A pair of college friends are going viral for their 18-year commitment to texting the other when someone famous has died. Casey Gillespie admits that she doesn’t know much about what her friend Matt is doing with his life, and likely vice versa, but that hasn’t stopped them from committing to the morbid bit of sharing celebrity deaths with one another. “I would say the last time I saw him was probably 2009, maybe 2010,” she said in an online interview with CTVNews.ca on Sunday. “We haven’t talked at all. Except for celebrity deaths.” It started in 2008, during a fire drill at their college campus, when Gillespie learned about the death of actor Heath Ledger. “I just approached (Matt) and very seriously and very just directly said ‘Heath Ledger is dead,’” she said. “Obviously it’s not a funny comment, but the way I said it or presented it, I think, made him laugh.” Since then the friends have committed to texting each other as soon as they learn about a celebrity death. The texts simple state the person’s name, followed by “is dead.” The frequency of the texts depends on the news cycle, though are generally sent every month or every few weeks. In August, for example, the texts included Hayden Panettiere, Dolly Parton and Tim Curry. In late August of this year, Gillespie shared screenshots of the texts between her and Matt on the social media platform Threads. Her post has since received 135,000 likes, 3,000 comments and nearly 3,000 reposts. Many in the comments shared similar bonds they have with friends and acquaintances, like those who only text on birthdays, or the video to Rebecca Black’s song “Friday,” every Friday. Gillespie said Matt is likely aware that their texts have gone viral, since they have mutual college friends on a group chat with him. She admits that Matt is usually the one to break the news of celebrity deaths to her, though not always. “He breaks the news quite a bit,” she said. “If I’m aware (of a celebrity death) I’m gonna text him immediately. So same for him. So we are definitely breaking the news to each other every single time.” She added that if Matt doesn’t text her first, she mostly learns about celebrity deaths through People magazine alerts on her phone. Of all the deaths that Matt has broken to her, Gillespie said there were some that hit particularly hard, including Catherine O’Hara, Diane Keaton, and more recently, Dolly Parton. While she doesn’t see their unusual bond ending in the near future, she admits all things must come to an end. “This isn’t stopping anytime soon,” Gillespie said. “This will go on forever. Though, this is very morbid, people have commented, ‘You know, when one of you goes, someone has to be designated to text the other person.’”
