I shocked to hear yesterday that Frankie Abernathy, a cast member from the San Diego season of "The Real World," had passed away from cystic fibrosis at the age of 25.
She was always one of the more fascinating "Real Worlders" in history, probably she was (as she described) "so punk rock," and actually had tattoos, piercings, and a punk/counterculture outlook that was completely absent on the show both before and since. She was also, as everyone remembers, someone who was afraid of big boats, which sort of caused a problem since the cast that season was assigned to work on a big boat.
Frankie is only the second fatality among "Real World" cast members, after Pedro Zamora, who died of AIDS in 1992.
Posted by Stephen Silver at June 13, 2007 04:55 PMWow I would have guessed Puck would have been the next.
Posted by: J. Lichty at June 18, 2007 01:33 PM