Casey Johnson dies, cause unknown but hinted at by caption writer
I had never heard of Casey Johnson, the heiress to the Johnson & Johnson fortune (nice that we can still say “heiress” without being considered sexist — would be a shame to lose that word like we lost “sculptress” and might some day lose “actress”). I don’t know why Johnson ‘s death at 30, untimely though it is, would be reported in the entertainment section of cnn.com. Was she an entertainer? I don’t recall being entertained by her. According to the article, she was engaged to a woman named Tila Tequila, someone who is apparently famous for being Tila Tequila. Maybe that made Johnson an entertainer.
An openly gay socialite, Johnson had a knack for attracting paparazzi — and trouble. A nasty fight with ex-girlfriend Courtenay Semel, daughter of former Yahoo chief Terry Semel, reportedly resulted in Johnson’s hair catching on fire last October. Then in November, she was arrested for allegedly breaking into another former girlfriend’s house.
I guess a person’s hair catching on fire could be entertaining under the right circumstances. Some people talk about flaming hair for decades after. So maybe she was an entertainer. These days everyone is.
I don’t mean to make light of her death. No foul play is suspected and a toxicology report has not been completed, though it wouldn’t be shocking if it turns out that someone who breaks into a former girlfriend’s house and fights until her hair ignites died of something other than natural causes. I think she had diabetes, so who knows? Whatever the cause, she surely had people who cared about her and was the mother of an adopted daughter, a toddler. It’s certainly sad for them.
Really, the only reason I’m writing this is the caption under the photo on cnn.com. It’s likely to be read as intended by the caption-writer — that Tila Tequila simply reported the death. But when I read it, that’s not what I understood it to mean. Maybe I’m the only one reading the caption this way. Maybe I’m not a good person.
Casey Johnson (left), the heiress to the Johnson & Johnson fortune, was first reported to have died by Tila Tequila
I’ve heard of dying by lethal injection, dying by hanging, dying by suffocation, dying by overdosing. I didn’t know someone could die by Tila Tequila.
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If you’d ever seen her MTV reality show then you’d know it’s extremely possible- likely even.
I was intrigued by the title of your post because I’ve been keeping up with Tila Tequila recently…apparently, she married or was going to marry Casey Johnson. Then Ms. Tequila twittered that she was pregnant as a surrogate for her brother and her brother’s wife. Then, she retracted and said she wasn’t pregnant yet, but she ran out of space on her twitter post to fully explain that she wasn’t yet pregnant, but was giving him that gift for Christmas.
Meanwhile, Casey Johnson lost custody of her adopted daughter in 2009.
Never good to hear about someone’s death, of course, if it is by Tila Tequila or not by her. The question for me is…how the hell do I know all of this???
I read it the same way you did, Scott.
By the way, Tila Tequila has been mentioned here on WFtC before (in my very own column, of course).
http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com/2009/09/07/bad-sports-good-sports-merriman-and-tila-story-reminds-me-of-what-a-dope-he-is/