This past fall, Moonshiners on Discovery channel returned for its twelfth season, bringing back some of the audience’s favorite whiskey merchants. Because of the illegal nature of their business practices, the cast constantly runs the risk of being apprehended. Despite this, they continue to engage in illegal activity.
The show celebrated its 10-year anniversary the year prior, and production on the Discovery series for the 2022–2023 season is well under way at this point. The recent anniversary of the show makes us question if many of the moonshiners who appeared on the show have passed away. Continue reading to learn more about the deaths of the cast members.
The demise of each and every cast member of “Moonshiners,” broken down.
Only one member of the cast of Moonshiners has passed away in the ten years since the show made its debut on television. In March of 2021, various news organizations reported that Lance Waldroup had passed away at the age of thirty. The website TMZ reports that his mother found him unconscious and lying in his bed. Shortly after that, emergency personnel arrived on the scene and determined that the reality TV star had passed away.
He was last seen by his family having a smoke outside, later retiring to his room to play video games. After a number of months, an autopsy was finally able to determine the reason for his passing.
What ultimately led to Lance Waldroup’s passing away?
According to the available information, Lance was morbidly obese, having a total body weight of 580 pounds at the time of his death, and had ultimately passed away as a result of congenital heart failure.
Before he passed away, Lance also battled opioid addiction and had serious symptoms of depression; however, because to his contagious energy on Moonshiners, it was really difficult for viewers to discern which of these conditions he was suffering from at any given time. Throughout the course of the show, Lance and his father, Jeff, ran their family’s bootlegging operation out of their home in North Carolina.
Following the tragic news of Lance’s passing, Discovery issued a statement remembering him as an “adventurous distiller who was always looking to take his flavorful recipes of moonshine to new heights.” The statement was provided to TMZ by the network.
2019 was the year that viewers saw Lance and his father for the final time on the show. As of the time of this writing, it is difficult to say whether or not Jeff will ever stage a comeback.
Other cast members have experienced near-death experiences in the past and have come through them unscathed. This is especially true of Steve Ray Tickle, who suffered multiple broken ribs after falling off a roof in the past. Tickle is still alive and doing well despite the persistent urban legends that assert he was killed in a catastrophic vehicle crash.
Who exactly is the character Popcorn Sutton from the show Moonshiners? He took his own life just before the first episode of the series aired.
Popcorn Sutton wasn’t actually part of the Moonshiners cast, but he was loved all the same. Moonshining was the master moonshiner’s profession for decades prior to his run-ins with the law, which led to his downfall in the industry. He was in his early 60s when he was given a sentence that required him to serve time in a federal prison. However, before he could begin serving his time, he took his own life by committing suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning.
Footage of Popcorn taken from the documentary Mountain Men from 2002 was utilized in the first season of the show Moonshiners, which was produced two years after his passing.
Watch brand new episodes of Moonshiners every Wednesday at 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Discovery.
