Celebrities slain by admirers and your everyday average folks
With Angélil's help, she achieved worldwide fame. Presently, Dion has stopped performing after being diagnosed with stiff-person syndrome (SPS). Little is known about the disease, which affects just one or two out of every million people. Its symptoms are painful and debilitating, and there is currently no cure for this condition that sees stiffening in the torso and limbs, along with episodes of severe muscle spasms.
See also: Stiff-person syndrome: the rare disease affecting Céline Dion
His widow enjoyed a hugely successful film career. Her private life was often mired in controversy, but in her later years she was applauded for her HIV/AIDS activism. She died in 2011.
Queen Elizabeth II lost her husband of 74 years, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, on April 9 2021. It's reported that the Queen, who married Prince Philip on November 20, 1947, was by his side as he passed. The Queen died a bit more than a year after her husband, on September 8, 2022.
The retired supermodel and widow of David Bowie made an appearance on 'Today' to talk about her loss in 2023. Bowie passed away after a battle with cancer in 2016 but Iman says it was only in 2020 that she truly confronted her grief. The covid-19 pandemic meant she was trapped in the home she used to share with him, unable to suppress her feelings any longer. Even though six years had passed, Iman said she will never remarry. "People say to me when they talk, ‘Oh I loved your late husband,' and I said, ‘He’s not my late husband, he’s my husband,’ so that’s how I feel about it. This was truly the love of my life, and I just wait until I meet him again."
After Marshall's death Smith became embroiled in a lengthy court case over inheritance issues. A regular on the celebrity circuit, Smith died of an accidental drug overdose in 2007.
Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader and activist who survived an attempted assassination in 2020, died in a Russian prison on February 16, 2024. Navalny was a larger-than-life figure in the fight against Russia's corrupt leadership who reached international fame. He was poisoned with the deadly Novichok nerve agent in 2020, an attempt on his life that is widely believed to be related to his role as Putin's most outspoken critic. He was also the subject of the Oscar-winning documentary 'Navalny' in 2022, released the year after he was made a political prisoner in Russia. After spending two years in a high-security prison, his sudden death was reported by the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service.
Navalny's death left a gaping absence in the anti-government movement in Russia, but his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, was quick to step up to the challenge. In a video statement released a few days after his death, Navalnaya declared that she intended to carry on her husband's work. "I want to live in a free Russia, I want to build a free Russia,” she said in the powerful nine-minute speech.
Losing a spouse is heartbreaking, but sometimes grief can also inspire courage. Many widowed women struggle with the mourning process, but some also achieve greatness after loss. Death can also be much more difficult to process and yet easier to overcome with the world grieving alongside you. Such is the case for many of the women on this list.
Browse the following gallery of prominent females who got on with life after losing their husbands.
Nirvana front man tied the knot with Love in 1992. She had her own band called Hole.
Famous widowed women and their lives after loss
The female celebrities getting on with life after losing their spouses
CELEBRITY Relationships
Losing a spouse is heartbreaking, but sometimes grief can also inspire courage. Many widowed women struggle with the mourning process, but some also achieve greatness after loss. Death can also be much more difficult to process and yet easier to overcome with the world grieving alongside you. Such is the case for many of the women on this list.
Browse the following gallery of prominent females who got on with life after losing their husbands.