[Kitty]

OK....this is just too much. My son just showed me an announcement on the Internet that he passed away at his home this morning. What is going on???

[Earl]

I just read this also, appears he wasn't wearing a seat belt in a flight home and the tire blew on landing, this causing him to hit his head real hard, he died later that night in his home.

I am glad I didn't break the story here, I was starting to get the reputation of the grim reaper.

[hollym]

He was also 50 - same age as Michael Jackson.

[Blessings2You]

How sad for his family. What a shock.

Now everybody has to take back all the mean things they said about him, right? No, of course not. His tv "persona" was not meant to be warm, fuzzy, and lovable.

Another odd contradiction of our culture. We can "dislike" celebrities, make fun of them, be annoyed by them, but we also realize that they are real people, with real feelings and real families. So we can say "Ugh, I hate this actress or that singer" but we honestly feel bad when something happens.

[Kitty]

If it weren't for Oxy Clean I wouldn't know who he was. All I remember was he yelled.....didn't speak.....yelled. But that was okay. I just turned the volume down.

I hate it for his family. Death is awful enough when you're expecting it. When it's just out of the blue.....such a shock.

Maybe now we'll stop saying "death comes in threes". It comes whenever it wants.

Rest In Peace, Billy.

[Kitty]

Originally Posted by Earl

I just read this also, appears he wasn't wearing a seat belt in a flight home and the tire blew on landing, this causing him to hit his head real hard, he died later that night in his home.

I am glad I didn't break the story here, I was starting to get the reputation of the grim reaper.

Sounds like a similar scenario as what happened to Natasha Richardson. Unknown head injury. So sad.

[Desinie]

I just saw him on Conan last week. He looked great and it seemed was doing really well. He was even doing Arm and Hammer commercials recently. This is sad, along with all the other recent celeb deaths. That's at least 5 now, isn't it?

[kicker]

Michael Jackson - I grew up with him. Loved the young years but when he became Wacko-Jacko it was over, Thriller or not. Then the rumors and trials and stuff. A shame. He was 3 years younger than me, at 8 I saw the 5 year old til now.

[oldsteve]

Actually, what I heard on the news was that the plane he was on had a hard landing and the overhead bins flew open and he got conked in the head with something from the overhead bin. He was on camera afterward acting like it was no big deal, saying "I got a hard head".

He was sort of annoying on the middle of the night infomercials but he was kind of neat on the new Discovery Channel show "Pitch Men".

Either way, 50 is too young to die.

[Niko]

I always thought his commericials were seasonal.

I knew Spring was on the the way when his commericials began to air.