NHL Star Matiss Kivlenieks' Cause of Death Revealed

Less than 24 hours after professional hockey player Matiss Kivlenieks passed away in a fireworks-related incident, E! News has learned more details about his heartbreaking death.

Watch: In Memoriam: Fallen Stars of 2020

New details have emerged about Matiss Kivlenieks‘ tragic passing.

It’s been less than 24 hours since the professional hockey player passed away following a head injury and now E! News has learned his cause of death. According to a spokesperson for the Oakland County Medical Examiner’s office, Kivlenieks’ autopsy is complete and his manner of death has been ruled accidental. His cause of death is fireworks mortar blast chest trauma.

The 24-year-old Columbus Blue Jackets goalie had been at a residence in Novi, Mich., on July 4 when the fireworks-related tragedy occurred. “Novi Fire and Paramedics were dispatched at 10:13 p.m. to a private residence in the city of Novi. They found a subject unresponsive and immediately transferred him to Ascension Hospital in Novi where he was pronounced dead,” lieutenant Jason Meier told E! News on Monday, July 5. “Initial investigation is that there was a fireworks malfunction and that the deceased fell while escaping a hot tub.”

photos

Celebrity Deaths: 2021’s Fallen Stars

Kivlenieks’ team also confirmed his passing on Monday with a tribute online. “We are heartbroken,” the Columbus Blue Jackets wrote. “Please keep his family in your thoughts and prayers. Rest in peace, Kivi.”

Trending Stories

1

Exclusive

Who’s Really In the Running to Become Jeopardy!‘s New Host

2

Breaking

Gwen Stefani Marries Blake Shelton in Intimate Ceremony

3

Lynne Spears Speaks Out About Britney Spears’ Conservatorship

Additionally, fellow hockey player Nathan Gerbe posted a throwback photo on the ice with Kivlenieks. “Words are hard to find right now, but the day we put the same jersey on meant that we would be family forever,” he tweeted alongside the picture. “When my kids play Kivi ‘the kid’ in goal it will have a greater meaning!! RIP kid, love you brother #cbj #familyforever.”

Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Gustav Nyquist also tweeted, “Rest In Peace Kivi. Sending my deepest condolences to your family, friends and everyone in the Blue Jackets organization. You were a great teammate with a bright future. I will never forget the smile you brought to the rink every single day. You will be deeply missed.”

Stuntman Alex Harvill's Cause of Death Revealed

Earlier this month, stuntman Alex Harvill passed away after crashing his motorcycle during a practice attempt to break a Guinness World Record.

New details are being revealed in regards to Alex Harvill‘s passing.

On June 21, the Grant County Coroner confirmed to E! News that the stuntman’s autopsy was completed last week. The cause of death was listed as blunt force trauma to the torso. His body has since been released to a funeral home.

The news comes less than a week after E! News learned that the 28-year-old father of two died after crashing his motorcycle while performing a practice jump at the Grant County International Airport in Washington.

Alex, who previously held the title for the longest dirt to dirt jump of 297 feet, hoped to break his own record at the Moses Lake Airshow by jumping 351 feet. 

Event organizers were one of the first to inform fans that Alex had been injured during a practice. “We regret to report today at our first event of the airshow—the Guinness World Record Jump Attempt, Alex Harvill was injured during his warm-up before the jump and has been taken to the hospital,” the Instagram post stated. “Our hearts are with Alex and his family, and wish him a speedy recovery.”

photos

Celebrity Deaths: 2021’s Fallen Stars

Back in May, Alex welcomed his second child, a baby boy named Watson, with his wife Jessica Harvill. The couple is also proud parents to their son Willis.

Instagram

Over the weekend, an official GoFundMe page was created to help cover the funeral and other expenses.

“This fundraiser will go directly towards Jessica to support her and the boys with anything they need,” the page stated. “Alex was the sole provider for the family, so anything helps!” In just three days, more than $84,000 had been raised to support the Harvill family.

Trending Stories

1

Exclusive

Inside Ben Affleck’s Father’s Day With His & Jennifer Garner’s Kids

2

Khloe Kardashian Gives Rare Update on Rob’s Dating Life

3

Inside Kylie Jenner’s Lavish Father’s Day Celebration for Travis Scott

As friends and fans continue to grieve Alex’s loss, many find comfort in the posts he shared about his career and family life.

“I married my best friend,” Alex previously wrote on his Instagram after saying “I do” in September 2019. “From chasing dreams to raising a family. Jessica and I have been through it all. She has stuck by my side during my highest of highs and lowest of lows. I’m so lucky to now call you my wife.”

—Reporting by Gabi Falk

Simply the Best 25 Schitt's Creek Secrets Revealed

Schitt's Creek may have ended in April 2020, but it's been winning our hearts every day since.

Watch: Dan Levy Isn’t Ruling Out a “Schitt’s Creek” Movie

It’s safe to say Schitt’s Creek was the winner of 2020. And perhaps 2021 too. 

In April of last year, the Pop TV comedy gave viewers a happy ending with its series finale. And, four months later, the Rose family—Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Dan Levy and Annie Murphy—swept the Emmys, taking home trophies for Outstanding Comedy Series and eight other awards, setting a new record for most wins in a single year for a comedy. Then, at the 2021 Golden Globes, they took home Best Television Series, Musical or Comedy.

All that success couldn’t be possible without the Levy’s father-son bond. And today, in honor of Father’s Day, we’re looking back on our most cherished times at the Rose Motel. Yes, we’re spilling secrets about Annie’s iconic “A Little Bit Alexis” performance, the unexpected romance between David and Patrick (Noah Reid) and which fan-favorite almost dropped out of the show before it began filming in 2014.

Yaaaaas, David!

photos

The Schitt’s Creek Wedding Album

Go ahead and keep scrolling for 25 secrets you might not know about Schitt’s Creek…

Pop

1. Fans of MTV’s The Hills likely remember Dan as the co-host of the live after show, and in a 2015 interview with Out magazine, Dan revealed reality TV inspired Schitt’s Creek. “It really just started with me being in Los Angeles, knowing that I wanted to write,” he explained. “I had been watching some reality TV at the time and was concentrating on what would happen if one of these wealthy families would lose everything. Would the Kardashians still be the Kardashians without their money?”

2. The concept of Johnny Rose buying a small town was inspired by a real celebrity: Kim Basinger buying a town in Georgia in 1989.

3. While he had never turned to his famous father for help prior, Dan told Variety he decided to ask Eugene to partner with him on the series. “I went to him with this idea of a wealthy family losing their money and said, ‘Do you want to work on this with me?” And he said, ‘Yes,'” Dan recalled, “Which I think was something he was hoping would happen a lot earlier.”

Pop TV

4. And the decision to approach Catherine, Eugene’s dear friend and SCTV colleague, for the part of Moira was the patriarch’s idea, though she was reluctant to do it initially and had only done the pilot presentation as a favor for her longtime collaborator. “When the show got picked up, we had to go back to her and ask. She was really reluctant—justifiably so. It was a big unknown, and television is a commitment,” Dan explained to Variety. He ended up asking Eugene to give her one last call and tell her to just give it one season. Clearly it worked.

5. Catherine came up with Moira’s signature accent, which she attempted to describe via e-mail. “I was saying, ‘’Eugene, I don’t want to sound like a human,’ basically,” she told Variety. During the show’s run, she would often flower Moira’s dialogue with the help of Foyle’s Philavery: A Treasury of Unusual Words.

Pop

6. The genesis of Alexis’ iconic “Ew, David!”? “The ‘ew’ was written into the show just because I say it a lot in my real life,” Dan revealed. “I try not to think about the audience too much in terms of expectations. I feel like the minute a show becomes aware of itself, I start to separate. I just like hearing Annie say, ‘David.'”

7. The small Canadian town in which Schitt’s Creek is filmed, Goodwood, Ontario, has seen a surge in visitors thanks to the hit show. “We did dingy up the town tremendously,” Dan told NPR. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the creator had to take to Twitter to ask fans to stop visiting the town for now, writing, “Visiting right now is a threat to the residents’ health and safety. Thanks for understanding.”

Pop

8. For a long time, fans speculated where exactly Schitt’s Creek was set, as it’s never specified on the show. But in 2018, Dan confirmed the fictional town is in Canada. “We are a Canadian show, so inherently it is a Canadian town,” he told Buzzfeed News. “We’ve never spoken about it, so I don’t like to necessarily pinpoint it anywhere. But for the sake of the hard copy, I guess it’s set in Canada.”

9. They had to fight to keep the show’s title when they pitched it to the network, eventually printing out white pages to prove it was a real last time, per Entertainment Weekly. “I don’t even know if there were people in Canada, there were just a couple in Ireland,” Dan said. “Thank God for those people, because we got to keep our name.”

Pop TV

10. One of the series’ most iconic moments was the reveal that Alexis had tried to become a reality star and had recorded the theme song for it, gifting fans with the single “A Little Bit Alexis,” which has gone on to become a viral hit. And Annie actually wrote the song herself, with help from her husband, determined to make it “a banger” in the vein of something Britney Spears or Paris Hilton would’ve released.

“She has always sort of been surrounded by musicians and new people and producers and said, ‘Yeah, let me see what I can do,” and came back to us with a banger,” Levy told EW. “Now, I’ll get tweets from predominately gay men who are in clubs and the song will play. I think gay bars and clubs are like playing it, which to me is the greatest compliment.”

11. In addition to writing the earworm, Annie also revealed she choreographed Alexis’ dance number, which she didn’t show anyone prior to filming the scene. “I kept my fingers crossed that it would be sufficient and then I went in and did it,” she explained to EW.

Pop TV

12. Did you know Annie originally auditioned for the role of Stevie Budd as well? Plus, Saturday Night Live veteran Abby Elliott initially played Alexis in the pilot presentation? When she couldn’t continue with the show due to scheduling conflicts, Annie beat out hundreds of actresses to land the part, which she dyed her hair blonde for. We love that journey for her!

13. Before Emily Hampshire was cast as Stevie, Lindsay Sloane played the part of David’s deadpan bestie and Johnny’s motel partner. But Emily delivered quite the memorable entrance during her audition, with Dan recalling in 2018 at the 92Y Talks that she “came in and immediately said, ‘I’m sorry, this is going to be terrible.'”

Pop TV

14. Before Noah Reid was cast in the role of Patrick Brewer, the character’s sexual orientation and longterm status (and exact role in David’s love life) on the show was TBD. “That’s a really great thing when you’re making TV, when you write characters that you haven’t yet cast, and then you cast them and they work, and they don’t just work but they work with other characters and bring out the best in other characters,” Dan shared with EW. “It was a really pleasant surprise. And we knew early on that this character was going to stick around.”

15. David and Patrick’s first kiss in the season three finale was initially scripted with Patrick being the one to kiss David. But after going over the scene with a friend and talking about their respective coming out experiences, Dan realized it needed to be the other way around. He re-wrote the scene the night before the filmed it, reading the new dialogue to Noah on the way to set. 

Pop

16. Patrick’s swoonworthy “Simply the Best” cover in season four, one of the series’ defining moments, was simply scripted as “Patrick sings a surprisingly beautiful cover.” But the acoustic arrangement was all Noah’s, with the singer-songwriter spending weeks working on it before finding his take on the Tina Turner classic. “If we didn’t have that song and he didn’t do it the way that he had,” Dan told EW, “I think that scene would not have had the kind of weight that it did and the ability to change my character in the way that it did.”

17. Moira’s emotional response to the performance was all Catherine, who couldn’t make it through the scene without crying, so Dan kept it in the final cut, explaining he wanted to highlight “the candidness of television…it was a moment that, for me, meant a lot because it was a parent supporting their kid.” 

Pop TV

18. Of course, David later returned the favor, with his own dance performance set to the same song. Dan admitted that filming the scene as an actor was “the most unsafe I’ve ever felt…that level of unabashed, just lack of consideration for how this is going to look or appear on film.”

To help get through it, Dan and Noah split a bottle of Prosecco with their lunch prior to filming the scene. Initially, Dan had intended for the scene to play for laughs, but realized it meant much more when the cast and crew on-set were moved to tears: “I thought I had done it wrong and I think at times there are moments that come out of when you’re making TV that are unexpected.”

19. While it had a small cult following when it aired on Pop TV, Schitt’s Creek didn’t reach the height of its popularity until it hit Netflix in 2017. Variety reported that the show was the streaming giant’s second most-watched acquired series behind The Office. 

Pop

20. Moira and David’s Christmas duet was originally supposed to be a solo performance for the Rose family matriarch, but Catherine insisted the pair perform together. “The look in her eyes when she told me was like, you’ll be doing this. And I said, ‘When will I ever get this opportunity again to be immortalized on television?'” Dan explained to EW of the season four moment.

21. Dustin Milligan, who played Alexis’ love interest Ted throughout the series, initially met Dan years ago when they auditioned for the same role, which neither of them received. While there isn’t a lot of improvisation on the set, Dustin revealed he started adding puns into his dialogue.  “I didn’t ask anybody if I could start doing these puns, I just started doing it,” he said. “But I got the crew to laugh a little bit… I don’t know why Dan decided to let me keep doing it, but he did.”

Pop TV

22. Putting together the Rose family’s bougie and often trendy to the point of ridiculous wardrobe on a small show budget was no easy task, with Dan telling EW, “It was a year-round experience of mining eBay and consignment stores and vintage stories and all these different consignment apps.”

23. Throughout the series’ run, Catherine had worn over 100 different wigs as Moira, a character trait the star actually asked to be written into the show. “I know two women who changed wigs throughout the evening, she explained, adding she would sometimes use her friends’ names if there wasn’t a scripted name for the wig.

Pop TV

24. Dan had initially envisioned five seasons for Schitt’s Creek, but changed his game-plan after “we were given the opportunity to do two seasons, and I thought, ‘Okay, I can tell the end of this story in 28 episodes,'” he revealed.

25. But he hasn’t ruled out the idea of returning to Schitt’s Creek or revisiting the Rose family in the future, explaining to EW, “I feel really confident that we’ve really mined everything we could. But the world doesn’t explode at the end of it,” he says. “If there is something that comes up down the line that feels compelling enough to bring our troupe back together and continue to tell a story, so be it. I’m not one to slay down the iron fist and say ‘This is it forever.’ This is just it for now.”

Trending Stories

1

Part 3: Madeleine McCann Search Takes a Turn, But Where Will It Lead?

2

Natalia and Vanessa Bryant Turn Heads at the F9 Premiere

3

Exclusive

Jordana Brewster Shares How She Honored Paul Walker in F9

This story was originally published on Friday, Sep. 18, 2020, 3 a.m. PT

Chris Harrison’s Future on Bachelor in Paradise Season 7 Revealed

Months after Chris Harrison stepped back from his role on The Bachelor, multiple reports state he'll be replaced by David Spade on the upcoming season of Bachelor in Paradise.

Watch: Chris Harrison Exits “Bachelor” Franchise Permanently

Four months after Chris Harrison decided to step back from The Bachelor franchise following controversial comments he made in an interview with former Bachelorette star Rachel Lindsay, E! News confirms he will not return for Bachelor in Paradise season seven. 

Instead, sources tell Variety he’ll be replaced by a rotating cast of guest hosts, which includes comedian and Bachelor superfan David Spade. Page Six also confirmed Spade will participate in the upcoming season, set to premiere Aug. 16 on ABC. 

An insider close to Harrison tells E! News he was “disappointed” by the decision, explaining, “He’s been having conversations with his team and the studio and was hoping to be able to come back. He hopes his return will happen in 2022.” 

For now, the source says Harrison plans on “focusing on his family and staying low-key” while living in Texas.  

Harrison came under fire after he defended Rachael Kirkconnell—a contestant on Matt James‘ season of The Bachelor and Matt’s current girlfriend—after photos of her attending an antebellum-themed party in 2018 resurfaced.  

photos

Bachelor Nation Reacts to Chris Harrison Controversy

In a conversation with Lindsay on Extra, Harrison argued that “Old South” parties like the one Kirkconnell attended may have been more socially acceptable three years ago. Lindsay, who was the first-ever Black lead of the Bachelorette franchise, questioned what she would represent had she attended one of these parties, which are widely criticized for glorifying the institution of slavery.

ABC/Craig Sjodin

Trending Stories

1

Stormi Webster Adorably Reacts to Mom Kylie Jenner’s Unique New Heels

2

Elizabeth Olsen Just Casually Revealed She’s Married to Robbie Arnett

3

Dream, True & Chicago Are Too Cute to Handle in Sporty Matching Looks

Harrison, however, felt that Kirkconnell was being unfairly attacked for the photos.

“The woke police is out there,” he said in the interview. “And this poor girl Rachael, who has just been thrown to the lions, I don’t know how you are equipped when you have never done this before, to be woke enough, to be eloquent enough, to be ready to handle this.”

Following backlash to his comments, Harrison apologized. 

photos

Biggest Off-Camera Scandals in Bachelor History

“What I now realize I have done is cause harm by wrongly speaking in a manner that perpetuates racism, and for that I am so deeply sorry,” he said in a statement. “I also apologize to my friend Rachel Lindsay for not listening to her better on a topic she has a first-hand understanding of, and humbly thank the members of Bachelor Nation who have reached out to me to hold me accountable. I promise to do better.”

Later, he announced he was temporarily “stepping aside” from the franchise, which he has been a part of since its inception in 2002.

“The historic season of The Bachelor should not be marred or overshadowed by my mistakes or diminished by my actions,” he shared. “To that end, I have consulted with Warner Bros. and ABC and will be stepping aside for a period of time and will not join for the After the Final Rose special.”

Watch: “Bachelor” Star Katie Thurston Stands Up to Body Shamers

In Harrison’s absence, Tayshia Adams and Kaitlyn Bristowe stepped up to co-host the new season of The Bachelorette, which stars Katie Thurston and premieres next Monday, June 7. 

Michelle Young has already been announced as The Bachelorette‘s season 18 lead, set to premiere this fall. 

In March, Harrison spoke to Michael Strahan on Good Morning America about returning to the franchise in the future. 

“I plan to be back and I want to be back. And I think this franchise can be an important beacon of change,” he told Strahan. “I know that change is felt, not just by me, but by many others. And we are excited and willing to do the work to show that progress.”

Harrison and Spade did not immediately return E! News’ requests for comment. ABC and Warner Bros. declined to comment.