Grief Isn’t a Performance: The Ugly Trend of Policing How Celebrity Daughters Mourn
Deathcare professionals understand that grief does not follow a script; it doesn’t even follow Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s original step-by-step pattern. However, no matter how someone “does” grief, it doesn’t mean they didn’t love the person they lost.
The internet, apparently, has not gotten that memo.
The latest example comes courtesy of Brooke Hogan, who found herself in the crosshairs of online critics after posting a social media tribute to her late father, wrestling icon Hulk Hogan, who passed away last July. Commenters accused her of posting a “thirst trap” — the current internet term for a photo deemed too glamorous, too curated, too something for the context in which it appeared. Brooke fired back, calling out the trolls and defending her right to grieve publicly on her own terms. Her supporters noted, reasonably, that the critics seemed far more interested in her appearance than in the emotional content of what she actually said.
The Audacity of Grieving While Female
It would be easy to dismiss this as the usual celebrity-internet noise. But the pattern here is too consistent, and too mean, to wave away.
Kelly Osbourne, following the July 2025 death of her father Ozzy Osbourne, faced severe body-shaming and harassment from social media users who mocked her weight loss, per People. She pushed back directly, explaining that grief had made it nearly impossible to eat — and told the bullies, in typical Osbourne Family-speak, to leave her alone. The response to a woman visibly wasting away from heartbreak was, apparently, cruel commentary on her body.
This wasn’t the first time Kelly and Ozzy’s other immediate family members publicly mourned the rock legend. Sadly, it also wasn’t the first time Kelly had received criticism over her appearance, whether it was looking too tired or losing too much weight. Apparently, Kelly isn’t performing grief in a way that satisfies these strangers.
This Isn’t New
Sophie Perry, daughter of Beverly Hills, 90210 actor Luke Perry, dealt with a wave of criticism after her father’s death in March 2019 — trolls attacking her language, her wardrobe, her entire approach to mourning, per People. She responded on Instagram with something any funeral professional would recognize as a profoundly healthy grief response: her dad, she said, would not have wanted her sitting in a room crying. She told the shamers to unfollow her. She was right.
And then there’s the case that set the precedent for how vicious this can get. When Robin Williams died in 2014, trolls sent his daughter Zelda manipulated, photoshopped images of her late father, according to Page Six. The harassment was relentless enough that she quit Twitter and stepped back from Instagram entirely.
What This Has to Do With the Families You Serve
Even if you don’t have celebrity clientele, most deathcare professionals can relate to what Brooke, Kelly, Sophie, and Zelda faced. Although you’ve always understood that grief is not a performance, you probably overhear or receive direct comments about how someone dresses at a visitation, what music they pick, or whether they cry or laugh or say nothing at all.
Thanks to social media, the families you serve increasingly exist in a world where every public expression of grief is subject to unsolicited judgment — and some of them are quietly internalizing the message that there is a right way to mourn, and they might be doing it wrong. That anxiety is real, and it shows up in your arrangement conversations, whether or not anyone names it.
The women being attacked here aren’t asking for sympathy from strangers. They’re just trying to carry their losses without an audience of critics rating their form. There’s not much you can do, especially after the fact, to keep others from voicing their cruel comments or opinions. The least you, and the rest of us, for that matter, is to hold space for their grief, and remind them that grief doesn’t owe anyone a performance.
