A Weekly Reid: Goodnight, '80s and '90s...
This week we've said goodbye to Theo Huxtable, Ozzy, Hulk Hogan and what's left of our Gen X innocence
The thing about getting older is that the core elements of your childhood and young adulthood start dying off. And you can’t help but notice. One by one, the icons you grew up with get tarnished as who they really were is revealed, or they vanish from this side of heaven. Or both. It’s a stark reminder that time is passing. This is why your grandparents study over the obits.
And when it comes to the celebrities in your life, the deaths often come in clusters.
At the top of week, Malcolm Jamal Warner, who so many of us got to know as Theo Huxtable on The Cosby Show, died tragically at age 54 after getting caught in an ocean rip current while on a family vacation in Costa Rica. It was a startling loss, particularly for his family and friends, but also for all of us who grew up with him as essentially an extended family member.
WATCH: Actress Erika Alexander remembers Malcolm Jamal Warner, on The Joy Reid Show.
Warner’s death was particularly jarring, in that his life wasn’t cut short by the cancers or addictions; heart attacks, shootings or overdoses that took out so many hip-hop legends. It wasn’t the horrific culmination of of a cynical, media-juiced beef that preceded the murders of Tupac and Biggie. Or the insane, tragic 1984 murder of 45-year-old Marvin Gaye by his own dad. Or the 2002 gunslaying of Jam Master Jay.
It was a shock, more like the day Aaliyah’s plane fell out of the sky on the way back from shooting the music video for “Rock The Boat” in the Bahamas in August 2001; or when Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes died at just 30 years old in an horrific car accident in Honduras in the spring of 2002, while she was on a spiritual retreat. Or the terrifying chopper crash that killed 41-year-old Kobe Bryant in 2020, or the tragic truck-to-car accident that killed Angie Stone this spring at 63.
We Xers have sadly grown used to the shock of our peers and the older artists we grew up being fans of, dying young.
Freddie Mercury, the fabulous frontman of Queen hid his AIDS diagnosis, so no one outside his inner circle saw his tragic death coming in 1991. The AIDS crisis was still in its early, stigmatized phase, so who could blame him for non-disclosure. Mercury was not a Gen Xer, though he was most popular with our age group. Ironically, he was born the same year as Donald Trump, so had he lived past age 45, they would be the same age; with Freddie three months younger. West Coast rapper Easy E’s AIDS diagnosis was announced not long before he died in 1995 at age 31; two years after Arthur Ashe succumbed to AIDS and four years after Magic Johnson announced he had contracted HIV.
And we just kept losing rappers.
After Tupac in the fall of ‘96 and Biggie in September of ‘97 it felt like someone switched on a hip hop angel escalator.
Big Pun, tipping nearly 700 pounds, passed away at just 28 years old from a heart attack in the year 2000…
Heavy D died from a pulmonary embolism at age 44 in 2011…
Around the time my best friend from Harvard passed from cancer in 2016, diabetes stole A Tribe Called Quest co-founder Phife Dawg at age 45. Can I Kick It was our theme song, including at graduation in 1991.
2018 saw the death of hip hop DJ Lovebug Starski at age 57.
2021 was a rough year for hip hop, with Black Rob dying at 51 from kidney failure , Shock G at 57 from an overdose, and DMX at 50 from an overdose as well.
Trugoy the Dove (AKA Plug Two) of De La Soul passed at age 54 from congestive heart failure in 2023…
And everybody’s favorite party hype man Fatman Scoop died last year after suffering a medical emergency onstage. He was just 53.
Every death is tragic. But some are more shocking than others.
When Michael Jackson died in 2009 after putting himself into a drug-induced eternal sleep at just 50 years old, and when Whitney Houston drowned to death at age 48 (on my mother’s birthday, no less) in a posh hotel bathroom the night before the 2012 Grammys, we were shocked beyond words but only partially surprised.
Same goes for Amy Winehouse, whose gorgeous voice was silenced in 2011 at just 27 years of age, due to accidental alcohol poisoning. The ultimate Gen X, 90s grunge rocker Curt Cobain, died by suicide in 1994 at the same age — which also happens to be the age of death of a prior generation’s rockstars: Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison. All seemed so haunted in life, as did Chester Bennington from Linkin Park, that their deaths were more shocking and depressing than surprising. There were things about their public lives that made us doubt, deep down, that they would live to get old.
On the other hand, when we lost Prince, at age 57, in April 2016, following an accidental Fentanyl overdose, it made absolutely no sense, given what a health-obsessed person he was said to have been. I can recall being genuinely shocked, despite his past troubles, when every Gen X girl’s (and boy’s) high school crush, George Michael, was found lifeless in bed on Christmas Day of that year, at age 53; capping a year that began with David Bowie losing his battle with cancer at age 69, and ending with democracy starting its slow roll toward oblivion with the election of Donald Trump.
When Betty White passed on New Years Eve 2021, some people used it to advance ridiculous covid vaccine conspiracies — the idea being that our favorite Golden Girl would have made it from 99 years to 100 had it not been for the jab.
There are so many other 1980s fixtures I could name (most of the main cast of Dallas has gone…) but you get the point. People my age are getting to the point where increasingly, much of what we watched, listened to or counted as touchstones of our high school and college existence features people who are no longer living.
Ah, middle age.
The second in the current cluster of celebrity deaths this week was Ozzy Osbourne — the heavy metal rocker who bit the heads off bats and doves and who Christian adults when I was growing up, assured us was a tool of Satan. He died at age 76; three years younger than the Epstein bestie president, after years of battling various ailments, including Parkinson’s and Emphysema.
As a boomer member of the O.G. heavy metal group, Black Sabbath, which was founded the year I was born: 1968, Osbourne participated in producing what in my humble musical opinion, is one of the most iconic antiwar songs of all time: their 1970 anthem, War Pigs, released in the throws of the Vietnam war.
I remember conservative Christians in the 1970s and early 80s warniing us kids that if you played Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and even Eagles or The Beatles records backwards, you get secret messages straight from the Devil (due to the use of a technique called “back masking.) Interestingly enough, you only heard that conspiracy theory about white rock groups; especially European ones — a rare break for Black people from being at the center of American paranoia.
Here’s a great explanation and debunk:
This, by the way, is part of the early origins of evangelical conspiracy theories centered on the supposed Satanic schemes by popular musicians, Hollywood, Democrats, and liberals in general to turn America toward Satan; and it’s why my cousins, who were raised in the Black evangelical church, were only allowed to listen to Christian music at home. When they stayed at our house during the summers, however, we obsessively listened to secular records and sang along. But you can see how Q-anon caught on with the audience it did.
As for Ozzy, despite the slings and arrows from the far right Christians, he ultimately morphed from scary rocker to the fun-loving reality star of one of the best MTV shows of the early aughts: The Osbournes (which the family rebooted in 2022 after quitting the U.S. to return to the U.K., with Ozzy touting all the mass shootings in classic fashion as the reason for their exit:
“I’m fed up with people getting killed every day. God knows how many people have been shot in school shootings. And there was that mass shooting in Vegas at that concert. … It’s f***ing crazy,” Ozzy told the Guardian. “I don’t want to die in America.“
And die in America he he did not. But he became an icon here; landing a spot in the Rock and Roll hall of Fame and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame no one defaces. And since the Devil tends to keep his people on earth to torment us, the adults in my neighborhood clearly identified the wrong 1980s Satanic instrument. Ozzy, who was two years younger than our current fascist overlord, was from everything I’ve read and observed in his public persona, a devoted husband and father and a decent, funny, charming man.
Which brings us to celebrity death number three this week: Hulk Hogan; who we Gen X kids grew up revering as one of the foremost stars of what was then known as WWF (which later became WWE due to a copyright lawsuit by the World Wildlife Foundation). Hogan, whose real name was Terry Gene Bollea, died, at age 71, of an apparent heart attack. In Florida, because of course.
Hulk and the WWE, which burst into popularity in the ‘80s, lost their shine together, starting with a sex tape that dropped in 2007 featuring Hogan and his friend’s wife, which ultimately led to the end of the cheeky online news site, Gawker, which published the footage in 2012, drawing a $100 million lawsuit funded by JD Vance employer and anti-democracy mercenary Peter Thiel, bankrupting the news company. (Thiel did it to avenge a 2007 Gawker story outing him as gay.) Then came the leaked audio showing the Hulkster’s proclivity for using the n-word, with a hard “R”, which for a time, got him booted from the WWE Hall of Fame. (He was reinstated in 2018 … unsurprisingly, during the first Trump regime.) Post-n-word Hulk soon emerged as a full throttled Trumper, alongside a number of 80s-era stars, from actors to athletes. His last major public appearances included this cringeworthy moment at the 2024 Republican National Convention:
After which he was unceremoniously booed at a WWE Raw event this January, weeks before Trump’s second inaugural:
Everything Trump Touches Dies, friends. Particularly reputations.
And late today, came the fourth death in the current cluster: musician Chuck Mangione, in his sleep at age 84. Mangione made a lot of music, but was most famous for this song, which missed being an ‘80s hit by a single year:
The lost innocence of Generation X
It’s said that U.S. Baby Boomers lost their innocence when President Kennedy was assassinated, followed by Dr. King and Robert F. Kennedy Sr., and Watergate. The 1960s was a dumpster fire decade of revelations about the cruelty and violence this country was capable of, which honestly was only news to white people. Black Americans had always known the U.S. as a hard, cruel place, where acceptance is hard won, and generally — for us at least — mainly came via fame in sports and entertainment. Our civil rights and leaders tended to get assassinated or thrown in prison, and our business and political leaders lasted only so long as white “wokeness” prevailed. But for white Americans, the decade between that fatal presidential motorcade through Dallas on November 22, 1963 and Nixon’s resignation speech on August 8, 1974; with Vietnam sandwiched in between, breaking LBJ’s presidency and America’s preternatural post-World War II confidence in the process—spelled the end of collective naiveté.
For Black Americans in particular, if there was one generation that grew up with the innocent expectation of equality and possibility, it was Generation X. We, the Sesame Street and Electric Company kids, were born after segregation officially ended; and it wasn’t long before widespread busing ended, too. We had the freedom to enjoy our parents’ disco records and if we were space oddities like me, to indulge in the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Queen and David Bowie, too.
Growing up in a Denver suburb, our summers included free lunch at the Ford Elementary School, spending all day at the community pool, the park or the library. In 1983, we got the King holiday. When I moved back to Brooklyn in the late 1980s, my cousins and I would sit on the stoop in the summers with music on, and vibe out, eating popsicles or acting sophisticated with our syrupy wine coolers. We were aware of racism, to be sure, but we didn’t have to carry the burden of it everywhere, every day, like our parents did.
The Atlanta child murders scared us shitless, but we still had the social confidence and freedom to ride our bikes til the streetlights came on, grow up to invent hip-hop and commercialize personal computers, coding and the Internet (you’re welcome) and push into athletic, academic and artistic arenas where a generation earlier, we were barely tolerated or not allowed at all.
We knew racism was real — especially in places like New York City where you could catch a beat-down for trying to walk through an Italian neighborhood and your interactions with Korean store owners were fraught with misunderstanding and tension; and in the Southern states where David Duke was reigniting the Ku Klux Klan by dressing up in suits. But we were naive enough to not immediately view The Dukes of Hazzard’s normalization of the confederate flag as racist TV theater. We were savvy enough less than a decade later to realize that the beating of Rodney King and the acquittal O.J. were a dire warning for us all. We rooted for Jesse Jackson for president, twice, and vibed with Al Sharpton as he battled racist cops, killers of Black young men, and Rudy Giuliani while rocking a track suit like Run DMC. We witnessed the end of apartheid in South Africa.
Where our parents had records and 8 tracks, we had music videos, New York Hot Tracks and MTV. The biggest stars in the world were both Black Americans named Jackson: Michael and Janet, though David Bowie had to shame MTV into recognizing that reality. Our “normal” was Madonna, Dallas, Dynasty, Miami Vice, The Cosby Show, A Different World, Fast Times at Ridgemont High and the Breakfast Club, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. And trust me: we all believed we could be rich and famous. We were the generation of the mix tape you just knew you could slip into the hands of a music executive and become a star. If you were in New York City, every other person you knew was trying out modeling or joining a singing group, trying to become the next Brooke Shields or New Edition.
We came out of college to Bill Clinton’s economy. It was our parents who had to deal with Ronald Reagan’s. We barely noticed that our families were broke, because we spent so much time outside with our friends, drinking from the hose and playing till the streetlights came on, or watching Star Trek, I Dream of Jeanie and Bewitched when we got home from school to do our homework out of a physical encyclopedia. We actually went to the library. And the community pool, which was no longer a place they would drain if a Black person dipped a foot in. The scariest things that happened during the ‘80s were the space shuttle Challenger crash and that time President Reagan got shot, but it seemed like he was waving from the hospital a week later. And of course the emergence of the AIDS pandemic, which terrified everyone and exposed the ultimate cruelty of the Reagan administration. Perhaps the saddest were Bob Marley dying of melanoma at age 36 in 1981 and John Lennon getting shot dead a year earlier at age 40 (which especially weird and memorable for me personally, since he got murdered on my 12th birthday.)
Despite those shocking tragedies, and relatively speaking, the 1980s and 90s were about as close as I can think of, to being a modern “age of innocence.” It certainly was for Generation X, regardless of race or region. It’s the easiest way I can explain why we were the generation that have twice now, delivered the White House to Donald Trump. Nostalgia for the ‘80s and 90s. is something we seem to share with Trump himself.
And I can see why. In the rear view mirror it feels like an era that was modern yet uncomplicated. Few were forced to deal with deeper questions about history or whether the completed civil rights struggle really was complete. Or at least, few were willing to. We were leaning into consumption and lifestyle. Starting families and climbing the corporate ladder. Partying without care. And we could afford an apartment without roommates. It was only decades later that the seamy underbelly of that era would come to light, and we would realize, tragically and belatedly, that our golden season was in many ways, an age of predation. Rich, famous and powerful men who were big in the 80s and 90s — from Bill Cosby, to R. Kelly, Puffy, Russell Simmons, Harvey Weinstein, John Casablancas, Jean Luc Brunel (the founder of Karin Models), Woody Allen and so many more — have since faced accusations of sexually predatory behavior. Allen married his own step-daughter, for gods sakes! And I can’t even begin to process the allegations against Michael. It’s almost too much to mentally bear. (All of the accused denied the allegations against them.)
A Daily Reid: What if the Q-anoners were (sort of) right?
Donald Trump, who became famous in the ‘80s and partied with Jeffrey Epstein in the ‘90s, was allegedly on the hunt in that era, too, running a modeling agency, jumping in and out of marriages to models, and allegedly gawking at teenage pageant girls, per his own braggadocio. Trump owes E. Jean Carrol $86 million after she won a lawsuit alleging he sexually abused her in the late 90s and then defamed her in recent years, by calling her a liar. Twenty-seven women have made accusations about his lewd behavior toward them, most dating back to that halcyon era.
And of course, we now know the truth about the Diddler…
Many of us Gen Xers ask ourselves how we possibly missed it all. R. Kelly peed on a teenager on tape, and married Aaliyah when she was 15 and we kept dancing to his music. Puffy cynically fueled the beef that ended an iconic hip hop era and folks just kept right on giving him props and partying with him — with no one hinting at the lurid things going on behind the scenes. In some ways, our innocence wasn’t real. It was a sandcastle of denial. We had internal doubts about these men but we buried them as we celebrated their success as possibility. Just like folks in the neighborhood tended to know who was that certain priest or coach you were best to steer clear of. And yet so many got away with so much.
We woke up to discover, belatedly, how many of our stars were broken, depressed, troubled and unstable; underpaid, cheated by their industries, and under-resourced. And how many were failing to take proper care of themselves. It’s not surprising that in the modern age, fame and stardom are different; more democratized, and there are precious few true icons left. We’ve learned to keep it real about fame. Maybe it was always like this; we just lacked the technology to make the truth so widely known.
Maybe that’s why when celebrities who emerged from our brief and flawed age of innocence with their goodness intact die suddenly and far too young, it just hits different.
Well said Joy! And I agree with your sentiments 100%. Being a little bit older, those losses you mentioned as well as some of the other "Culture loses" makes me Thankful for what I have and seen and Thankful for my own "Forrest Gump" life. Just coming from my 50 Year Yale College Reunion and seeing the number of my "Black Yalie" classmates still Kicking gives me great Joy.
Watching and Following you over the past 10+ years adds to that Gratitude.. I do "Mourn the Dead" but I also "Fight Like Hell for the Living" Thank you, Kevin Allen/Seattle. WA.
Wow, what a walk down memory lane. I grew up during the 50's, 60's, and 70's. All the folks you mentioned were part of my DNA and then some. I keep watching all my heroes leave and then reality hits me like a ton of bricks. I've lived most of my life and it's only a matter of time before I leave, too. Most of my family is gone, and celebrities as well. My father was one of them. Thanks for that walk.