Fatal Fandom: The Story of Christina Grimmie

27-year-old Kevin James Loibl was infatuated with pop star Christina Grimmie. It had started as a casual enjoyment of Christina’s music, but had quickly snowballed into complete obsession. She was the first thing he thought about when he woke up in the morning, and the last thing he thought about before he fell asleep at night. He knew absolutely everything about her, and every day, he tried to find out something new.

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Christina’s journey to fame began as a teenager, when she had started posting videos of herself singing on YouTube. She’d always had an interest in music, playing the piano and singing since she was a little girl, but she dreamed of making it in the music industry. Her YouTube career quickly became a success - people loved her soprano voice, but they also loved her personality and her unique takes on popular songs by singers like Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus.

By 2011, 17-year-old Christina had more than a million YouTube subscribers. She released her first album and moved to LA, where there were more opportunities for her to grow as a pop star.

When she was 20, she competed on the popular singing TV show “The Voice”, finishing third and securing a record deal. Even though she didn’t win, appearing on “The Voice” was one of the biggest moves of Christina’s career, and by now, she had a loyal fanbase who were willing to support anything she did. But none of those fans were more loyal than Kevin Loibl. 

Kevin was a loner who only had one close friend - Cory Dennington, who was his colleague at the Best Buy in St Petersburg, Florida, where he had worked for several years. According to Cory, Kevin spent almost all of his time thinking about Christina. He repeatedly watched every video she had ever posted on YouTube and constantly refreshed her social media accounts, looking for new posts and updates on her life. At one point, Cory became so worried about Kevin’s obsession that he talked to their manager about it, trying to see if there was anything that could be done. However, no action was taken.

Although Kevin wasn’t close with any of his other Best Buy coworkers, almost everybody in the store was aware of his obsession with Christina, although they didn’t realize how unhealthy it was. When Kevin would claim that he wanted to get married to Christina, the others assumed that he was joking - however, Kevin was completely serious about pursuing a romantic relationship with the pop star. He even made some significant changes to his physical appearance in the hope of winning her over - he went on a diet to lose weight, had hair implants to treat his male-pattern baldness, and paid for laser eye surgery so that he no longer needed glasses. 

However, Christina had no idea that Kevin existed - the two of them had never even met. But that was about to change.

On the 10th of June 2016, Kevin got ready to attend a concert in Orlando, Florida, where Christina was playing as the opening act. He had already packed his bag with the necessities - a hunting knife, as well as two firearms that he had recently purchased, and loaded magazines for each gun. 

With the drawstring bag in hand, he took a taxi to the venue for the concert - Plaza Live, one of the oldest theaters in Florida. Security at the gates to the theater never checked inside Kevin’s bag, and he made it inside the venue with all of his weapons. One witness who was at the concert that night stated that all the security team were concerned about was concertgoers bringing in their own food and drinks, but that they didn’t seem worried about safety. There were no metal detectors at the entrances, and nobody was patted down at the doors.

Christina’s performance went off without a hitch while Kevin watched from the audience. Once it was time for the main act to play, Christina went backstage and got ready to sign autographs and pose for pictures with the fans that had come to meet her. Kevin lined up with the rest of the fans, still holding his drawstring bag. 

One by one, Christina took the time to speak with her fans. She was relatively new to the industry, and she hadn’t developed the professional barriers that a lot of more seasoned performers had with their supporters. In fact, Christina cherished her fans, and she trusted them all completely. It meant that she always took the opportunity to hug and accept gifts from them, and she never suspected that anybody would have a reason to harm her.

At 10:24pm, Kevin was finally next in line. As soon as he approached Christina, she reached forward to hug him, but before she was able to, he drew one of the handguns from his bag. 

Christina had no time to react. Witnesses at the scene later described how quickly the incident took place - one moment, it was as if everything was fine, and the next, gunshots were ringing through the air, and people had started to scream. Kevin quickly fired three times before he was tackled by Christina’s brother, Marcus Grimmie, who was also her manager. However, Kevin was able to escape from Marcus’ grasp. He backed away, standing against a wall, and fatally shot himself.

Christina didn’t die instantly from her wounds, even though she’d been shot two times in the chest, and one time in the head. First responders found that she had a weak pulse, and carried out CPR before she was urgently transported to the Orlando Regional Medical Center. Her condition was described as critical - but at 10:59, less than an hour after being shot, she passed away.

Although it’s clear that Kevin Loibl’s obsession with Christina led to his decision to take her life, his exact motives for the crime were never revealed. Some people have theorized that Kevin was enraged after seeing Christina’s social media posts about her boyfriend, and decided that if he couldn’t have her, nobody could. However, it appeared as if Kevin had actually planned on killing Christina and then returning home - possibly, he had panicked after being tackled by Marcus, leading to him making the rushed decision to end his own life as well.

The fallout from Christina’s death was immediate. Selena Gomez, one of Christina’s closest friends in the music industry, shared a picture that she’d taken of her and Christina, captioning it, “My heart is absolutely broken.” Adam Levine, who had been Christina’s vocal coach on The Voice and had developed a close relationship with the young pop star, made a Twitter post about the tragedy, saying, “There are no words. We lost a beautiful soul with an amazing voice.”

In 2017, Christina’s grieving family created the Christina Grimmie Foundation, aiming to provide support for other people who had been affected by gun violence. They decided to release one of Christina’s unreleased songs, a single titled “Invisible”, and donate all of the profits directly to the Christina Grimmie Foundation.

Christina’s family were also distraught at the lack of safety measures that Plaza Live had provided, claiming that the venue had never used metal detectors to search for guns inside bags, and stating that the security staff’s bag checks had been overly superficial. They believed that a more in-depth security screening could have prevented Kevin from entering Plaza Live with his firearms - if the venue had been stricter, Christina might still be alive. The Grimmies filed a wrongful death lawsuit, but three years later, they voluntarily dismissed the case.

Even years after her death, Christina’s impact on the music world has lasted. At the beginning of 2024, her YouTube channel still had almost 4 million subscribers. Her family continued to release her music; it was what Christina would have wanted, and all of the songs were already written and recorded. A posthumous album, titled “All is Vanity”, was released in June 2017. The following year, the Grimmies released a single that Christina had written during her mother’s battle with breast cancer. Her most recent posthumous single was released in 2022.

Two of Christina’s close friends, brothers Riley and Connor McDonough, wrote a song in her honor in 2022. The McDonough brothers were members of the band Before You Exit - the band that Christina had performed with on the night of her murder.

The inspiration for the song began in 2019, when Riley McDonough created a voice memo during his grief, asking God “if he could only catch a glimpse of [Christina]. The final song was titled “Glimpse of Us”, and after it was released by the popular singer Joji, it reached #8 on the Billboard Hot 100.