]

Peter, Paul & Mary were never favorites of mine.
I did have one of their LP's ("Late Again").

Saw them at Carnegie Hall in the late 60's, I think.
Can't deny that I recall it was a very good show.

[jmyrlefuller]

James Arthur Ray, New Age quack, self-fashioned self-help guru and TV talk show fixture whose "sweat lodges" killed two men in 2009, dies at 67

https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/arizona/james-arthur-ray-self-help-guru-sedona-sweat-lodge-deaths-dies/75-f1d3d765-8afc-4544-b584-1e537c704285

[jmyrlefuller]

Anita Bryant dies at 84



Bryant came to fame most famously for the song "Paper Roses," which would later be covered by Marie Osmond, which she parlayed into regular appearances on Bob Hope's USO tours. It would be her later conservative activism that drew the ridicule and ire of what would later be known as the LGBTQ lobby, which turned Bryant into a persona non grata as revenge against her Save Our Children campaign; the stress from the harassment eventually led to a divorce which alienated her fans on the Christian right, effectively destroying her career. Attempts to relaunch her career following a remarriage in the 1990s were unsuccessful and she died in relative obscurity December 16, 2024, with her death not reported until nearly a month afterward.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/anita-bryant-singer-anti-gay-232037188.html


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASYEIIBPesw

Official obituary:
https://www.oklahoman.com/obituaries/pokl1052221

[jmyrlefuller]

Edgar Welch, who accidentally disproved Pizzagate, dies in an unrelated confrontation with police

In 2016, following leaks of the Podesta emails, Welch entered Comet Ping Pong—a D.C. pizzeria where Podesta considered hosting a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton—in hopes of finding the basement where Qanon and other online conspiracy theorists had conjectured a child trafficking ring had been operating and liberating it. Welch was armed but fired only one warning shot, eventually leaving when, after examining the restaurant, he discovered that it had no basement. Future Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson sentenced Welch to four years in prison for the incident.

Welch was killed in Kannapolis, North Carolina in an armed confrontation with police officers after a vehicle he was riding in was pulled over for a routine traffic stop and the officers attempted to arrest Welch for a probation violation.

https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/crime/article298247913.html

[Gefn]

Sam Moore, Half of Sam & Dave Duo That Rose to Fame With ‘Soul Man’ and ‘Hold On I’m Comin’,’ Dies at 89

Sam Moore, who had classic hits with the soul duo Sam and Dave in the 1960s, died Friday morning  in Coral Gables, Florida. He was 89. The cause of death was post-surgery complications, according to the singer’s rep.

Moore took the tenor part on perennials that are familiar even to generations not yet born during the duo’s ’60s heyday, including “Hold On, I’m Comin'” (a No. 1 R&B hit in 1966), “Soul Man” (which reached No. 2 on the Hot 100 as well as topping the R&B chart in 1967) and “I Thank You” (a top 10 hit on both charts in 1968).

Sam & Dave were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 and received the Recording Academy’s lifetime achievement honor in 2019.

https://variety.com/2025/music/obituaries-people-news/sam-moore-dead-sam-dave-soul-man-1236272201/