The world said goodbye to the following celebrities in 2025:

Peter Yarrow

American singer and songwriter Peter Yarrow, who found fame with the 1960s folk music trio Peter, Paul and Mary, died on January 7 at the age of 86.

Yarrow died at his New York home surrounded by family following a four-year battle with bladder cancer, his publicist Ken Sunshine said.

Yarrow formed Peter, Paul and Mary with Noel Paul Stookey and Mary Travers. The group helped popularize the early work of Bob Dylan and sang hits such as "Puff, The Magic Dragon," which Yarrow co-wrote.

The group's version of Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" helped transform the song into a civil rights anthem and introduced his music to a wider audience. The group also scored big hits with "If I Had a Hammer" and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?," co-written by folk artist Pete Seeger.

Throughout his life, Yarrow campaigned for social change and causes, including equal rights, peace, the environment, gender equality, homelessness, hospice care, public broadcasting and education.

In 1970, he served three months in jail after pleading guilty to charges that he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl who had gone to his hotel room to seek an autograph. Yarrow received a presidential pardon from President Jimmy Carter in 1981.

David Lynch

David Lynch, the American filmmaker, writer and artist who scored best director Oscar nominations for "Blue Velvet," "The Elephant Man" and "Mulholland Drive" and co-created the groundbreaking TV series "Twin Peaks,"  died on January 15. He was 78.

His death certificate listed his immediate cause of death as cardiac arrest due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Lynch disclosed in August 2024 that he had been diagnosed with emphysema, a lung disease, caused by many years of smoking.

With his visually stunning, disturbing and inscrutable works filled with dream sequences and bizarre images, Lynch was considered a master of surrealism and one of the most innovative filmmakers of his generation.

He received an honorary Academy Award in 2019 for his lifetime achievements.

The enigmatic artist and devotee of transcendental meditation preferred not to explain his complex, bewildering films, which included "Wild at Heart," the 1990 Palme d'Or winner of the Cannes Film Festival, the 1977 horror film "Eraserhead" and the 1997 mystery "Lost Highway." His style of filmmaking prompted the term Lynchian, which Vanity Fair magazine described as weird, creepy, and slow. In his films Lynch inserted the macabre and disturbing into the ordinary and mundane and heightened the impact with music.

Lynch said that he was not only interested in the story, but also the mood of a film, set by the visual elements and sound working together.

Marianne Faithfull

Marianne Faithfull, the wild woman of London's swinging '60s who survived drug addiction, homelessness, two comas, cancer and COVID-19, died on January 30 at age 78, after a singing career that began as a teenager and lasted until her 70s.

Her spokesperson said she passed away peacefully in the company of her family.

The convent-educated daughter of a World War Two British intelligence officer, Faithfull had a front-row seat as drugs, alcohol and sexual excess enveloped the early years of the rock music industry.

Her slow, haunting voice in her first hit, "As Tears Go By," in 1964 seemed to portend a darker side to the British pop sound that was winning hearts around the world with the breezy early tunes of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.

The former girlfriend of Mick Jagger, Faithfull became addicted to heroin and suffered from anorexia when the relationship ended, spending two years living on the streets of London's Soho district in the early 1970s.

But no matter how hard she fell, Faithfull always bounced back. She released 21 solo albums, including the critically acclaimed "Broken English" in 1979 that won her a Grammy nomination, wrote three autobiographies and had a film acting career.

Her most recent comeback was in 2020 when she caught COVID-19 in the early days of the pandemic and went into a coma during a three-week stay at a London hospital.

Her son Nicholas later told her the medical staff were so sure she would not recover that they wrote a note on the chart at the bottom of her bed recommending, "Palliative care only."

But she got better and within a year she finished the album she had been working on before falling sick: "She Walks in Beauty," a collection of Romantic-era poems read by her and set to music.

She later complained of symptoms of "long COVID," such as tiredness, breathing problems and lack of memory and had to cut short a podcast interview in June 2021.

In March 2022, Faithfull was moved into Denville Hall, a retirement home in London that houses actors and other professional performers, according to several media reports.

Barbie Hsu

Taiwanese actor Barbie Hsu, known in the Chinese speaking world as "Big S", died on February 2. She was 48 years old.

Hsu, who gained fame from her leading role in the soap opera "Meteor Garden," was travelling in Japan with her family during the Lunar New Year and passed away due to flu complications with pneumonia, her sister, fellow actress Dee Hsu also known as "Small S", said.

The sisters first found fame with their pop group S.O.S, but Hsu's leading role in "Meteor Garden" cemented her popularity.

Kim Sae-ron

South Korean actor Kim Sae-ron was found dead at her home in a suspected suicide on February 16. 

The 24-year-old was one of most promising actresses in South Korea, but her career took a hit after a drunk driving incident in 2022.

A friend who was going to meet Kim visited her home and discovered her and called the police, Yonhap News Agency said.

Roberta Flack

Roberta Flack, the silky-voiced Grammy-winning singer whose sultry ballads "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" and "Killing Me Softly With His Song" topped the charts in the 1970s, died on February 24 at the age of 88.

Her publicist said Flack died peacefully surrounded by her family.

The singer won four Grammys and was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020. She was the first artist to win two consecutive Record of the Year trophies for 1973's "First Time I Ever Saw Your Face" and 1974's "Killing Me Softly with His Song."

Born into a musical family, the classically trained pianist defied musical genres as she blended aspects of jazz, soul, pop and R&B to create a distinctive style and became one of America's most influential singers.

Flack revealed in November 2022 that she had been diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, and could no longer sing.

Gene Hackman

Gene Hackman, the intense character actor who won two Oscars in a more than 60-year career, his wife, pianist Betsy Arakawa, and their dog were found dead on February 26 in separate rooms of their Santa Fe home.

The 95-year-old actor was in an advanced state of Alzheimer's and died of heart disease and other factors likely days after Arakawa, 64, died of a rare virus spread by mice, according to autopsy results. 

Hackman's wife died a week before he did, results showed. Arakawa is believed to have died around February 11, authorities said, citing the date of her last email, while Hackman died on February 18, based on his pacemaker activity.

Hackman, a former Marine known for his raspy voice, appeared in more than 80 films, as well as on television and the stage during a lengthy career that started in the early 1960s.

He earned his first Oscar nomination for his breakout role as the brother of bank robber Clyde Barrow in 1967's "Bonnie and Clyde." He won an Oscar for best actor in 1972 for his portrayal of detective Popeye Doyle in "The French Connection," and in 1993 won an Oscar for best supporting actor for "Unforgiven."

Hackman could come across on the screen as menacing or friendly, working with a face that he described to the New York Times in 1989 as that of "your everyday mine worker."

Wheesung

South Korean R&B singer Wheesung was found dead at his home in Seoul on March 10. He was 43 years old.

Police said there was no evidence of foul play.

Wheesung, who was born Choi Whee-sung, released his debut solo album "Like A Movie" in 2002 and was known for his R&B ballads.

Emilie Dequenne

Belgian actor Emilie Dequenne died on March 16 from a rare cancer. She was 43.

In October 2023, Dequenne said she had adrenocortical carcinoma, a rare cancer of the adrenal gland.

Dequenne made her debut in the Dardenne brothers film "Rosetta," a performance which won her best actress at the Cannes film festival in 1999. The movie also won the festival's prestigious Palme d’Or award.

Dequenne was also known for films like "Brotherhood of the Wolf," "The Light," "The Girl on the Train," "The Pack" and "Our Children." Her last roles were in 2024's "TKT" and "Survive."

Richard Chamberlain

Richard Chamberlain, the Emmy-nominated actor and 1960s heartthrob who rocketed to fame in the TV medical drama "Dr. Kildare" and starred in the mini-series "Shogun" and "The Thorn Birds" died on March 29, at the age of 90.

He died from complication from a stroke, his publicist said.

Chamberlain was an instant hit, and became a teen idol, as the handsome Dr. James Kildare in the series that ran from 1961-1966. The breakout role was the start of a six decade-career that spanned theatre, films and television.

Chamberlain was dubbed the "king of the mini-series" after appearing in several TV dramas in the 1980s and earned plaudits on stage in roles ranging from Professor Henry Higgins in "My Fair Lady" and Captain von Trapp in "The Sound of Music" to Shakespeare's Hamlet and Richard II.

He also was the original Jason Bourne in the 1988 mini-series "The Bourne Identity."

Val Kilmer

American actor Val Kilmer, who starred in films including "Top Gun," "The Doors," "Tombstone" and "Batman Forever" and earned a reputation as a Hollywood bad boy, died on April 1 from pneumonia. He was 65.

The California-born, Juilliard-trained actor was, during the height of his career, one of Hollywood's most prominent leading men. He made his film debut in the 1984 spy spoof "Top Secret!" which won him legions of fans, and soared to fame as Tom Cruise's rival in the smash 1986 hit "Top Gun," playing naval aviator Tom "Iceman" Kazansky. Kilmer played the role again alongside Cruise in the successful 2022 sequel "Top Gun: Maverick," though he could barely speak.

Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer and underwent radiation and chemotherapy treatments, as well as a tracheostomy that permanently damaged his voice. He turned to making art.

One of Kilmer's most challenging roles came in director Oliver Stone's "The Doors" (1991) in which he played Jim Morrison, the charismatic and ultimately doomed lead singer of the rock band. He sang The Doors' hits himself in the film.

That role ushered in the highest-profile years of his career. In the 1993 Western "Tombstone," he played Old West gunfighter Doc Holliday. He had two commercial successes in 1995, co-starring with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in the crime drama "Heat."

Over the years, spats with directors and co-stars and a series of flops dented his career. He gained a reputation as temperamental, intense, perfectionistic and sometimes egotistical.

Amadou Bagayoko

Grammy-nominated Malian musician Amadou Bagayoko, who won global fame by moulding traditional West African sounds with Western rock and pop influences as one half of the blind duo Amadou & Mariam, died on April 4. He was 70.

Bagayoko was born in Bamako in 1954 and played music from an early age. He met his wife and musical partner Mariam Doumbia at the Institute for Young Blind People in Bamako in the 1970s, according to Radio France Internationale.

Their 2004 album "Dimanche a Bamako" (Sunday in Bamako) put them on the international map and the 2008 release "Welcome To Mali" was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary World Music Album.

They opened for British band Coldplay in 2009, performed at the Nobel Peace Prize concert that same year, when U.S. President Barack Obama was awarded the prize, and played to crowds at some of the world's biggest music festivals, including Glastonbury in the UK. They also composed the official song for the 2006 soccer World Cup.

Rubby Perez

Dominican merengue star Rubby Perez died on April 8, one of the victims of a devastating nightclub roof collapse that claimed more than 200 lives. He was 69 years old.

The disaster at the Jet Set nightclub in Santo Domingo struck during a concert by Perez, a famous merengue singer in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Roberto Antonio Perez Herrera, known artistically as Rubby Perez, was known for songs such as "Volvere," "Sobrevivire," "Buscando tus besos," and "De color de rosa."

-Lisa Giles-Keddie and Marie-Louise Gumuchian