A Year of Farewells: The Prominent Figures Who Died in 2025

The year 2025 saw an unusually long procession of high-profile deaths across the arts, politics, sciences and sports, from pop stars and screen icons to world leaders and innovators. Among the marquee names who died were Pope Francis, Robert Redford, Diane Keaton, Dick Cheney, Brian Wilson, Gene Hackman, Ozzy Osbourne, Jane Goodall, Roberta Flack, George Foreman, Tom Stoppard, Frank Gehry and Rob Reiner.

Some deaths carried tragic or shocking circumstances. Gene Hackman, 95 and living with Alzheimer’s disease, collapsed at his Santa Fe home days after his wife died; their bodies were discovered a week later. In December, Rob Reiner and his wife Michele were found slain in their Los Angeles home; their son was later charged in the case.

Two other abrupt deaths that reverberated politically were the suicide of Virginia Giuffre, a prominent victim in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, and the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk while speaking on a college campus. The entertainment world lost a wide array of film, television and theater figures, including David Lynch, Val Kilmer, Brigitte Bardot, Claudia Cardinale, Tony Roberts, Terence Stamp, Richard Chamberlain, Loretta Swit, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, George Wendt, Loni Anderson, Michelle Trachtenberg, June Lockhart and playwrights and directors such as Tom Stoppard, Athol Fugard and Robert Wilson.

Key Topics

Sports, United States, Culture, Obituaries, Entertainment, Politics, Music