The fate of the most massive stars is a long-time mystery. For decades it was even unclear how massive are the most massive stars - a hundred solar masses? two hundred? more? Many theoretical models claimed that very massive stars cannot form in galaxies similar to our own; or that if they do form they will rapidly lose most of their mass in strong stellar winds. I will describe recent observational results that show that very massive stars do form in nearby galaxy, and they do not lose most of their mass promptly; rather some explode as brilliant supernovae, defying the common theoretical wisdom, while others, yet even more massive, explode as a result of a newly observed physical mechanism, with new observations confirming decades-old theoretical predictions.