Why we can grieve people we never met, and what that means for how we care for one another.
By Nada Mohamed-Aly
Unexpected Tears for a Stranger
In October 2024, I spent two weeks watching fan tributes to Liam Payne on TikTok. Fans cried over his sudden death. Old dance videos resurfaced. Online mediums claimed he was sending the world a message that he was okay. Then I spent two more weeks listening to music I had never heard before.
I had not thought about Liam Payne in years, not since 2016, when I was a child crushed that my favorite boy band was breaking up. Yet his death, of someone I never knew, left me grieving. I thought about the childhood that had ended, the drives to swim practice and the grocery trips with my mom, and the friends and family I had lost since then.
Why does a stranger’s death hit so hard?
The Bonds We Build From Afar
When we listen to a favorite artist or watch an actor grow up on screen, we form real emotional bonds. We attach songs to specific memories and build family traditions around films. Because the connection runs one way, researchers describe it as a parasocial relationship. The person has no idea we exist, yet in our minds they can feel like a friend.
There have been a slew of celebrity deaths recently, leaving a grieving public. Several public figures died in 2026, and fans around the world mourned them:
- Catherine O’Hara (January 30): Known for Moira Rose on Schitt’s Creek and for playing Kate McCallister in Home Alone. For many viewers, her final embrace with her son Kevin is a holiday memory.
- James Van Der Beek (February 11): Known for Dawson Leery on Dawson’s Creek, the teen drama that ran on The WB from 1998 to 2003. Many viewers grew up with his character’s ambitions and heartbreaks.
- Eric Dane (February 19): Known for Dr. Mark Sloan on Grey’s Anatomy, the character fans called “McSteamy,” and for Cal Jacobs on Euphoria. His work shaped the medical and teen dramas of the 2000s and 2020s.
- Hayden Panettiere (August 16): Known for Claire Bennet on Heroes and Juliette Barnes on Nashville. For many fans, her shows were part of a childhood or a Friday night routine.
- Dolly Parton (August 25): Known for “Jolene,” “9 to 5,” and “I Will Always Love You.” Her Imagination Library has given away hundreds of millions of books to children, so many people share memories of her music or of a book sent to their home, including my own daughter.
What Research Tells Us
Grief after a public figure’s death is a recognized experience, sometimes called parasocial grief. A 2022 study in Death Studies interviewed fans about the death of a musician they felt personally connected to. Participants described losing that connection as comparable to losing a close social contact, and many felt their grief went unrecognized by others. A 2025 student thesis analyzed hundreds of posts after Liam Payne’s death and concluded that “grief felt by fans mirrors traditional mourning processes,” with fans sharing memories and building community online.
Bereavement researchers have also found that the closeness someone feels toward a public figure is associated with how intensely they grieve. That grief, research suggests, is a real response to a real loss.
Kailey Roberts, Assistant Professor at Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, Yeshiva University, says:
“Public figures can have a profound impact on our lives, becoming intertwined with our histories, identities, and relationships. Their deaths may evoke grief for the person themselves or bring up memories of others we’ve lost.
“Importantly, grief over a public figure can be disenfranchised, meaning that it may not be recognized or acknowledged by others. While some celebrity deaths bring people together in collective mourning, others are experienced privately. When others don’t understand why a death has affected us, we may feel that our grief isn’t legitimate or that we shouldn’t express it, which can be isolating. We don’t need to fully understand someone else’s connection to a loss to recognize that their grief is meaningful.”
Grief Does Not Follow a Straight Line
Grief does not always look the way we expect. It does not always follow a close relationship, and it does not always make sense to the people around us. Sometimes it means crying over someone you haven’t thought about in ten years. Sometimes it means revisiting songs you haven’t played in a decade, or finding comfort among strangers who are mourning the same person you are.
When Celebrity Loss Brings Our Own Losses Back
A celebrity’s death can also force us to revisit our own past, in a different way. If you idolize that celebrity, they might become larger than life, immortal even. And then, how is it possible that someone who is immortal died?
Perhaps part of the answer is that, in some ways, they never really leave us. Their music remains on our playlists, their movies remain part of our family traditions. We may have said goodbye, but we still have the memories and experiences we associate with them. In fact, they are not immortal. None of us are. But the connection we had with them continues to live on in ways we may not have expected.
Making Space for Every Kind of Grief
At Evermore, we are working to advance research and care to make the world a more livable place for all bereaved people. That starts with recognizing that grief is not one-size-fits-all. Whether we are grieving a loved one, a colleague, or someone we only knew from afar, our grief deserves compassion and care.
Find Support Near You
If you are grieving, you can search the Evermore Grief Support Directory for local grief support: https://evermore.org/grief-support-directory/
You can also explore our Grief Resources page: https://evermore.org/grief-resources/
Evermore does not provide counseling or therapeutic support. If you or someone you know is in emotional distress or is considering suicide, call or text 988 or chat at https://988lifeline.org/chat. Trained crisis counselors are available 24 hours a day.
