Well, this must have been awkward.
On Tuesday, August 2, 2016, Leroy "Blast" Bill Black of Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, died of lung cancer at just 55 years old.
News of his passing was published in the August 5 edition of The Press Of Atlantic City… twice. The two obituaries appeared one on top of the other.
Readers at first assumed it was an accidental double printing — but they quickly realized the subtle yet important differences between the two obits. One was published by his wife while the other had been published by his girlfriend.
The double obituary was apparently no accident.
The Philly Voice reported that a funeral home spokesperson said the newspaper determined two obituaries were necessary because "the wife wanted it one way, and the girlfriend wanted it another way."
Rather than fight with the two women, who were already grieving, the paper decided to say "yes" to both of them.
The photo of the dueling obits was possibly the most talked about thing to come out of Atlantic City in awhile…
Here's the obituary that Leroy's wife published:
In this version, he's survived by his "loving wife."
And here's the obituary that Leroy's girlfriend had printed:
In this version, Leroy is survived by his "longtime girlfriend."
Other than that, the obituaries are almost identical, although Leroy's girlfriend, Princess, noticeably makes no mention of his wife. She also includes details about his occupation that his wife left out.
Here's a photo of Leroy during happier times.
His wife managed to publish her version of his obituary with Leroy’s funeral home.
Wondering about the man behind the two obituaries? Based in Egg Harbor Township in New Jersey, Leroy was a fiberglass technician.
He was survived by his son, Jazz, who thankfully declined to write his own, separate obituary.
Leroy wasn't the only person in history who has had a strange obituary.
When William Ralph "Bill" Fink passed away in 2016, his obituary honored his passion for technology. The obit read: William Ralph "Bill" Fink "encountered an unhandled exception in his core operating system, which prematurely triggered a critical STOP condition on Wednesday, December 16, 2015. Diagnostics indicated multiple cascading hardware failures as the root problem. Though his hardware has been decommissioned, Bill’s application has been migrated to the Cloud and has been repurposed to run in a virtual machine on an infinite loop."
As reported by Florida TV station WFTS, when Stephan Merrill passed away in 2015, his family used his obituary to pay tribute to one of Stephan's favorite characters — Batman, saying he passed away "due to an uppercut from Batman."
Walter George Bruhl Jr. made a funny fill-in-the-blank obituary in 2014 which was later posted on Imgur. In it he writes, "His spirit was released from his worn out shell of a body and is now exploring the universe."
The Star Tribune posted the obituary of Aaron Joseph Purmort in 2014 who "died peacefully at home on November 25 after complications from a radioactive spider bite that led to years of crime-fighting and a years long battle with a nefarious criminal named Cancer."
In 2015, a Washington man named Michael Vedvik was remembered by his family in the Spokesman-Review where they made sure to mention that they, “blame the Seahawks’ lousy play for Mike’s untimely death” when he passed away few days after their loss in the Super Bowl.
Harry Stamps' family remembered the Missouri man in 2013 in the Herald Sun by paying tribute to his love of food, reputation as a ladies man, and his final wish: "Write your Congressman and ask for the repeal of Day Light Saving Time. Harry wanted everyone to get back on the Lord's Time."
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