{"id":31329,"date":"2026-08-07T17:53:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T12:53:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=31329"},"modified":"2026-08-07T17:53:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T12:53:25","slug":"william-orbit-dead-madonnas-ray-of-light-producer-dies-at-69-just-jared-celebrity-news-and-gossip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=31329","title":{"rendered":"William Orbit Dead &#8211; Madonna&#8217;s &#8216;Ray of Light&#8217; Producer Dies at 69 | Just Jared &#8211; Celebrity News and Gossip"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div xmlns:default=\"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" id=\"post-2261503\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t<!-- Franchise logo or primary category --><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<!-- post title --><\/p>\n<p><!-- \/post title --><\/p>\n<p><!-- subheader --><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<!-- post thumbnail --><\/p>\n<figure class=\"tpd-post-thumbnail-container caption_belowImage credit_onImage\"><img width=\"788\" height=\"444\" src=\"https:\/\/www.justjared.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/william-orbit-dead-788x444.jpg\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium tpd-force-16x9-aspect-ratio wp-post-image\" alt=\"William Orbit at RIBA Launches &quot;Architects Underground&quot; Magazine - Arrivals\" decoding=\"sync\" fetchpriority=\"high\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.justjared.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/william-orbit-dead-428x240.jpg 428w, https:\/\/www.justjared.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/william-orbit-dead-788x444.jpg 788w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 430px) 100px, 788px\" loading=\"eager\" data-cf-ratio=\"788x444\"\/><figcaption><span class=\"credit-text\">Credit: Getty<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<!-- \/post thumbnail --><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.justjared.com\/tags\/william-orbit\/\" class=\"celebrity-tag-link\"><strong class=\"celebrity-tag-strong\">William Orbit<\/strong><\/a> has sadly passed away.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The English musician and producer, best known for co-producing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justjared.com\/tags\/madonna\/\" class=\"celebrity-tag-link\"><strong class=\"celebrity-tag-strong\">Madonna<\/strong><\/a>\u2018s award-winning 1998 record <em>Ray of Light<\/em> and <strong>All Saints<\/strong>\u2018 \u201cPure Shores\u201d and \u201cBlack Coffee,\u201d has died at the age of 69, his family confirmed in a statement shared on his official Instagram on Friday (August 7).<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>William Orbit<\/strong><br \/><strong>15 December 1956 \u2013 23 July 2026<\/strong> <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is with profound sadness that the family and friends of <strong>William Orbit <\/strong>announce that <strong>William<\/strong> passed away at home on 23rd July 2026.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We are deeply saddened by his passing.<br \/>He will be greatly missed by us and by so many whose lives he touched through his music, friendship and kindness.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>We kindly ask that the privacy of William\u2019s family and close friends is respected during this difficult time.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><center xmlns:default=\"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\"><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"instagram-media\" data-instgrm-captioned=\"\" data-instgrm-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DbvPBoeDCAz\/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading\" data-instgrm-version=\"14\" style=\" background:#FFF; border:0; border-radius:3px; box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width:540px; min-width:326px; padding:0; width:99.375%; width:-webkit-calc(100% - 2px); width:calc(100% - 2px);\"\/><p>\n<\/center><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>William<\/strong> worked with many stars over the years, including <strong>Beth Orton<\/strong>, <strong>Blur<\/strong>, <strong>All Saints<\/strong>, <strong>U2<\/strong>, <strong>Pink<\/strong>, <strong>Robbie Williams<\/strong>, <strong>Katie Melua<\/strong> and <strong>Britney Spears<\/strong>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>William <\/strong>worked with <strong>Madonna<\/strong> to create <em>Ray of Light<\/em>, as well as reuniting to work on <em>Music<\/em>, \u201cBeautiful Stranger,\u201d and later, her 2012 album <em>MDNA<\/em>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He also produced \u201cFeel Good Time\u201d for<strong> Pink<\/strong> for the<em> Charlie\u2019s Angels: Full Throttle<\/em> soundtrack and \u201cAlien\u201d for <strong>Britney<\/strong>\u2018s 2013 album <em>Britney Jean<\/em>. More recently, he produced <strong>All Saints<\/strong>\u2018 \u201cAfter All\u201d and \u201cTestament in Motion\u201d from <em>Testament<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In addition to his collaborations, he released various albums under his own name over the years, including his <em>Strange Cargo<\/em> series.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cHonestly, I regard the whole of life as one giant improv session! Simple as that. But at the time of making a song, none of us actually have that clarity to worry about how we\u2019ll look back at it. So the time is always of the moment. For me, looking back now, I\u2019m happy with most of it,\u201d he said in an interview with <a href=\"https:\/\/the-talks.com\/interview\/william-orbit\/\"><em>The Talks<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201c<strong>William<\/strong> is a complete madman genius,\u201d <strong>Madonna<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/2026\/aug\/07\/william-orbit-pop-producer-madonna-all-saints-dies-aged-69\">previously said.<\/a> <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI\u2019d come to him with an idea of where I wanted to go musically, hum melodies or read lyrics, and then leave him alone in the laboratory. Sometimes he\u2019d go in the direction I wanted and sometimes he\u2019d swerve off somewhere else entirely. We\u2019d end up with trance tracks that were eight minutes long and then keep adding and subtracting until we had real verses and choruses. We really put our noses to the grindstone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Our thoughts are with <strong>William Orbit<\/strong>\u2018s loved ones at this incredibly difficult time. RIP.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.justjared.com\/tags\/rip\/\">We have sadly lost many stars in 2026.<\/a><\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Back on top: music producer William Orbit on his return to music\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_HczQX8Lwug?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"categories single-categories\">Posted To:<a href=\"https:\/\/www.justjared.com\/tags\/rip\/\" rel=\"tag\">RIP<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justjared.com\/tags\/william-orbit\/\" rel=\"tag\">William Orbit<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Credit: Getty William Orbit has sadly passed away. The English musician and producer, best known for co-producing Madonna\u2018s award-winning 1998 record Ray of Light and All Saints\u2018 \u201cPure Shores\u201d and \u201cBlack Coffee,\u201d has died at the age of 69, his family confirmed in a statement shared on his official Instagram on Friday (August 7). William&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.justjared.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/william-orbit-dead.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrity-gossip"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}