Via the AP report:

The official tells The Associated Press that it's unclear whether the 23-year-old daughter of pop star Billy Joel and supermodel Christie Brinkley had attempted suicide. The official says a friend of Joel's frantically called 911 from Joel's downtown Manhattan apartment around noon on Saturday and said the singer had taken several pills. The official didn't know how many or what kind of pills were taken. The official wasn't authorized to publicly disclose the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Obviously, this brings to mind DJ AM's overdose, and for that matter, Heath Ledger's overdose on pills last year. Both were spiraling into exhaustion and depression; Joel had two performances scheduled for the next week and most recently, her mom was in the tabloids for a rough divorce (second item) with scuzzy architect Peter Cook, which her Dad, Billy Joel, came to Brinkley's defense for. The family's got problems. Alexa's career's been going well, not incredible, but pretty decent: the average amount of press for whatever the kid of a celebrity who embarks on a music career would get, and there's really no indication of the kind of dark shit that would lead to drug abuse or chronic depression in her music, or, for that matter—hold the above issues of her parents—any news about her. Signs, though: they're elusive, if they exist. Update: Uh, nevermind. Per the George Rush-penned New York Daily News report:

Alexa Ray is the only daughter of Joel and Brinkley, whose nine-year marriage ended in divorce in 1994. A source said Alexa has been an emotional wreck since breaking up with her boyfriend, ex-bandmate Jimmy Riot, years ago. "She has battled depression," the source said. "She had a rough breakup with a boyfriend, a musician in her band, several years ago. It was her first love." A family friend said Brinkley's ugly split with ex-husband Peter Cook and Joel's marriage with a woman "almost her own age" took a heavy toll on Alexa Ray.

Heartbreak's awful. Ugh.

Again, Joel's publicist noted that she's in stable condition, and that they're "assessing her needs." We can laugh all we want about the kids of celebrities, but really, who knows how easy (or hard) they have it? It's not a third-world problem, but it's not one most of us can speak from experience on, either. Here's hoping she gets better.

UPDATE: Shabooty says it's not true, and that @TheMichaelLohan is in fact an impostor. Here's the email Lohan sent them:

This is not not not me. I do not have and never had a twitter and twitter's corporate office confirms that. My lawyers are investigating.

Adrian and I briefly contemplated dropping everything and rushing to the bridge for the first-ever Gawker night editor suicide intervention to save Michael, but transport to the Brooklyn Bridge from our respective apartments is sort of a bitch, and while we were haggling, @TheMichaelLohan's tweets all disappeared. Here it is before the mass tweletion, from an Allie Is Wired screengrab:

And after:

Twitter hack? Drunk texting? Honest-to-god near-death microblog experience? A few initial points of inquiry:

• 1. If he was en route to the bridge, why did he send the tweets "from Web," suggesting he was seated at his computer, as opposed to on his Blackberry in a car?
• 2. Why would he only say good-bye to Lindsay?
• 3. Can a user delete all their tweets at once without deleting their user page? Their simultaneous disappearance of all of Michael's tweets suggests something more drastic than individual deletions.
• 4. Tweeting a suicidal cry for help must be the most tragic use of 140 characters in the history of human literacy, a floundering grasp at the lonely nothingness that is the artificial comfort of virtual communities. That's not an inquiry, just a point to be made with a sigh.

Were you on the Brooklyn Bridge a little after 2AM? Are you the pipsqueak who hacked Papa Lohan's account? Tell us what you saw or know.

[AllieIsWired] [TheMichaelLohan] [Shabooty]

Remember they did like a "bailout" thing a while back, when our economy had that momentary hiccup? So apparently now our government is going to have to be paying that back, to the tune of $700 billion per year. Which is not to say we' can't do it—we're not here to worry you, or upset your mind in any way whatsoever with technical issues of "the prospect of not having money ever for the rest of your natural life"—but we need a plan here, to get this thing taken care of.

So here is the plan, without further ado: Everybody take all your money and put it into gold right now. That shit is as high as it's ever been right now and it has nowhere to go but up. Then take the rest of all your money and put it into stocks. They are totally going through the roof today and we for one see no sign of this trend stopping any moment. If you're an executive now, don't stop being one, because as long as you are, you get to keep all the money. Next, find the dude selling life insurance in the subway—his name is Eric, he's down there all the time. Purchase a $700 billion policy.

Right, everything is going swimmingly. To complete the financial wizardry in action here, kill yourself. Don't feel bad. Everybody's doing it.

[Pic via]

From the Associated Press:

In an Oct. 30 entry on her blog, Kim wrote she was "mad depressed and overworked," and in another entry said "the more i gain the more lonely it is ... i know i'm like a ghost." The last entry on her blog, dated Nov. 18, was titled "say hi to forever" and carried a video of the song "I Go Deep" by British singer Jim Rivers.

The next day her boyfriend found her dead in her Paris apartment and alerted police. In April this year actress Jang Ja-yeon committed suicide at home and left a seven-page letter describing sexual abuse she had to endure at the hands of those who controlled her career. The Guardian report from the time says that seven other South Korean celebrities had taken their own lives in the six months leading up to Jang's death.

Ahn Jae-hwan, a 36-year-old actor, was reportedly mired in debt. Choi Jin-sil, 39, was worried she had pressured Ahn into suicide. Model Kim Ji-hoo, 23, was harassed on the net after coming out. Singer Lee Seo-hyun, 30, was also under attack on the net over sexuality. Actor Kim Suk-gyun, 30, was said to have been depressed. Transgender actor Jang Chae-won, 26, left a suicide note online.

At the end of May this year the former Prime Minister President of the country, Roh Moo-Hyun leapt to his death from a hill behind his house. He was in the midst of a bribery scandal. His suicide note said:

I am in debt to too many people. Too many people have suffered because of me. And I cannot imagine the suffering they will go through in the future.

South Korea has the 11th highest suicide rate in the world, according to a report from the World Health Organization, based on 2006 figures (via Wikipedia).

Writes the Times of London

At the root of the Swiss Government's initiative is a fear that the cheerful Heidi-and-cowbells image is being tarnished by suicide tourists. About 400 turned to clinics for help in committing suicide in 2007, 132 of them from abroad.

This is a legitimate fear. But what the Swiss government doesn't realize is that all the hip young suicides have for years steered clear of Dignitas because it's "where all the tourists go."

We're hearing from multiple sources that a major round of layoffs will be hitting Forbes next week. So if you work at Forbes...um, just be nervous, I guess. And if you know more details, email us.


Danyel Smith was the editor of Vibe. Then Vibe folded. Then she got a job as editor of TheRoot.com. Now, after just six weeks on the job, she's quitting "because of issues related to her commute." Huh. Well I was coming home late one dark afternoon/ A reporter stopped me for an interview/ She said she heard stories and she heard fables/ That I'm vicious on the mic, and the turntable/ This young reporter I did adore/ So I rocked a vicious rhyme like I never did before/ She said 'Damn fly guy I'm in love with you'/ And the Casanova legend must have been true/ I said: TELECOMMUTE.
Hip hop has a message.


Details from a tipster regarding this week's cutbacks at Conde Nast Traveler: "A majority of the full-time research staff was 'severed.' Although, purportedly, there will be an arrangement in the coming weeks for those let go to remain as freelancers—a mitigating demotion, ostensibly. But the axe also fell on some editorial and copy edit staff, and several other senior editors, while not fully terminated, will see their work weeks shortened to two or three days only." That's marginally better than being laid off!


An 80 year-old man who retired as Baltimore's AP bureau chief in 1991 killed himself last weekend after being charged with molesting two young boys.

• Tila Tequila's life's been a bit hectic as of late, but we had no idea how hard she was taking it all: she's been tweeting about taking her own life because "God spoke to me and told me I am needed up there." Oh boy... Tequila also wrote that a friend stopped her from doing the deed, but she plans on doing it in two weeks. Someone help this woman. [Ace]
  
  
• A man in a thong manhandled Kate Moss at Simon Cowell's birthday and all she got for the trouble was an angry boyfriend. [Page Six]
  
  
• Tyler Perry admitted on his website that he was sexually abused as a child. No punchline there. [NYDN]
  
  
• Katie "Jordan" Price's sexy fighter boyfriend Alex Reid enjoys dressing up in women's clothing. Yes, seriously. [Mirror]
  
  
• After 22-years of strutting her stuff, Claudia Schiffer says she'll retire from the catwalk. But don't worry, she insists she'll still model for print ads, the poor dear. [The Sun]
  
  
• Guns N' Roses are being sued by some musicians who claim the band stole tracks for Chinese Democracy. If Axl and company really did steal the tracks, that's sad: it took the band about a million years to make. [NYDN]
  
  
• Police found what they're calling a suicide note penned by Ryan Jenkins, the reality star who killed himself after being accused of killing his wife, Jasmine Fiore. The note makes not mention of Fiore. [People]
  
  
• Brian Littrell, who's in a bygone band called the Backstreet Boys, has swine flu. [Us]
  
  
• Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes temporarily moved to Boston and no one cares. [MSNBC]
  
  
• Nicole Richie was hospitalized after a minor car accident. She'll be fine. [People]
  
  
• The security surrounding Michael Jackson's tomb has been "scaled back." Grave robbers, start your pillaging! [TMZ]
  
  
• President Obama never picks Democratic Sen. Bob Casey for his basketball team. See? He doesn't play partisan games. [Page Six]
  
  
• Mad Men actor Bryan Batt's marrying his boyfriend. How fabulous! [Perez]
  
  
• Lars von Trier's new movie, Antichrist, will give you a seizure and send you straight to hell. [Page Six]

The two-story house she had occupied since roughly 2003 was attached and not particularly grand. That may be because the estate Anne Scripps Douglas left behind for her three daughters - the youngest sister, a daughter with Mr. Douglas, is named Victoria - was not strikingly large. It was $1.3 million.

Also the fact that her stepdad murdered her mom 15 years ago and then leapt to his death from the very same bridge. Could be a mix of those things.
[Pic: AP]

Finn Caspersen, a New Jersey heir and philanthropist, may have dodged up to $100 million in taxes via accounts in the tax haven of Liechtenstein, sources told the New York Times. Under scrutiny from the IRS, he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on Labor Day.

And now, amid a major federal crackdown on tax shelters, other tax dodgers face a wrenching choice: Hope they don't get caught and, perhaps, meet Caspersen's fate; or turn themselves in and pay their back taxes. They have a week to decide; the IRS will give them a sort of amnesty if they fess up by September 23, one week from now. Might as well act now, amid an economic collapse that has the fallen rich trying to reinvent themselves left and right. That sort of brutal redemption won't stay in vogue much longer.

(Pic via)

[via Business Insider]

Carradine was in Bangkok shooting a film. According to this Thai newspaper, a maid found him hanging in the closet of his hotel room yesterday after he failed to show up for dinner with the film's crew.

His agent confirmed the death to WABC in New York, but says Carradine died of natural causes.

One of his most recent roles was in an as-yet-unreleased film called My Suicide.

The former president of South Korea, Roh Moo-Hyun, jumped off of a hill behind his house last night. Roh had been accused of taking $6 million from a South Korean businessman in bribes; his wife was being questioned, and he was to go through a second round of questioning this week. Roh - the first South Korean president to cross the demilitarized zone - left behind a despondent note on his computer before going for a walk with his aide; in it, he wrote: "Don't be too sad. Aren't life and death both a piece of nature?..It is fate."The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

In China, a guy contemplating suicide was actually pushed over a bridge by someone else. Chen Fuchao, piled under massive debt, was standing on a bridge when Lai Jiansheng, 66, decided he was sick of what he considered to be a "selfish activity." Fuchao's standing on the bridge had police quartering off the area, and traffic got backed up. Jiansheng shook Fuchao's hand, and shoved him off the bridge, saluting him on the way down. Yeah. Luckily, Chinese authorities had already partially inflated an emergency cushioning, and Fuchao is in the hospital with spinal injuries; it looks like he's going to survive.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.A British man used Google Earth to figure out the exact location - 200 miles from where he lived - to decide where he was going to end his life, it was recently discovered. British actress Lucy Gordon - who had a small role in Spider Man 3, and played Jane Birkin in the upcoming French biopic based on Serge Gainsbourg's life - killed herself in Paris two days ago (the New York Post chose a typically mongrel-esque headline for their treatment of the AP story: '"SPIDEY' ACTRESS SUICIDE.").

Closer to home, a particularly sick story: a 32 year-old Las Vegas local, Jeff Ostfeld, was arrested for smuggling animal tranquilizers back from Mexico. He claimed they were to help with assisted suicides. Mexican authorities had tipped off American law enforcement that he'd been seen leaving the hotel of an American woman who'd overdosed on said drugs. She had books about anxiety and depression littered about the room. According to his mother, who had no idea what was going on until she read about it, Ostfeld suffers from severe anxiety and depression as well. Elsewhere, a 66 year-old woman became the first in the state of Washington's history to use their assisted suicide law: she was suffering from stage-4 pancreatic cancer, and the pain had become unbearable.

And finally, apropos of Memorial Day, the Washington Post ran this incredibly sad, teary piece detailing the new statistics on suicide in the military.

In 2008, 140 soldiers on active duty took their own lives, continuing a trend in which the number of suicides has increased more than 60 percent since 2003, surpassing the rate for the general U.S. population.

Sure, this is an unlikely roundup for us to take on over the weekend. It's a downer in every sense of the word, and the rate of occurrences of this nature happening at any given moment is probably more significant than an RSS feed full of them over one stretch could ever indicate. But times are tough, people are scared, and it looks like a lot of them aren't seeking help. Even if they did, right now, the 2009 National Alliance on Mental Illness study gave our country a "D" on our mental health care nationally due in no small part to dwindling government resources (though New York, where Gawker lives, gets a "B," the highest grade a state got this year).

Anyway: no punchline here. Just a bad, tragic news cycle. Online, the Suicide Prevention Resource Center has help to offer for anyone you know in trouble. Believe me: I'd much rather spend my Saturday's writing about Shia LaBeouf's cock. Sometimes, too many news items in one week are too much to ignore. And on a three-day weekend, we can probably afford to deal with something serious for a moment that doesn't have to do with the New York Times explaining the fourth dimension of Hamptons Recession Chic. On that note: back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Former S. Korean President Roh commits suicide [CNN]
Passer-By Pushes Suicide Jumper In China [CBS News]
Man Uses Google Earth To Pick Suicide Location [Fox News]
'Spidey' Actress Suicide [New York Post]
Las Vegas man allegedly brought assisted suicide drugs into U.S. [Las Vegas Sun]
Cancer patient first to use Washington's assisted suicide law [CNN]
Generals Find Suicide a Frustrating Enemy [Washington Post]

Freddie Mac's HR chief reportedly told Kellerman to take a break because he was spending too much time at work. He never gave himself the chance, though.

Mr. Kellermann, who was 41 years old, had recently looked gaunt and tired, according to one person familiar with the situation, who added that colleagues believed he was spending too much time in the office. Other people who knew Mr. Kellermann say he was normally a jovial person who handled stress well.

Again: all theories, few facts so far. [WSJ]

Some neighbors told The A.P. that Mr. Kellermann had lost a noticeable amount of weight under the strain of the job, and some said they suggested to him he should quit to avoid the stress. Mr. Kellermann was also involved in recent tense conversations with the company's federal regulator over its public disclosures.

Of course, this could be looking plausible because reporters have been running around all day asking everyone who knew him if he was stressed from his job. He was busy dealing with an SEC investigation and trying to help his company dig itself out from under billions of dollars worth of mortgage losses, so stress is likely. One former colleague said "He worked himself into a frazzle."

On top of that, he reportedly hired a private security firm recently after reporters came to his house to ask him about his $850K bonus, the type of thing that's been causing lots of populist outrage lately. But he did have a wacky side, by CFO standards:

Mr. Kellermann also was known for his humor. A colleague said he sometimes showed up at work in bow ties or loud plaid pants and liked to joke about his attire.

[WSJ, NYT]

Police haven't released his cause of death yet, so little is known beyond the fact that he's killed himself. Kellerman was named acting CFO of Freddie Mac (which is currently under investigation by the SEC and the US attorney's office) in September of 2008, and the company was searching for a permanent replacement. That timing would certainly place him—or anyone—under professional stress. So would this job description:

As acting chief financial officer, Kellermann is responsible for the company's financial controls, financial reporting, tax, capital oversight, and compliance with the requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley. He also oversees the company's annual budgeting and financial planning processes.

Other suicides that people *speculate* may have been partially or totally caused by this economic meltdown include a Chicago real estate mogul who shot himself in January, a German billionaire who jumped in front of a train after a bad stock bet, and a French money manager who killed himself after losing his clients' money to Bernie Madoff. Nobody knows yet if Kellerman bent to the stress of his job, or if something else was going on.

Kellerman was a volunteer board member for the DC Coalition for the Homeless, which makes him a decent guy. He was 41 years old.

Ah, I know. It's because Liberty Mutual was 'Responsible' (ha) for trying to pimp its own (same!) ad campaign last year on the dead body of Paul Tilley, the ad exec who committed suicide. Back then, Liberty Mutual bought up Google Keywords so anybody looking for info on Paul Tilley's death would see a nice ad directing them to the company's 'Responsibility Project' website, where they could learn about responsibility, and also maybe see some of the benefits of buying some insurance from Liberty Mutual.

The company never took responsibility for that one.

Anyhow their new ad campaign promises to "look at responsibility from a more micro level," which presumably means "a level not pertaining to Liberty Mutual." [NYT]

Zolezzi, 30, hung himself this morning after posting a status update Thursday night in which he wrote his own epitaph:

... born in San Francisco, became a shooting star over everywhere, and ended his life in Brooklyn... And couldn't have asked for more.

Zolezzi's mother told the New York Daily News that she blamed drugs for her son's death:

"I would say that people get so lonely, so delusional, that all they want to do is be remembered," she said from her home near San Francisco.
"He probably wanted to be remembered in a big way, to do it dramatically - that's what drugs will do to people."

Zolezzi, who had moved from Portland, Ore. to Brooklyn last month, often used Facebook to express his emotional state. Some of his status updates:

Paul is wondering, what unspeakable act did I do in a previous life to deserve this one?
Paul is going to be the first person ever to hang himself on the way out of Portland! Everything here sucks!

This tragic use of Facebook is, sadly enough, all part of Zuckerberg's plan for Facebook to capture every little blip in our emotional state. If we put our entire life online, isn't it inevitable that we'll die there, too?

His son Willard told Britain's Sky News that his father was distraught, telling his son "I've lost all the money, I might have to declare myself bankrupt."

Willard added a statement of his own:

"I want Madoff and others involved to know that they have my father's blood on their hands."

[MSNBC]

If Alexandra Penney is any indication (note: poor example), the American response to losing tons of money is to become a hilarious blogger. And why not! Over here we generally have a national understanding that money comes and goes, and if you're not wagering more than you should on bets that are too risky, what kind of cowboy are you? Losing money is not the sort of thing we're ashamed of. We're more angry. But no guts, no glory, etc. Big swinging dicks! Greed is good! Bet the farm! Let it ride!

Elsewhere shame seems to be felt much more deeply. Hell, Merckle surely wasn't likely to have gone hungry even if he did dissolve his entire financial empire. Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, the French hedge fund guy, was so ashamed of losing other people's money with Madoff he felt he had to off himself. It's safe to say most American hedge fund guys would be relieved they lost someone else's money.

And the Japanese! Shame is an essential business skill over there. So much so that Sen. Chuck Grassley figures we need to emulate them, or something:

“I’ve suggested it wouldn’t be a bad thing that the leadership of these [US] institutions would take a Japanese-style approach to corporate governance, and I’m not talking about going out and committing suicide as some Japanese do in these circumstances, but I am talking about scenes I’ve seen on television where in belly-up corporations the CEOs go before the board of directors, before the public, before the stockholders and bow deeply and apologize for their mis-management."

Good luck! All groveling in American business is done with the strict subtext that it's not sincere. They'll apologize, but don't ask for more than they're prepared to give, or fuck you, they're calling the lawyers. Does the US have a shame deficit? Do we need to be more like these guys? Should losing tons of money be considered a morally horrible act?

Nah. Unless you're an actual morally repugnant criminal like Madoff, losing money should be its own penalty. There's not need to press it. And there's certainly no need to kill yourself over it. Save that for the terribly embarrassing revelation of some sexual proclivity that doesn't fall squarely in the Puritan mainstream, okay.

Thierry de la Villehuchet, CEO of Access International Advisors, a money-management operation who placed investors' funds in Madoff vehicles, stabbed himself to death with a box cutter after taking sleeping pills, according to New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, who spoke to Bloomberg.

De La Villehuchet was found “with his feet propped up on his desk, a trash pail nearby to collect blood,” and no sign of a second person, Kelly said in the interview.

The money manager had “multiple stab wounds” to his arms and wrists, and a box-cutter and pills were found nearby, Kelly said at a news conference. No suicide note was found.

The Huffington Post has found what it believes is a photo of Villehuchet at a 2007 Hermès store opening. He is neatly put together. How fitting then, that the scene of his death suggests he wanted to keep things clean at his death. Left with a mess he couldn't clean up, Villehuchet didn't want to leave someone scrubbing blood stains out of the carpet.

(Photo by Patrick McMullan via Huffington Post)