12 Reality Stars You Might Not Know Are Dead

Reality television is one of the few truly enduring genres of the last 30 years, rarely waning in popularity and only seeming to get increasingly more ubiquitous as time goes on. And to that end, the people who have become famous via their appearances in reality shows have become some of pop culture's biggest celebrities. In fact, a certain host of a certain NBC reality show even became a twice-elected president of the United States — and it's hard to get more famous than that. 

But the genre can also have a negative effect on someone's celebrity status, as evidenced by the controversial reality TV moments that killed celebrities' careers. And the death of a reality show star often grabs the same amount of headlines as the passing of a major actor or musician, sometimes even more so. However, there are also times when a reality show star passes away without getting a lot of media attention. 

In some cases, it's because the person has shifted to a more private life following their time on the reality show or shows that made them famous. Other times, it's just one of those things where the death occurred concurrently with some other major news story and the obituary got overshadowed. Both of those encompass some of the people on this list — as well as people whose deaths might come as a complete surprise to fans for various other reasons.

Duane "Dog" Chapman was a real life bounty hunter who became famous when he captured cosmetics heir Andrew Luster in 2003. Only a year later, "Dog the Bounty Hunter" debuted on A&E and ran for nine seasons, spawning several spin-offs — including "Dog and Beth: On the Hunt," which gave his wife and bounty hunter partner, Beth Chapman, equal billing. Beth rose to celebrity status herself, becoming a household name alongside her famous husband.

In 2017, A&E aired the film "Dog and Beth: Fight of Their Lives," the Chapmans' most personal project up to that point, as it focused on the titular couple dealing with Beth being diagnosed with throat cancer. For a time, it seemed like Beth turned a corner on the disease as her cancer went into remission. The pair launched another series in 2019 called "Dog's Most Wanted," which would ultimately serve to be Beth's final project — she died during production of the show's first and only season, as the cancer had not only returned but had spread to her lungs. She continued working on the show up until her final days, passing at just 51 years old. 

Not only has MTV largely given itself over to reality television, but it sometimes runs marathons of internet clip show "Ridiculousness" for what feels like multiple days on end. The host and creator of that show, actor and skateboarder Rob Dyrdek, had first established himself as a reality show hitmaker for the cable network when he co-created "Rob & Big" in 2006 with friend and then-bodyguard Christopher Boykin, aka "Big Black" or simply "Big." Like many MTV reality shows starring a celebrity, "Rob & Big" positioned itself as simply following its stars around as they lived their lives, but of course contained a number of conveniently-occurring stunts and other outlandish events. 

Boykin was involved in the follow-up series "Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory," which at that point had given Dyrdek so much clout that when he pitched "Ridiculousness," MTV bought it on the spot. As for Boykin, he also continued to grow his own celebrity, going on to become a fixture on various other MTV shows throughout the 2010s — including "Guy Code," "Snack Off," and of course, "Ridiculousness." But Boykin's career, as well as his life, were cut tragically short when he died of a heart attack in 2017 at only 45 years old. 

"American Idol" — or, to be more specific, its U.K. predecessor "Pop Idol" — helped to usher in the talent competition era of reality television. Beyond obvious influences like "The Voice" and "The Masked Singer," there likely wouldn't be "Dancing With The Stars," "America's Got Talent," "Top Chef," and the like if "American Idol," "Survivor," and "Road Rules" hadn't provided the blueprint for the competitive reality shows to follow. 

And that's to say nothing of the stars that "American Idol" has given the world, with the two biggest arguably being country superstar Carrie Underwood and Season 1 winner and eventual talk show host Kelly Clarkson. The show tried to make stars out of not only Clarkson but also her runner-up, Justin Guarini, who went on to have a prolific career in live theater. Meanwhile, Season 1 third place finisher Nikki McKibbin was part of the first "American Idols Live!" tour in 2002 and released a few singles over the ensuing few years, but struggled with substance addiction — eventually appearing on "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew." 

McKibbin told People in 2019, "I've battled substance abuse and I'm winning," adding that she was in a good place. Sadly, she would lose her life only a year later following a brain aneurysm. Guarini posted a very heartfelt tribute to his fellow "Idol" finalist following her passing, sharing the story of McKibbin's idol, Stevie Nicks, sending McKibbin flowers and a letter praising her talent. 

It was only a matter of time before streaming services decided to get a piece of the reality show pie. For Netflix in particular, it has become a sizable percentage of the streamer's slate of original programming. 2021's "Bling Empire" follows a group of Asian American socialites in Los Angeles comprising heirs, heiresses, surgeons, real estate tycoons, movie producers, business investors, and more. The show proved popular enough to stick around for three seasons — it's an accomplishment for a Netflix show to even last more than one — as well as spawn a New York-based spin-off. 

One of the most popular cast members of "Bling Empire" was Anna Shay, who made her money by being part of the family who founded defense contractor Pacific Architects and Engineers. Her son, Kenny, was also part of the show. In a profile of Shay's life for Town & Country, Shay told stories of her extremely fascinating life, involving everything from armed robberies to disguising monkeys as people, some of which were so wild that they could be the basis for an entire big-budget action-adventure movie. Too bad Hollywood won't ever get the chance, as Shay died from a stroke in June 2023, only eight months after the final season of "Bling Empire" hit Netflix.  

Discovery Channel's contributions to the reality television space have largely focused on unorthodox and/or dangerous jobs, and people who live on various fringes of society. One of its most popular entries in the latter category is "Alaskan Bush People," which ran for 14 seasons between 2014 and 2022 and followed a family that was trying to live entirely off the grid — beyond being on a reality TV show, of course — and use only the surrounding Alaskan wilderness for their basic necessities. 

At least, that's what the show wanted the audience to think. Over the years, evidence seemed to mount that "Alaskan Bush People" was one of those reality shows that was more scripted and manufactured than not, which definitely hurt the public's perception of both the show and its stars. But the Brown family were certainly not professional actors — and even if some of the details of their lives and their supposed wilderness-based survival was fake, their personalities were anything but. 

Patriarch Billy Brown went a long way in giving the show its charm, and surely kept people tuning even after the accusations of deceit. Billy suffered a seizure and died in early 2021, with "Alaskan Bush People" only going on for one more season without him before being canceled. 

Falling a bit more into guilty pleasure territory in the reality show landscape was TLC's "90 Day Fiancé." It centered around a rule in the United States that allows someone to travel from another country on a temporary visa for the express purpose of marrying an American citizen in order to become citizens themselves — but that marriage needs to happen within 90 days, hence the title. Each episode of the show follows a couple that includes an American citizen being visited by their partner from another country — who they've been maintaining a long-distance relationship with — to see if they can mutually decide to get married during the 90 days before their visa expires.

Not all "90 Day Fiancé" cast members get their green card, but Cassia Tavares did when she married Jason Hitch after their courtship in Season 2 of the show. Yet their marriage was far from wedded bliss, as Tavares leveled domestic violence accusations against Hitch. By 2018, Hitch had filed for divorce, only four years into their marriage. He largely retreated from the public eye after that, until 2021 when he passed away from complications related to COVID-19. Despite their troubled relationship, Tavares said nothing negative about Hitch in the wake of his passing when discussing it on social media, expressing only shock and sadness while offering condolences to his friends and loved ones. 

There was a time when VH1 continued to focus on as much music-based programming as possible even while MTV had already become mostly reality shows. But it wouldn't be long before VH1 followed suit and also became yet another cable channel inundated with reality TV. While things still started out somewhat tangentially related to music — such as the shows dedicated to finding girlfriends for musicians Flavor Flav and Bret Michaels — by the 2010s that was all but finished as well. 

2011 saw the debut of VH1's "Mob Wives." In the tradition of the "Real Housewives of [insert location here]" franchise, "Mob Wives" focused on the spouses of various men in positions of fame and/or power. But in this case, those men had been or were currently in jail for illegal activities related to the Mafia. 

Not all of the cast members, however, were specifically wives of criminals. Some, like Angela "Big Ang" Raiola, who joined in Season 2, was the niece of one — though she did date plenty of shady characters before finally marrying the seemingly law-abiding Neil Murphy. Raiola was on "Mob Wives" for its remaining five seasons, though she passed away from cancer at the age of 55, one month prior to the airing of its finale in 2016. 

The TLC series "My 600-lb Life" attempts to help people turn their life around by having medical professionals guide them to a healthier lifestyle aimed at bringing down their weight, which typically includes surgery. But the tragic reality is that once a human body has reached that size, there has already been a significant amount of stress and trauma done to the body that can be difficult to fully come back from. So far, a staggering 17 "My 600-lb Life" stars have sadly passed away, some of whom were actually on a good path to getting their health back on track.

However, not all of the show's former cast members who have lost their lives did so as a direct result of health complications related to their size. Paul MacNeill was featured on Season 10 of "My 600-lb Life" in hopes of losing some of the 757 pounds that his weight had reached at that point. In 2021, nine years after his episode aired, MacNeill posted an update to Facebook revealing that he had lost 200 pounds and was still taking his health seriously. Unfortunately, two years later, MacNeill died in a car accident while driving to work. He was survived by his fiancé, Jenn, with the couple planning to get married in two months at the time of MacNeill's death. 

A growing number of cast members from Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch" have sadly passed away, some as a direct result of their extremely treacherous job and others for unrelated reasons. Captain Phil Harris was the first to die when he suffered a stroke in 2010, in the midst of filming Season 6 of the series. The most recent death was actually revealed to the public during Season 20 of the show itself, when Jake Anderson received a phone call on an episode that aired in October 2024 informing him and his crew of the death of Tom Brossard.

One "Deadliest Catch" death that flew a bit under the radar, however, was that of Ross Jones. Jones had only appeared in two episodes of the program, which is likely part of the reason why his passing in 2022 didn't make headlines. In fact, it was the Deadliest Catch World page on Facebook that revealed the news, with the post explaining it wasn't the page's place to give any details on his death and that it was up to the family to reveal that information if they chose to do so. As of this writing, there hasn't been any further information given about how Jones died. 

MTV might have tried to initially position "16 and Pregnant" as a docuseries in line with its previous shows like "True Life" — and maybe it truly did start out that way — but it wasn't long before the show veered firmly into reality television territory. This became especially true when the show spun off into "Teen Mom" and made household names out of some of the girls who appeared on the show. 

Need further proof that these shows fall into many of the usual reality show trappings? How about the fact that Autumn Crittendon and Millina Kacmar, two girls from Season 5 of "16 and Pregnant," were reported to have started dating following the airing of their season? Whatever happened between the two was obviously short-lived, as Autumn later married a guy named Brad Oxley. That couple divorced just two months later, with Autumn and her original "16 and Pregnant" boyfriend Dustin Franklin subsequently having another child together in 2022. 

In July 2024, news broke that Autumn was found dead in her Virginia home. The cause of death was later revealed to be an accidental opioid overdose. 

Given that the first season of "Survivor" — retroactively referred to as "Survivor: Borneo" — first aired over 20 years ago and featured cast members in their 60s and 70s, it's not surprising that multiple members of that season are among the "Survivor" contestants you might not know passed away. Following Rudy Boesch and Bill "B.B." Andersen, Sonja Christopher became the third "Borneo" contestant to expire when she died in April 2024 of undisclosed causes. She was 87 years old.

Christopher had an extremely unique place in "Survivor" history, far beyond simply being part of the long-running show's debut season. Christopher had the distinction of being the first contestant ever sent home, when she was voted off in the very first Tribal Council during the show's pilot episode. Remarkably, that didn't cause her to have any ill will toward "Survivor." In fact, in a video she posted to the Survivor Central account on X (formerly Twitter) in 2017, Christopher claimed to be the show's biggest fan and said she'd watched every episode of all 17 seasons up to that point. 

Documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock became a household name with his head-turning 2004 film "Super Size Me." The film chronicled Spurlock eating nothing but menu items from fast food chain McDonald's for an entire month, with the self-imposed rule of agreeing to "super size" his meal any time the option was offered to him. McDonald's would subsequently discontinue super-sized drinks and fries less than two months after the film's premiere, though the company insisted the timing of the decision in relation to the arrival of the film was entirely coincidental.

A year after the release of "Super Size Me," Spurlock brought the film's conceit to reality television when he launched "30 Days" on FX. Each episode followed either Spurlock himself or another person/other people spending a month doing a certain thing and/or living a certain lifestyle — often choosing people whose regular lifestyles were in direct opposition to the behavior they are tasked with pursuing on the show. Examples included spending a month on anti-aging supplements, living off the grid, working in a coal mine, and being in prison. "30 Days" ran for three seasons.

Spurlock largely retired from public life in 2017, while admitting to a history of misconduct after the #MeToo movement gained significant traction. Little else was heard about him until May 2024, when it was revealed the controversial director was dead at 53 from cancer. 

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues or is dealing with domestic abuse, contact the relevant resources below:

• Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.
• Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).