History DeathByIrony / RealLife

* The UsefulNotes/{{Dada}} movement was an artistic movement effectively made to be anti-art, under the belief that the world was so horrible that it didn't ''deserve'' art. It accomplished this by effectively trolling people and being as unartistic as possible; art without any actual artistic value. The movement died when people started to enjoy it and found artistic value in it.

* While UsefulNotes/TheComicsCode was already effectively dead in 2011 after Creator/{{Marvel|Comics}}, Creator/{{DC|Comics}}, and Creator/{{Archie|Comics}} all dropped it in favor of their own in-house rating systems, the final nail in the coffin came when the rights to the Comics Code Authority seal were purchased by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, an anti-censorship organization that stood in opposition to everything that the CCA historically stood for.

* In ''Film/TheCrow'', Brandon Lee played a character who was impervious to bullets. Then came one of the last scenes he was scheduled to shoot. To add even more irony, the scene they were filming was the scene where his character was supposed to die before coming back to life, and the actor who played his killer, became his real-life killer, though in real life it was deemed an accident.
* Stuntman Tip Tipping (who you may recognize as playing Pvt. Crowe in ''Film/{{Aliens}}'') was killed when his parachute failed to open while he was filming an episode of the British series 999, which was - ironically enough - a show with the premise of reenacting dangerous accidents.

* During the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic, there have been a number of people (including the above-mentioned Herman Cain)[[note]]And many more as documented by [[https://www.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward r/HermanCainAward]], [[https://www.reddit.com/r/COVIDAteMyFace/ r/COVIDAteMyFace]] and [[https://www.sorryantivaxxer.com/ SORRYANTIVAXXER]][[/note]] who had discredited the virus' seriousness and wound up dying from the very thing they called a hoax.

* Creator/CaroleLombard's last role was in the film ''Film/ToBeOrNotToBe''. She originally had a line where her character said: "What can happen on a plane?" Before the film was to be released, she died in a plane crash and thus [[DistancedFromCurrentEvents the studio executives cut the line from the movie]].

* In 1958, actor [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gareth_Jones_(actor) Gareth Jones]] played a character in a live TV play, ''Underground'', who was supposed to have a heart attack. No points guessing what he died of during that play...

* Creator/ChrisFarley wished to be the next Creator/JohnBelushi. And on December 18, 1997, he met the same fate that befell Belushi fifteen years earlier: a fatal overdose of cocaine and heroin at the age of thirty-three.

* Over the course of his life, SerialKiller Jeffrey Dahmer raped, murdered, and [[ImAHumanitarian ate]] 17 boys and men. He bludgeoned his first victim, Stephen Hicks, to death with [[BarbellBeating an exercise weight]] in 1978. In 1994, while serving life in prison for his crimes, Dahmer was killed by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver, who bludgeoned him to death with an exercise weight.

* Musician Music/RitchieValens, best known for the song ''La Bamba'', suffered from severe aviophobia after two airplanes collided over the playground of his high school, killing or injuring several of his friends. Valens was not at school that day because he was attending his grandfather's funeral. He eventually overcame his fear enough to travel by airplane. In 1959, when he had to travel a plane that could only carry a small number of passengers, Valens did a coin toss and went on board, while the other potential passenger took a bus instead.[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Music_Died As it would turn out, the plane crashed and Valens was killed, along with]] Music/BuddyHolly and Music/TheBigBopper.

* Music/JimiHendrix died at age 27 of drug-related causes. When Music/JanisJoplin heard of this, she said, "I can't go out this year because he was a bigger star." Hardly a month later, she died at the same age from a heroin overdose. When [[Music/TheDoors Jim Morrison]] heard about the deaths of Hendrix and Joplin during an interview, he told the journalist, while holding up his glass: "You're drinking with number three." About a year later, Morrison too died, also at the age of 27.

* [[Music/GratefulDead Jerry Garcia,]] who struggled for years with drug addiction, actually died of a heart attack while in rehab.

** Evan Chandler, the father who accused Jackson of having sexually molested his son in 1993, died of suicide only six months after Jackson passed away. Ironically, by that time, Chandler himself had also undergone plastic surgery that made him almost unrecognizable.
* Devon Clifford, drummer for the Canadian indie rock band You Say Party! We Say Die!, collapsed on stage during a gig in Vancouver in 2010 and died two days later in a hospital. After his death, the band changed their name to You Say Party, then split up the next year (they've since reunited with a new drummer).
* A memorial tree planted in the honor of Music/GeorgeHarrison, a member of Music/TheBeatles, [[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/22/george-harrison-memorial-tree-beetle-killed_n_5609432.html was killed in July 2014 by a beetle infestation]].

* Jermaine Stewart, a OneHitWonder known for the abstinence anthem "We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off," died of AIDS-related liver cancer.

* Walter Scott was the frontman for Bob Kuban and The In-Men, who became a OneHitWonder with the song "(Look Out For) The Cheater". He was murdered in December 1983 by his wife's lover.

* The Emperor of the Qin Dynasty, UsefulNotes/QinShihuangdi, was obsessed with obtaining immortality through alchemical elixirs. In Chinese Alchemy, mercury was considered a potent ingredient, so one of his solutions was to always have a daily dose of mercury every day. In the end, he died of mercury poisoning when he tried a new formula of mercury pill. The irony of it was in his quest for immortality, he instead found a way to die faster. His successors didn't learn much from him, thinking that it was only a too high dose that killed him (technically correct, but not especially helpful). The only Chinese dynasty completely unaffected by mercury poisoning was the Yuan Dynasty (the Mongol Dynasty of Kublai Khan), and only because they generally looked down on Chinese alchemy when it was doing anything other than making gunpowder.

* Greek playwright Creator/{{Aeschylus}} feared that he would be killed by a falling object and thus stayed indoors. When he did get out once he was hit on the head by... a tortoise which had been dropped by an eagle who tried to break open the shell.
* In 1959 French writer Boris Vian attended the premiere of a movie adaptation of one of his novels when he was suddenly struck by a heart attack only minutes after the film had started. He died on his way to the hospital. The title of the movie adaptation? ''J' irai cracher sur vos tombes'' (translation: ''I will spit on your grave.'')

* A magazine known as ''Continuum'' (which ran from 1992 to 2001) was published by its eponymous owner group that claimed that AIDS and HIV were a conspiracy of homophobia and did not exist (it also claimed to be a scientific journal in spite of the pseudo-science in its pages and no peer review in sight). Of its three editors, the first two died sequentially of conditions now known as iconic secondary complications of AIDS and HIV infection. The final editor took up the reins as the last request of the second editor but in lieu of continuing the magazine (and perhaps seeking to avoid the RuleOfThree), he published a single final issue and closed the magazine, meaning that ''Continuum'''s end also came about because of AIDS.

* Roland Freisler was the HangingJudge in charge of UsefulNotes/NaziGermany's [[KangarooCourt People's Court]], an organization without constitutional authority that made show trials of members of the German Resistance, and where the only guarantee was a death sentence at the end. In February 1945, when the People's Court was targetted by an American air attack (led by Robert Rosenthal, a Brooklyn Jew), Freisler ordered the accused to be taken to a bomb shelter, but he went back to retrieve their files himself and was killed when a beam collapsed over him [[LaserGuidedKarma in his own courtroom.]] Freisler was thus the only person that met death in court that day. It is said that Freisler's body was found still holding onto the file of a young Fabian von Schlabrendorff, who went on to become judge of West Germany's Constitutional Court after the war.

* Hisashi Ouchi, one three technicians dosed with radiation (and the technician who received the highest dose overall) in the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokaimura_nuclear_accidents#1999_accident 1999 Tokaimura accident]] is often inaccurately said to have been kept alive by doctors against his will so they could study the effects of a lethal radiation dose on the body. In fact, these doctors were genuinely doing everything they could to keep him from dying... because they had ''no other choice''. It wasn't their decision to make, but rather ''his family'' were the ones keeping him alive against his will, albeit unintentionally; believing doctors would be able to save him, even as [[BodyHorror his skin sloughed off his body, his internal systems failed one by one, and his heart stopped over and over again, dealing critical brain damage]], they refused to give doctors permission to withdraw support should his heart stop until only a few days before his death, when he had already suffered so much that he was effectively braindead.

* In the wake of 9/11, cockpit doors now can be locked from the inside to keep terrorists out, increasing the security... but the 150 passengers and crew on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525 Germanwings Flight 9525]] might have been saved if it hadn't been there. Co-pilot Andreas Lubitz was suicidal, and when the pilot left for a toilet break, Lubitz locked him out of the cockpit and proceeded to crash the plane.

* John P. O'Neill was a counter-terrorism agent in the FBI who was heavily involved in investigating the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and soon after began to focus on Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda's activities, including the bombings of US embassies, the foiled millennium attack plots, and the USS ''Cole'' bombing. His work led to arrests and intelligence about the organization that made it as far as the President's desk, warning of the potential for larger attacks. However, following an incident in which O'Neill misplaced classified information (recovered soon after), he chose to retire from the FBI and take a new job at the private sector... as chief of security at the World Trade Center. Less than a month later, he was killed in the collapse of the South Tower, part of the September 11 attacks masterminded by bin Laden and executed by al-Qaeda.
--> '''Chris Isham:''' ''(in August 2001)'' At least they're not going to bomb it [the WTC] again.
--> '''John P. O'Neill:''' They'll probably try to finish the job.

* The Emperor of the Qin Dynasty, UsefulNotes/QinShihuangdi, was obsessed with obtaining immortality through alchemical elixirs. In Chinese Alchemy, mercury was considered a potent ingredient, so one of his solutions was to always have a daily dose of mercury every day. In the end, he died of mercury poisoning when he tried a new formula of mercury pill. The irony of it was in his quest for immortality, he instead found a way to die faster.

* The weapon that [[ColdSniper Cold]] and FriendlySniper UsefulNotes/SimoHayha used to terrorize the Red Army during the Winter War was a [[CoolGuns Mosin-Nagant]]. It was a Finnish model but it was still basically the same rifle used by the Russian military.

* John P. O'Neill was a counter-terrorism agent in the FBI who was heavily involved in investigating the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and soon after began to focus on Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda's activities, including the bombings of US embassies, the foiled millennium attack plots, and the USS *Cole* bombing. His work led to arrests and intelligence about the organization that made it as far as the President's desk, warning of the potential for larger attacks. However, following an incident in which O'Neill misplaced classified information (recovered soon after), he chose to retire from the FBI and take a new job at the private sector... as chief of security at the World Trade Center. Less than a month later, he was killed in the collapse of the South Tower, part of the September 11 attacks masterminded by bin Laden and executed by al-Qaeda.

* Playwright J. I. Rodale died while he was a guest on the Dick Cavett show. During the recordings, Rodale ironically claimed he felt great and said: ''"I'm in such good health that I fell down a long flight of stairs yesterday and I laughed all the way", "I've decided to live to be a hundred"'', and ''"I never felt better in my life!"'' He had also previously bragged, ''"I'm going to live to be 100 unless I'm run down by some sugar-crazed taxi driver."'' A few minutes later, he suffered a heart attack and passed away. The show was never broadcast.

* There was a wrestler who had a grudge against the great champion Theagenes of Thasos because he couldn't defeat the latter when he was alive. When Theagenes died, a statue was erected in his memory. Driven by jealousy, he wanted to take out his rage on the statue as a way of finally defeating his rival. One night, while he was flogging that statue with a scourge, it fell down and killed him. Even in death, Theagenes is the champion.[[note]]The statue was found guilty of murder and thrown into the sea... and then fished out after a famine started due to the gods disagreeing with the verdict.[[/note]]

* There was a wrestler0 who had a grudge against popular wrestler Theagenes of Thasos because he couldn't defeat the latter when he was alive. When Theagenes died, a statue was erected in his memory. Driven by jealousy, he wanted to take out his rage on the statue as a way of finally defeating his rival. One night, while he was flogging that statue with a scourge, it fell down and killed him. Even in death, Theagenes is the champion.[[note]]The statue was found guilty of murder and thrown into the sea... and then fished out after a famine started due to the gods disagreeing with the verdict.[[/note]]