‘The stars are falling’: Soap opera star dead at 50 from sudden cardiac event

Emmy award-winning television actor Tyler Christopher died suddenly from a cardiac event, his co-star Maurice Benard confirmed on Instagram Tuesday.

“It is with great sadness that we share the news of the passing of Tyler Christopher,” Benard wrote. “Tyler passed away this morning following a cardiac event in his San Diego apartment.”

Christopher won a daytime Emmy for his role on General Hospital, after which he joined the cast of Days of Our Lives.

“The stars are falling,” netizens commented on social media Tuesday, referring also to Friends star Matthew Perry’s sudden death Saturday.

Perry was found dead in his jacuzzi after suffering an apparent cardiac arrest. There were no signs of drugs or foul play.

The 54-year-old, who played Chandler Bing on the hit ‘90s sitcom, had played a two-hour round of pickleball earlier in the day.  

Media operatives are slamming those who suggest that the COVID-19 vaccine — known for causing sudden cardiac events — may have played a role. Perry used his Friends fame to promote the vaccine in 2021, when he offered t-shirts which read, “Could I BE any more vaccinated?” The line played off the star’s iconic line in the show and was printed in the Friends font.

Perry was joined in his vaccine advocacy by Friends co-star Jennifer Aniston, who said she cut ties with any of her friends who did not receive the injections.

“Twisted Anti-Vaxxers Rush to Blame Matthew Perry’s Death on Covid Vaccine,” reported Rolling Stone Saturday, claiming there is no basis for presuming the mRNA vaccine may be a factor in sudden cardiac arrests.

But the publication excluded a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) study last year which found a 25% increase in cardiac events in young men entirely correlated to the COVID shots. The State of Florida, in a statement recommending against vaccinating males aged 18–39, cited their own investigation that showed an 84% increase in the relative incidence of cardiac-related death among males 18–39 years old within 28 days of an mRNA vaccination.

In another study of Pfizer’s and Moderna’s randomized controlled trials, Pfizer vaccine recipients were found to have four times as many cardiac arrests as those in the control group.

Furthermore, a recent report from Good Sciencing has found that there have been 1,884 cardiac arrests among athletes around the world since the introduction of the COVID-19 injections, 70% of whom have died. According to a May analysis of news reports from January 2021 through April 2023, 1,310 out of 1,884 athletes who suffered cardiac arrests died, an average of 561 athletes annually. Over half of these appear to have occurred among football players. These include 38-year-old former NFL star Uche Nwaneri, who called for the unvaccinated to be imprisoned. 

Other recent reports have shown a disturbing increase in cardiac events among athletes. A 2021 analysis from Israeli publication Real-Time News reported a 5-fold increase in sudden cardiac and unexplained deaths among FIFA players that year alone.