Last week singer R Kelly was found guilty on charges of sex trafficking and jailed for thirty years. I won't lie - I was a massive R Kelly fan back in the day. His album 12 Play released in 1993 was the soundtrack to my mid-teen years. Right now I don't feel I can ever listen to that album again even though there are so many good memories associated with it. It was exactly the same when Ian Watkins was found guilty of abusing children. I was a huge Lostprophets fan, as were my siblings. We played their CDs all the time and I even went to see them in concert. Lostprophets' music always reminds me of certain times in my life and of my family, but again this is something I can't really listen to without feeling like it's wrong. But I am so glad that justice has been served to these fallen idols. We always say that money talks, and that the rich and powerful get away with so much but I'm glad that in these cases, no one got away with anything and people have been made to pay for their crimes.
But it's still a big shock for the public, that people whose work we admired could do things that were so heinous. Or on the other hand, have terrible things happen to them. We may think that in the world of celebrity and entertainment everything's very cushy and comfy but that's not always the case and over the years there have been many shocking things that have either happened to people in the public eye or been caused by them. The Jimmy Saville case; the murder of Gianni Versace, the tragic suicides of Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington are just some events that have left us stunned.
What big shocks that have rocked the entertainment world do you remember?
River Phoenix's death at the Viper Room in LA from an overdose. I was pretty young at the time but I do remember this very well as it was all over the news. And of course because the club belonged to Johnny Depp he was involved in all of this too. River was a very talented young man and he had the world at his feet. It really was very, very sad.