Farrah Fawcett’s death wasn’t just overshadowed by Michael Jackson’s death – it was comprehensively out-weirded.
And that’s almost impossible. Because even though Michael Jackson left behind a bunch of kids that weren’t really his, an ex-wife who doesn’t really want access to her own children and an abusive father who was deliberately cut out of his will, Farrah Fawcett left behind her boyfriend Ryan O’Neal. And that’s much better. Much much much better.
Because Ryan O’Neal has admitted, in print, in a widely-read magazine, that he spent some of Farrah Fawcett’s funeral attempting to hook up with his own daughter. Genius.
Of all the casualties claimed in the great celebrity cull of summer 2009, Farrah Fawcett was probably the saddest. She didn’t die of old age like Ed McMahon. She didn’t die of a ridiculous dose of a medical-grade anaesthetic to which she was hopelessly addicted like Michael Jackson. She died of a disease that she’d been bravely trying to keep at bay for three long years, and the fact that her death was brushed aside because someone more famous died a few hours later is nothing short of tragic.
But regardless of all that, so long as Farrah Fawcett was given a dignified funeral attended by people who loved her, none of that would matter. And, really, it’s not difficult to bring dignity to a funeral. All you need to do is keep quiet, look sad and, for the love of god, don’t fail to recognise your estranged daughter to the extent that you start chatting her up when she tries to reintroduce herself into your life. Not if she once won an Oscar for a film she starred in with you. Not at your own girlfriend’s funeral.
But there’s a chance that Ryan O’Neal didn’t get the memo for that last rule, given that that’s exactly what he did to his daughter Tatum O’Neal during Farrah Fawcett’s funeral. How do we know this? Because he’s quite openly admitted it to Vanity Fair, that’s why:
“I had just put the casket in the hearse and I was watching it drive away when a beautiful blonde woman comes up and embraces me… I said to her, ‘You have a drink on you? You have a car?’ She said, ‘Daddy, it’s me–Tatum!’ I was just trying to be funny with a strange Swedish woman, and it’s my daughter. It’s so sick.” “That’s our relationship in a nutshell,” Tatum said. “He was always a ladies’ man.”
It’s a creepy story, yes, but remember that it took place during a funeral, so emotions were obviously running high at the time, and that may have clouded Ryan O’Neal’s judgement slightly. And it’s also sort of sweet – maybe Ryan O’Neal was just demonstrating a residual fondness for his estranged daughter in a way that momentarily made sense to his grief-stricken mind.
Oh what the hell, we’ll go with that. Yes, this is definitely the sweetest story we’ve ever heard about a man who once fired a gun at his own son trying to have sex with his crack addict daughter at the funeral of his girlfriend who’d just died of bum cancer.
Although if you know of any sweeter stories about that precise circumstance, we’d love to hear them.
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Andrew Marshall says
I have just got to say that Stuart Heritage sure can right a story. He is one of the best.
mst3kster says
“… right a story.”
Pun intended?
lisa says
“Of all the casualties claimed in the great celebrity cull of summer 2009, Farrah Fawcett was probably the saddest. She didn
Jenna says
Fuck the person who wrote this article. FUCK you!
Julie says
I am sorry for Ryan , I love that movie ” Love story” with Ali Mc Graw.
And I hope he will beat that cancer.