After the loss of greats like David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Prince, Gene Wilder and Carrie Fisher in 2016, plenty of us will be pleased to see the back of 2016.
But one morbid website is suggesting we should brace ourselves for more of the same this year.
Death List, a website dedicated to predicting celebrity deaths, has named 50 famous faces who it expects to die at some point over the next 12 months.
This year, the website predicts famous faces like Hugh Hefner, Bruce Forsyth, the Queen and Prince Philip will die.
Betty White, Kirk Douglas, Dave Prowse, who played Darth Vader in Star Wars, and 52-year-old Emmerdale star Leah Bracknell are also on the list.
However, considering Prince Philip’s occupation on the website reads ‘casual racist’ instead of his proper title, ‘Duke of Edinburgh’, it’s not difficult to assume this list is pretty bullshit.
The group of ‘experts’ has been trying to predict which celebrities will die each year, dating back to 1986. According to the website, the distasteful prediction game was originally conceived in a bar at Warwick University following the death of actor Cary Grant.
In 2016, the website correctly predicted 12 out of 50 deaths posted. In 2015, it was 14 out of 50.
Considering the website appears to take 50 of the oldest celebrities around (or those in bad health), it’s not entirely surprising they have at least a few accurate guesses – and some celebrities have defied the site’s predictions for a number of years.
Legendary actor Kirk Douglas, Michael Douglas’ father, who recently celebrated his 100th birthday, has repeatedly been on the list since first appearing on it in 2002.
But perhaps the celebrity who has defied expectations the most is rocker Ozzy Osbourne – who was on the website’s first ever ‘death list’ back in 1987.
So let’s not get all shook up just yet…
