I'm going to say coincidence. I think this particular article suffers from just being poorly written. It's not unheard of for people to die incredibly fast following diagnosis of cancer. Cancers that metastasize can kill you incredibly quickly because they break apart travel the blood stream and get into every organ and tissue, and it seems his mother was also killed by cancer. Plus this guy had written a book about his time on the show and apparently it didn't paint a favorable picture of it, so I'd say he was not part of the club. In my own opinion R.I.P. sounds like this dude caught a rough break.