As America marks the 24th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, some celebrities can be thankful they didn’t die that day in 2001.
There were some famous folks who were set to board the doomed airplanes that struck the World Trade Center or attend meetings in New York’s twin towers, but cheated death.
Others died on Sept. 11, 2001, including late Psycho actor Anthony Perkins’ model/actress-photographer wife, Berry Berenson, who was a passenger on American Airlines Flight 11. Also on board were Frasier and Wings producer David Angell and his wife Lynn. Barbara K. Olson, a conservative legal analyst and commentator and wife of U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson, was a passenger on American Airlines Flight 77, which struck the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. And former Saturday Night Live cast member Pete Davidson’s New York City firefighter father Scott Davidson died when his unit responded to the disaster. The future comedian was 7 years old at the time.
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But what stars missed a life-ending twist of fate? Read on to find out more.
Celebrities Who Had Close Calls on 9/11
Seth MacFarlane
Kristina Bumphrey/Variety via Getty Images
The Family Guy creator was scheduled to be on the Boston to Los Angeles American Airlines Flight 11, which was the first plane that hijackers commandeered. It crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. MacFarlane has said a night of drinking and his travel agent giving him the wrong time for his flight saved his life.
The comedian explained to Howard Stern on his radio show in 2011, “I was giving a lecture at my old college in Rhode Island and went out for a few drinks after and was hungover the next day and missed the flight.” Believing the plane’s departure time was 8:15 a.m., not the correct time of 7:45 a.m., MacFarlane arrived too late to board. He snoozed in the airport lounge before waking up 45 minutes later to the chaos of everyone finding out about the attacks.
He told The Mirror, “I was booked on that flight…and I missed the plane by about 10 minutes. It was a very close call for me.” He went on to star in and direct the 2012 movie Ted and host the Oscars in 2013.
Related: Here Are September 11th Images We’ll Never Forget
Mark Wahlberg
Phillip Faraone/Getty Images
Boston native Wahlberg was booked on American Airlines Flight 11, but he and some friends changed their plans a week before, deciding to go to a Toronto film festival instead of Los Angeles.
Wahlberg got slammed for insensitivity years later, when he claimed he would have stopped the hijackers if he had been on the plane.
He told Men’s Journal, “If I was on that plane with my kids, it wouldn’t have went down like it did. There would have been a lot of blood in that first-class cabin and then me saying, ‘Okay, we’re going to land somewhere safely, don’t worry.’”
Soon, the Flight Risk star apologized for his comments, calling them “ridiculous … irresponsible … [and] insensitive.”
Patti Austin
Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
Grammy-winning R&B, pop and jazz singer Austin said she’d had a ticket for United Flight 93, which later crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pa., as passengers struggled to take back the plane from hijackers. But after her mother Edna suffered a stroke in San Francisco, Patti changed her plans, flying to her mom’s side the day before on Sept. 10, 2001, instead.
Michael Jackson
Oscar Abolafia/TPLP/Getty Images
The world was stunned when the singer died tragically in 2009 at age 50 from cardiac arrest caused by a combination of prescription drugs. His doctor, Conrad Murray, was later convicted of involuntary manslaughter for giving Michael a lethal dose of propofol as the singer was working on a concert comeback.
Related: Newly-Surfaced Video Shows Michael Jackson’s Surprising Condition 2 Days Before His Death
But, according to Michael’s older brother Jermaine Jackson, the King of Pop could have perished years earlier.
Michael had performed at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Sept. 10, 2001, as part of his 30th anniversary celebration.
Jermaine wrote in his memoir You Are Not Alone: Michael: Through a Brother’s Eyes that Michael had also been scheduled to attend a morning meeting at the World Trade Center on 9/11. But he had slept in at a New York hotel after talking to his mom and siblings early that morning.
“Thankfully, none of us had had a clue that Michael was due at a meeting that morning at the top of one of the Twin Towers,” Jermaine confided in the book. “We only discovered this when Mother [Katherine Jackson] phoned his hotel to make sure he was okay. She, [sister] Rebbie [Jackson] and a few others had left him there around 3am. ‘Mother, I’m okay, thanks to you,’ he told her. ‘You kept me up talking so late that I overslept and missed my appointment.’”
Sarah Ferguson
Julia Reinhart/Getty Images
On 9/11, Prince Andrew’s former wife, the Duchess of York, was at NBC studios for an interview with Matt Lauer and ran late for an 8:45 a.m. meeting at her charity, Chances for Children, which was located on the 101st floor of the World Trade Center’s North Tower, the first building hit.
After leaving her NBC appointment, Fergie reportedly got stuck in traffic, which meant she wasn’t in the tower when the first plane crashed at 8:46 a.m. No one on floors 92 to 110 of the building survived.
Related: The 25 Most Powerful Quotes Remembering 9/11 on the 24th Anniversary
In 2018, Ferguson told Hello! ever since her close call, “I take every minute as a blessing, I really do, and I really work hard at it. Because the minute you look too far forward, then you’re missing now. The minute you look back… you can’t go back. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.”
A rag doll named Little Red that Fergie had created as a mascot for her charity was later found in the disaster rubble. The doll became part of the 9/11 memorial exhibit at New York City’s Ground Zero.
Gabourey Sidibe
Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images for Bottomless Closet
The Oscar-nominated Precious star told the New York Daily News that years before she started acting, she was supposed to attend a class right across the street from the World Trade Center on 9/11. But Sidibe overslept.
“Later that day, one of the towers fell on the school building that I had class in, and people lost their lives. [Borough of Manhattan Community College] shut down for a month because the school became a make-shift space for police, firefighters and EMTs,” said Sidibe.
Ian Thorpe
Don Arnold/Getty Images
The Olympic gold medal-winning Australian swimmer had planned to visit the WTC’s South Tower observation deck on Sept. 11, 2001, but realized he didn’t have his camera.
Thorpe took a taxi back to his hotel to retrieve it — but saw the terror on TV instead.
Luckily, nobody wound up on the observation deck, as it wasn’t set to open until 9 a.m. — and it never did because the first plane hit the first tower at 8:46 a.m. However, Thorpe could easily have been in the second building, which was struck at 9:03 a.m.
“He was probably 20 minutes away from being there,” Frank Turner, one of Thorpe’s managers, told Australian radio. “He was shocked … a few minutes later, and who knows what could have happened?”
