The tragic fate of the actor who recorded the video for Pearl Jam’s classic “Jeremy”

Released in August 1991, “Ten” is the first album by the American band Pearl Jam, one of the greatest exponents of Grunge, a style that established other great names in 90s Rock, such as Nirvana, Soundgarden and Alice In Chains. Pearl Jam’s debut features great classics from the group (and Grunge), with highlights being the excellent “Once”, “Even Flow”, “Alive”, “Black” and “Jeremy”.

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Photo: Reproduction – VEVO

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A shy young man, a classroom, a gun and a tragedy

The last of the songs mentioned above, which became a Pearl Jam hit, is the subject of this note. Unfortunately, the story behind “Jeremy,” which you’ve probably heard somewhere, is pretty sad.

“Jeremy” was based on the story of a shy young man named Jeremy Wade Delle, who was 15 years old, lived in Dallas (Texas, USA) and took his life in class in January 1991. According to an article at the time, published by website Songfacts, the boy had missed a class and his teacher asked him for proof of admission at the school office.

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Instead of taking the requested proof, Jeremy took a firearm. According to Ray Pennington, spokesman for the local police, before putting the gun in his mouth, the boy said the following words: “Miss, I got what I really wanted.”

Eddie Vedder went through a similar situation

Another story that served as inspiration for the composition of “Jeremy” was experienced by Eddie Vedder, lead singer of Pearl Jam. Vedder recalled the situation in 1991, during an interview with Billboard.

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“When I went to write about this [a morte de Jeremy], I thought about actually knowing about the person I was writing about, but then I thought that would be intrusive. And I totally related because I had a very similar experience with a child I grew up with.

I didn’t actually grow up with it. I had a few situations with him and he ended up being, you know, kind of… I mean, he freaked out. His world exploded. He kind of freaked out and took a gun to school one day. It was geography class and he shot a 1,000-gallon aquarium or something like that. I was in the hallway and I remember hearing [o barulho]. This was in elementary school, seventh grade. And I got into a fight with this kid a year before,” said the singer-songwriter.

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The “Jeremy” clips

Eddie Vedder met photographer Chris Cuffaro in the second half of 1991 and suggested that his new friend direct a Pearl Jam video. Epic Records gave carte blanche and allowed Chris to choose any song from “Ten”. So, the photographer wanted to make the video for “Jeremy” (which was not a single from the album), however, Epic did not want to finance the production of the video.

As he took Epic’s “stub”, Chris decided to pay for the clip and in addition to taking out a financial loan, he sold part of his furniture and his guitar collection. The effort had no effect, as the clip, which took six months to prepare, was rejected by the record company.

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Epic Records decided to release “Jeremy” as a single and produce a music video for the song. Director Mark Pellington was hired and the video was shot in London, the capital of England.

“I got the song and I rejected it at first. It didn’t click with me right away. So my producer said, ‘Listen to some more.’ true. I just dove in and got into it,” said Mark, during an interview with Songfacts.

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The video for “Jeremy” tells the sad story of the song’s protagonist, who in the filming is played by a boy called Trevor Wilson. As expected, the video was censored.

“They [integrantes do Pearl Jam] got involved in editing again when everything was censored and MTV made us edit out the gun that was in our mouth. This created a huge confusion, which made it seem like he brought the gun and shot his classmates, which was a huge mistake and years later connected ‘Jeremy’ to school shootings, which was nothing like that. Still, people like to make the connection,” Mark added.

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Ultimately, the “Jeremy” video won four awards at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards: “Best Video of the Year”, “Best Band Video”, “Best Rock Video” and “Best Direction”.

The tragic fate of the actor who played “Jeremy”

Trevor Wilson recorded the video for “Jeremy”, however, he did not pursue a career as an actor, according to Greg Prato, who interviewed the clip’s director.

“He was a smart kid who had a lot of other interests. I think he would forever be known as the ‘Jeremy’ kid. He was like the childhood star that nobody wants to be. Nobody wants to be remembered for that role,” he said. Mark.

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“He discovered that people were attracted to you because you’re famous, not because of who you are,” added Diane Wilson, Trevor’s mother, in an article published on the Billboard website.

Unfortunately, Trevor met a sad end. He drowned in August 2016 while on vacation in Puerto Rico. The day he passed away, he spoke to his mother, who recalled their last conversation.

“In the last conversation with him, he said, ‘I’m going to swim and then I’ll try to meet up with [seu primo] to dinner’. But then I had a feeling, because suddenly [seu primo] Couldn’t get in touch with him and he didn’t respond. Trevor was a big part of my life. We were very close,” said Diane.

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