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    Iconic TV pitchman Billy Mays honored with OxiClean bottle at his gravestone 15 years after his death

    By Alex Oliveira,

    6 hours ago

    https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=42wYFH_0uZqxZ2M00

    But wait, there’s more.

    A fan of the late legendary television pitch Billy Mays skipped the flowers during a visit to his gravesite and instead left a bottle of OxiClean — the cleaning product that made Mays a household face across the 2000s.

    “lol just got to pittsburgh and someone left oxiclean at my dad’s grave,” Mays’ son, Billy Mays III wrote on X Monday after a visit to his father’s cemetery.

    https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=4bCud2_0uZqxZ2M00
    Billy Mays’ grave in Pittsburgh, where a fan left behind a bottle of OxyClean in tribute X / @infinitethird

    Mays III included a photo from the grave, where a spray bottle of OxiClean was perched on the pedestal of his tombstone.

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    The grave itself was a proper memorial for Mays — including an etched illustration of him flashing his signature thumbs up in an OxiClean shirt, and referring to him not only as a “Beloved husband and son,” but as as a “Pitchman.”

    Mays died in 2009 at age 50 from a heart attack at his Florida home, and a subsequent autopsy found that cocaine use was a “contributory cause of death” that exacerbated heart disease he was already suffering from.

    But his family contested that finding, calling it and subsequent reports of drug abuse “speculative,” according to NBC News , and a subsequent medical examiner’s report found that cocaine did not contribute to his death but also didn’t refute his drug use.

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    Mays came to prominence as a loud-talking salesman for products like OxiClean, Orange Glo, Kaboom, and Mighty Putty.

    https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=4BTPve_0uZqxZ2M00
    Billy Mays became a pop culture icon thanks to his sales style Discovery Channel/Courtesy Everett Collection

    A Pittsburgh native, he learned the art of hawking after moving to Atlantic City in his 20s and found himself competing with old-timer salesmen pitching their products on the Atlantic City Boardwalk

    He honed the craft while traveling the country for sales shows, before breaking into television in the 1990s and establishing himself as a pop-culture icon.

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    His thick dark hair and beard where as characteristic as the brand-name work shirts he wore during his commercials, and he became synonymous for many with late-night television after regular programming ended and stretches of informercials dominated the airwaves until daybreak.

    https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=3gtXzz_0uZqxZ2M00
    Pallbearers at Mays’ 2009 funeral wearing his signature khakis and blue button down work shirt AP

    Mays was not the only beloved television pitchman to have a brush with controversy.

    Vince Offer, known widely as the “ShamWow Guy,” was arrested in 2009 after getting into a physical altercation with a prostitute who had bitten his tongue.

    That arrest — and the embarrassing mugshot that followed — derailed Offer’s career for several years, but he later credited it with turning his life around.

    “It probably saved my life,” he told NBC News, explaining how the fame and wealth he’d attained from his status as a television icon had sent him down a dark road.

    For top headlines, breaking news and more, visit nypost.com.

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