2021 has been a crazy year. It was full of ups and downs, joys and sorrows. It was a rollercoaster of emotions. While there were significant achievements this year, but it was also a year with tragic deaths. Let’s take a look at the notable deaths in 2021.
Notable deaths in 2021
January
Phil Spector, whose “Wall of Sound” revolutionized 1960s pop music but was imprisoned for murder in 2009, died on January 16 at the age of 81.
Larry King, the braces-wearing US talk show presenter who interviewed everyone who was anything, died at the age of 87 a week later.
February
Veteran Canadian actor Christopher Plummer, the star of “The Sound of Music,” died on February 5th at the age of 91.
The next day, George Shultz, Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state, died at the age of 100. He helped end the Cold War but also contributed to hostilities by proposing pre-emptive strikes.
Carlos Menem, Argentina’s former president, died on February 14th at the age of 90.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, one of the last major Beat Generation poets, died eight days later, at the age of 101.
On February 26, Papua New Guinea’s “father of the nation,” Sir Michael Somare, the country’s first prime minister, died at the age of 84.
March
Bunny Wailer, a reggae legend, passed away on March 2nd at the age of 73.
Goodwill Zwelithini, the 72-year-old Zulu ruler of South Africa, died on March 12.
Didier Ratsiraka, the former leader of Madagascar and the instigator of a socialist revolution on the Indian Ocean island, died on March 28 at the age of 84.
April
On April 9, the 99-year-old husband of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, passed away. It was one of the most notable deaths in 2021.
Then, on the same day, 50-year-old American rapper DMX passed away.
On April 14, Bernie Madoff, the mastermind of the world’s greatest financial fraud, died in jail in North Carolina at the age of 82.
Helen McCrory, who acted in “Peaky Blinders,” “Harry Potter,” and “The Queen,” died of cancer two days later at the age of 52.
President Idriss Deby, 68, of Chad, died of battle wounds the day after being re-elected for a sixth term on April 20.
Christa Ludwig, a legendary German singer, died on April 24th at the age of 93.
The same day, fashion designer Alber Elbaz of Lanvin passed away in Paris at the age of 59 from Covid-19.
May
On May 19, Abubakar Shekau, the head of Boko Haram in Nigeria, died in a confrontation between different groups of terrorist organizations.
June
Kenneth Kaunda, dubbed “Africa’s Gandhi,” died on June 17 at the age of 97. He was Zambia’s founding president.
Donald Rumsfeld, the architect of the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attack in 2001, died at the age of 88.
July
Richard Donner, the director of the initial “Superman” film and “The Goonies,” died on July 5th at the age of 91.
Dilip Kumar, a beloved Bollywood icon, died two days later at the age of 98.
August
On August 17, Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, the head of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara died. French soldiers killed him.
Hissene Habre, the former president of Chad, died a week later from Covid-19 at the age of 79. In Senegal, he was serving a life sentence for crimes against humanity.
On August 24, Charlie Watts, the Rolling Stones’ drummer, died at the age of 80.
On August 29, Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee, passed away. The Belgian was 79 years old.
Lee “Scratch” Perry, the enormously famous Jamaican musician and Bob Marley’s producer, dies at the age of 85 on the same day.
September
On September 2, 96-year-old Greek musician Mikis Theodorakis, who scored the 1964 film “Zorba the Greek” and resisted military rule in Greece, died.
On September 6, actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, star of “Breathless” and one of the most well-known figures in postwar French cinema, died at the age of 88.
Michael K. Williams, who played Omar in the cult US television series “The Wire,” died of an accidental overdose in New York on the same day at the age of 54.
On September 11, Abimael Guzman, the founder of Peru’s Maoist Shining Path insurgent group, died in prison at the age of 86.
Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Algeria’s longest-serving president, died on September 17 at the age of 84.
October
Agnes Tirop, Kenya’s world-record-holding runner, was stabbed to death at her house on October 13. Her husband was later arrested and charged with her assassination.
Colin Powell was a combat hero and the first Black US secretary of state whose legacy was tainted by the invasion of Iraq. He died on October 18th at the age of 84 due to complications with Covid-19.
November
On November 11, FW de Klerk, the last president of apartheid South Africa, died at the age of 85. He was instrumental in Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, and the two later shared the Nobel Peace Prize.
Wilbur Smith, a Zambian-born bestselling novelist who recorded dramatic escapades on the African continent, died two days later.
Frank Williams, the pioneer of Formula One, died on November 28th at the age of 79.
December
Lamine Diack presided over global athletics from 1999 to 2015 but was later convicted of corruption. He died on December 3 at the age of 88.
Bob Dole, a World War II hero who went on to serve as a five-term US senator and the Republican Party’s presidential nominee in 1996, died two days later at the age of 98.
Anne Rice, the 80-year-old Gothic novelist best known for “Interview with the Vampire,” dies on December 11.
Lucia Hiriart, Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s widow, passed away five days later at the age of 98.
Richard Rogers was a British architect who designed some of the world’s most famous structures. It includes the Pompidou Centre in Paris. He died on December 18 at the age of 88.
On December 19, American rapper Drakeo the Ruler, also known as Darrell Caldwell, was stabbed and died.
Joan Didion, the beloved American essayist and pioneer of “new journalism,” died on December 23 at the age of 87.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu was a persistent activist against injustice and an anti-apartheid icon in South Africa. He died on December 26 at the age of 90. It was one of the most notable deaths in 2021.