Back in the day, the only real option for the deceased was burial. But while many people still choose this option, cremation is becoming more and more common.
Cremation uses extreme heat to turn a person's remains into ashes. Those ashes are normally then scattered in a location chosen by the deceased. If no wishes were expressed, the family and friends will decide what to do with them.
There are many celebrities, just like regular folk, who chose to have their remains cremated rather than buried. Check out this gallery to find out where these stars' ashes are scattered.
Queen front man Freddie Mercury died in 1991 at the tender age of 45. His body was cremated and his ashes were given to his old friend and ex-partner, Mary Austin.
According to Austin, Mercury asked her to scatter his ashes somewhere secret and tell no one where he lies.
After 2Pac was killed in a drive-by shooting in 1996, his mother held a private ceremony for him. The official line was that his body was cremated and his ashes given to his family.
It later emerged that members of the hip-hop group Outlawz smoked some of 2Pac's ashes, after mixing them with marijuana and rolling them up into a joint.
Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain, who died in 1994, had his ashes divided up. Some were scattered in the Wishkah River in Washington State.
Some were taken to a Buddhist Temple in Ithaca, New York, and the rest apparently went to Courtney Love, who claimed to carry them around in a bear-shaped handbag.
News of David Bowie's death shook the world in January 2016, when he lost a battle with liver cancer that almost no one knew about. He insisted that he didn't want a funeral.
According to his death certificate, Bowie was cremated in New Jersey, and his ashes were scattered, as per his request, at a Buddhist ceremony in Bali, Indonesia.
Actress Carrie Fisher, whom most people knew as Princess Leia from the Star Wars franchise, died of cardiac arrest in 2016. Her body was cremated and her ashes divided.
Some of her ashes were laid beside her famous mother Debbie Reynolds (who was entombed) in Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills. The rest are being kept (somewhat bizarrely) in a giant novelty Prozac pill.
When Prince passed away in 2016, aged 57, his body was cremated. The cremation ceremony was a private affair, attended only by close friends and family.
His ashes, by contrast, were placed in a custom urn shaped like the Paisley Park estate, his home and studio. The urn was placed on display at the estate's complex, which the public is invited to visit.
John Lennon of the Beatles was tragically murdered outside his home in December 1980. His ashes were scattered by his widow, Yoko Ono.
According to the Central Park Conservancy, Ono scattered Lennon's remains in Central Park, just across the street from where he was killed.
Actor and comedian Robin Williams, who is widely considered one of the best comedians of all time, sadly took his own life in 2014. His ashes were scattered over San Francisco Bay.
Williams was a resident of San Francisco for a long time, but sources suggest that he wanted to rest there because that is where his mother's ashes are.
When 'Diff'rent Strokes' star Gary Coleman died in 2010, there was a lot of back and forth over who should get his ashes. It was thought that they would go to his ex-wife, who had plans to sprinkle them in Golden Spike Park, Utah.
In the end, it turned out that the person with legal right to his ashes was his friend, Anna Gray. The ashes were turned over to her and she kept their location a secret.
20th-century physicist and household name Albert Einstein died in 1955 and was cremated. This was very unusual at the time, especially since his brain was removed first for study.
According to Wired, the ashes from the rest of Einstein's remains were scattered at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study. Quite fitting, really.
When actor Marlon Brando died in 2004, his body was cremated and his ashes divided. A portion of his ashes was scattered in the South Pacific archipelago of Tahiti.
Another portion was scattered in Death Valley, California, a place that Brando apparently loved and had visited several times during his life.
Legendary journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson had a rather unorthodox request when it came to his ashes. He asked for them to be fired from a cannon.
When he died in 2005, his wishes were granted: his family and friends threw a huge party to celebrate his life, a cannon was loaded with his ashes, and was fired by his longtime friend, Johnny Depp.
Author and socialite Truman Capote had his ashes divided. A portion was given to his friend, Joanne Carson, and another portion to his partner, Jack Dunphy.
When Jack Dunphy died just a few years after Capote, their ashes were scattered together in Long Island. Carson died in 2016, at which point her portion of Capote's ashes was auctioned off.
Peaches Geldof, daughter of Bob Geldof and Paula Yates, died a tragic death in 2014. The cause of death was heroin overdose, which had also killed her mother 14 years earlier.
Peaches' body was cremated and her ashes were scattered in the same place as her mother's, the gardens of her childhood home, Davington Priory, Kent.
Sources: (Scattering Ashes) (People)
See also: Famous celebrities who died last decade
Where late stars chose to have their ashes scattered
Hint: they're all over the place
CELEBRITY Death
Back in the day, the only real option for the deceased was burial. But while many people still choose this option, cremation is becoming more and more common.
Cremation uses extreme heat to turn a person's remains into ashes. Those ashes are normally then scattered in a location chosen by the deceased. If no wishes were expressed, the family and friends will decide what to do with them.
There are many celebrities, just like regular folk, who chose to have their remains cremated rather than buried. Check out this gallery to find out where these stars' ashes are scattered.