Houston drowned with cocaine in system: coroner
LOS ANGELES – Pop star Whitney Houston died of accidental drowning because of the effects of cocaine use and heart disease, a Los Angeles County coroner’s spokesman said on Thursday.
The 48-year-old singer, who spent years battling addiction to drugs, including cocaine, was found submerged in the bathtub of her Beverly Hills hotel room on Feb. 12, the eve of the Grammy Awards.
An autopsy into Houston’s death found that the cause of death was accidental drown- ing with heart disease and cocaine use contributing, Los Angeles County Coroner’s spokesman Craig Harvey said.
Harvey said toxicology tests also turned up marijuana, an anti-anxiety medication, a muscle relaxant and an anti-histamine in Houston’s system.
Those drugs were not found to have contributed to her death, and no trauma or foul play were suspected, the coroner’s office said. A final report was expected to be made public within two weeks.
“We are saddened to learn of the toxicology results, although we are glad to now have closure,’’ Patricia Houston, the pop superstar’s man- ager and sister-in-law, said in a statement on Thursday.
Houston, who got her start singing in her New Jersey gospel church, soared to the top of the pop charts in the 1980s. She is best known for a string of hits songs, including her signature I Will Always Love You.
Over the course of a 30-year career in which she established herself as one of the most-admired and influential singers of her time, she won six Grammys, 30 Billboard awards and 22 American Music Awards.
The soundtrack for her 1992 hit movie The Bodyguard was among the best-selling film soundtracks ever.
By the early 1990s, Houston’s success on stage was accompanied by an increasingly troubled personal life. In 1992, she married singer Bobby Brown and their tumultuous 14 years together were marred by drug abuse and domestic violence.
The last 10 years of Houston’s life were dominated by drug use, rumours of relapses and trips to rehab.
Patricia Houston told Oprah Winfrey in an interview this month that she had believed the pop star’s worst days of drug abuse were be- hind her.
Members of the family told Winfrey that Houston was found face down and naked in the bathtub, and that attempts by her staff to revive her proved fruitless.
Houston was last in rehab in May 2011. But celebrity media reported that she was seen drinking heavily and behaving erratically in the three or four days before her sudden death.
Sales and downloads of Houston’s best-known songs, including Saving All My Love for You and My Love Is Your Love, soared around the world after her death.