When a celebrity death hits the headlines, the news is met with shock, horror... and curiosity. Here are some of the last decade's most tragic deaths — and what the coroner revealed about them afterward.
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00:00When a celebrity death hits the headlines, the news is met with shock, horror, and curiosity.
00:05Here are some of the last decade's most tragic deaths, and what The Corner revealed about
00:08them afterward.
00:10Chicago rapper Juice WRLD was one of the biggest rising stars of the 2010s. Born Jared Anthony
00:15Higgins, he established a massive following by the age of 21 after releasing a series
00:19of hit songs on SoundCloud. In 2017, his debut EP, Juice WRLD 999, came out. Its lead single,
00:26Lucid Dreams, peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard charts. And the next year, his first studio
00:30album, Goodbye and Good Riddance, hit No. 4.
00:33If you spread your wings, you'll fly.
00:35Juice WRLD never shied away from talking about his drug use in his lyrics, but as his career
00:39took off, his substance use did too. While on tour in Australia, his friends held an
00:43intervention. Juice agreed to go to rehab, but it was too late.
00:46I feel like everybody dying young, you know what I'm saying? Not foreshadowing anything
00:53or wishing that upon myself.
00:56On December 8, 2019, he suffered a fatal seizure while security services were searching his
01:00private jet — a search that turned up firearms, 70 pounds of cannabis, and six bottles of
01:05prescription cough syrup used to make the intoxicant Lean or Purple Drink. His official
01:10cause of death was listed as an accidental overdose of codeine and oxycodone, two opioids
01:15known to be dangerous in combination.
01:17Philip Seymour Hoffman was one of Broadway and Hollywood's most sought-after actors.
01:21After his breakthrough role in 1997's Boogie Nights, he appeared in cult classics and major
01:25commercial hits including The Big Lebowski, Almost Famous, and Synecdoche, New York. He
01:30won special praise for his role as a cult leader in Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master,
01:34and for his portrayal of the author Truman Capote in the biopic Capote, for which he
01:38won the Best Actor Oscar.
01:39I did everything I could.
01:43In interviews, Hoffman was open about his history with alcohol and drugs. In a 2011
01:47Guardian feature, he talked about checking into rehab after his 1989 graduation from
01:51NYU, saying,
01:52It was pretty bad, you know what I mean? And I know, deep down, I still look at the idea
01:57of drinking with the same ferocity that I did back then. It's still pretty tangible.
02:01But as his career and reputation soared, Hoffman relapsed. In 2013, he separated from his wife
02:06of 15 years and moved to an apartment two blocks away to stay near his kids. That's
02:10where, on February 2, 2014, at the age of 46, he was found dead, a syringe still in
02:15his arm.
02:16The cause of death was accidental acute mixed drug intoxication. Heroin, cocaine, amphetamine,
02:22and benzodiazepines were among the substances found in his system.
02:26Cameron Boyce was a wildly popular Disney Channel star, and all the signs pointed to
02:29him following in the footsteps of former Disney phenoms like Zac Efron and Miley Cyrus.
02:33I think Cameron of the Four of Us just has, like, the most swag ever.
02:38But it wasn't to be. On July 6, 2019, 20-year-old Boyce went to sleep and didn't wake up. As
02:44his autopsy later revealed, Boyce died of an epileptic seizure. He'd been diagnosed
02:48with epilepsy three years earlier, but his seizures appeared under control thanks to
02:51medication. Boyce's official cause of death was listed as Sudden Unexplained Death in
02:55Epilepsy, or SUDEP, a little-understood complication that strikes without warning, but which kills
03:00around 2,600 people a year in the U.S., most of them young.
03:04He only ever had five seizures in his lifetime.
03:09After Boyce's death, his family created the Cameron Boyce Foundation to continue his legacy
03:13and fund epilepsy research.
03:15Amy Winehouse's drug and alcohol use was no secret. Propelled to international stardom
03:20with the 2006 release of her blockbuster album Back to Black, the British jazz singer was
03:24relentlessly dogged by the paparazzi and exploited by the tabloids, which only made her problems
03:29worse.
03:30You've got to live in the moment. You've got to seize the day. Seize the day.
03:37In an act of self-preservation, Winehouse stepped away from the limelight, spending
03:41almost a year on St. Lucia, then returned to London and went to rehab, where she reportedly
03:45kicked drugs and briefly stopped drinking. But on July 23, 2011, the 27-year-old Winehouse
03:51was found dead in her London apartment. Two empty bottles of vodka were found nearby.
03:55And then I just regretted that I wasn't able to tell her to slow down. And then she died.
04:04Her official cause of death was alcohol poisoning. Winehouse had abstained from alcohol for a
04:08period before relapsing. Experts say this can prove fatal, as a person's tolerance
04:12decreases during periods of sobriety.
04:15Glee actor Naya Rivera died tragically on July 8, 2020, at age 33. The circumstances
04:21of the fatal accident emerged in news reports, but further disturbing details came to light
04:25with the publication of her autopsy report.
04:28On the day of her death, Rivera was boating with her 4-year-old son on Los Angeles' Lake
04:32Piru when they decided to jump into the water together. Rivera began to struggle, but managed
04:37to get her son safely back onto the boat before she drowned. The report noted that
04:41she had a history of vertigo and had a sinus infection shortly before her death that might
04:45have affected her ability to swim. Her son, who was wearing a life jacket, was later recovered
04:49from the boat and placed in the care of his father.
04:52Naya Rivera's Glee co-star Cory Monteith was just 31 years old when he died in the early
04:57hours of July 13, 2013, in a Vancouver hotel. According to the autopsy report, he was discovered
05:03collapsed on the floor alongside a used syringe and two empty bottles of champagne.
05:07You see this young, all-American quarterback-looking dude on the show, and you just immediately
05:12make assumptions.
05:13His death was labeled an accident caused by combined heroin and alcohol toxicity. Four
05:18months earlier, Monteith had released a statement claiming he was in treatment for addiction.
05:21His autopsy noted that his heroin use may have proved fatal as a result of his lowered
05:25tolerance — not unlike Amy Winehouse.
05:29As one of the stars of the massive Fast & Furious franchise, Paul Walker became a hero to motor
05:33heads and action fans everywhere. On screen, he was routinely shown performing driving
05:37stunts that would make even the most hardened racer's hair stand on end.
05:40Real-life Walker was a race car driver and avid car collector. He loved going fast.
05:44Paul wanted to go for a ride. He wanted to go for a ride in the car, so they went for
05:48a ride, and that was the last step. We saw them.
05:51On November 30, 2013, the 40-year-old actor was killed while riding in a Porsche driven
05:56by his friend and financial advisor, former race car driver Roger Rodas. The car slammed
06:00into a tree at over 100 miles per hour and burst into flames. The autopsy revealed that
06:05Walker suffered severe traumatic injuries from the collision. His body was burned beyond
06:10recognition. Rodas also died in the accident.
06:14Actor Anton Yelchin was best known for his role as Pavel Chekhov in the Star Trek movie
06:18trilogy. Yelchin began as a child actor in the early 2000s, building a vast and varied
06:22resume, including blockbuster action movies like Terminator Salvation, auteur cinema like
06:27Only Lovers Left Alive, and guest spots on shows like ER and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
06:31You're not a magician.
06:32You're not a magician either, Stuart.
06:33I am.
06:34No, you're not.
06:35Uh-huh.
06:36He was a versatile talent with what looked to be a long career ahead of him. But on July
06:4119, 2016, the actor was found pinned between his car and a gatepost outside his home in
06:46Studio City, California. It's believed that the two-and-a-half-ton Jeep Grand Cherokee
06:51rolled toward Yelchin, trapping him and causing fatal injuries to his chest and head. The
06:55only official cause of death was blunt traumatic asphyxia. The Los Angeles County Coroner's
06:59office suggested that Yelchin was unable to breathe for around a minute before dying.
07:04That particular Jeep model had been recalled in April due to numerous reports of unexpected
07:08rolling.
07:10Rapper Mac Miller was beloved within the music industry. Among his friends and collaborators
07:14were bassist and vocalist Thundercat, rapper Schoolboy Q, and singer and actor Ariana Grande,
07:20with whom he had a highly publicized romance. Miller's music is now considered some of the
07:24classic rap of the period. His 2011 debut album, Blue Slide Park, topped the Billboard
07:29charts, and his final album, Swimming, was nominated for a Grammy.
07:33Though originally lumped into the frat-rap party music genre, what fans connected with
07:37was Miller's honesty and maturity. He used his lyrics to discuss relationships, addiction,
07:41and the emotional turbulence he was feeling. In 2018, Miller's relationship with Grande
07:46ended. A few days later, he was very publicly arrested for DUI. That August, during interviews
07:51about the release of Swimming, Miller claimed he was doing well. But on September 7, 2018,
07:56a month after the album's release, he was found dead.
07:59I had a drug problem, you know, for a long time. It wasn't just in music.
08:06Miller's official cause of death was an accidental drug overdose, with fentanyl, cocaine, and
08:10alcohol listed in the report. The report also described the tattoo, an hourglass, and the
08:15words,
08:16There's so much time left in this crazy world.
08:19To fans of daytime TV, actor Christoph St. John was a near-constant presence for almost
08:23three decades. He began his career as a child actor back in 1979 with a breakout role on
08:28Roots, The Next Generations, and appeared on both Happy Days and The Cosby Show. As
08:32an adult, he made guest appearances on Diagnosis Murder, The Jamie Foxx Show, and more. But
08:37he was undoubtedly best known as Neil Winters, a character he played from 1991 until his
08:42death in 2019 on the long-running CBS soap opera The Young and the Restless.
08:47There's light. There was light at the end of the tunnel that I wasn't aware of, and
08:50now it's here, and I'm bathed in light, and man, it feels good.
08:54But in 2014, his son Julian took his own life. Afterward, the actor often took to social
08:59media to express his feelings of grief and loss. Then, on February 3, 2019, the 52-year-old
09:04St. John was found dead in his home. The autopsy declared his cause of death to be an accident
09:09due to hypertrophic heart disease, with alcohol as a contributing factor.
09:13James Gandolfini was one of the most respected actors of his generation. He trained as a
09:17stage actor and cut his teeth on Broadway before his career-defining portrayal of Tony
09:21Soprano, the therapy-seeking mob boss in HBO's classic The Sopranos, for which he collected
09:26three Emmy Awards. By the early 2010s, Gandolfini's career was still on the rise, with starring
09:31roles in acclaimed movies like Killing Them Softly and Zero Dark Thirty. But tragically,
09:36on June 19, 2013, the actor collapsed and died while on vacation with his son, Michael,
09:41after spending the day touring Rome.
09:43He died of a heart attack of natural causes.
09:47There was no alcohol or other substances found in the toxicology report. His family was unaware
09:52of any underlying health problems at the time of his sudden death. He was 51.
09:58Pennsylvania-born rapper and songwriter Gustav R, better known as Lil Peep, quickly shot
10:02to fame during his short career. Peep and his family moved to New York when he was four
10:06years old, and as a teenager, he began posting music on SoundCloud under the name Trapgoose.
10:10By 2015, he'd become Lil Peep and was gaining popularity, releasing mixtapes and collaborating
10:16with other musicians. Peep was admired for the vulnerability of his lyrics, which spoke
10:19directly to kids who felt like outcasts or misfits. His music crossed genres from emo
10:24rap to alt-rock and even pop-punk.
10:27During his lifetime, Peep released just one studio album, 2017's Come Over When You're
10:32Sober Part 1. Crybaby, a 2016 mixtape, became a commercial hit after his death, and two
10:37more albums, Come Over When You're Sober Part 2 and Everybody's Everything, made up of previously
10:42unreleased material, came out posthumously. On November 15, 2017, in Tucson, Arizona,
10:48in the midst of his first solo tour, Lil Peep, age 21, was found dead in his tour bus.
10:53He posted a video on Instagram talking about taking six Xanax, and another photo showed
10:58him with pills on his tongue just hours before his show at The Rock.
11:02The autopsy report revealed he died of a fatal overdose of Xanax and fentanyl. The report
11:07noted that Peep had swelling of the brain, likely a symptom of the overdose.
11:11If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit
11:15the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's
11:20National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP, 4357.
11:28For more stories, visit nyseagrant.org