Whitney Houston: Death by drowning, cocaine

SO LONG Whitney Houston’s private funeral will be viewed on the Internet. AFP file photo

LOS ANGELES—Grammy-winning pop legend Whitney Houston died from accidental drowning in her hotel bathtub after taking cocaine which could have triggered a heart attack, coroners said on Thursday.

The disclosure ended weeks of speculation about what killed the singer-actress on Feb. 11, a day before the 54th annual Grammy Awards, the music industry’s biggest awards show, and hours ahead of a glittering pre-Grammy party in the Beverly Hilton hotel.

Houston, cited by the Guinness World Records in 2009 as “the most-awarded female act of all-time,” died at 48 in the bathtub of a Beverly Hilton hotel room.

“You have a heart condition exacerbated by cocaine use which, combined, resulted in her drowning,” Craig Harvey, spokesperson of the Los Angeles County Coroner’s office, told AFP. “We feel that there was a heart event, complicated by cocaine use” before she drowned.

No foul play

Ed Winter, deputy chief of coroner investigations, was more explicit when asked by the LA Times to explain the drowning. “She may have had a heart attack,” he told the newspaper.

She had cocaine in her body when she died, said a coroner’s office statement, which described her death as an “accident,” and the cause as “drowning” and “effects of atherosclerotic heart disease and cocaine use.”

“How injury occurred: found submerged in bathtub filled with water; cocaine intake,” the statement said. “No trauma or foul play is suspected.

A final coroner’s report will be available for release within two weeks.

Other drugs

Speculation had raged since her death that the singer may have succumbed to a lethal cocktail of prescription drugs and alcohol.

Other drugs were found in her system, but which did not contribute to her death, the coroner’s office said. They included marijuana, alprazolam (Xanax), cyclobenzaprine (Flexiril) and Diphenhydramine (Benadryl).

The TMZ celebrity news website quoted a coroner’s office official as saying Houston used cocaine “immediately prior to her collapse”—but investigators who arrived on the scene found no traces of cocaine or any other illegal drug.

That was because “an individual” removed all traces of cocaine from the room before authorities arrived, the website said, adding that the person was the same one who supplied the drug to Houston.

Chronic cocaine use

The coroner’s office spokesperson said chronic use of cocaine was likely a key factor in Houston’s death.

“Chances are, had she not had the preexisting heart disease and cocaine use, she may not have drowned,” he said. “The cocaine causes the heart to beat faster, the arteries to constrict, which could … set you up for a cardiac event.”

Cocaine use has been known to cause damage to the heart and could have caused Houston’s death, said Dr. Michael Fishbein, professor of pathology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He had no role in the investigation.

He said a likely scenario was that Houston’s cocaine use interfered with the normal function of her heart.

“There’s no reason to drown in a bathtub unless you’re incapacitated,” Fishbein said.

The late star’s sister-in-law and manager, Patricia Houston, said it had been possible to forecast that drugs would claim the singer’s life. “The handwriting was kind of on the wall. I would be kidding myself to say otherwise.”

“We are saddened to learn of the toxicology results, although we are glad to now have closure,” Patricia wrote in a statement to The Associated Press.

Houston’s shock death cast a pall over the Grammy Awards at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, with several tributes to the singer—and a public prayer—added to the show at the last minute.

Houston was buried on Feb. 18 in a New Jersey cemetery next to her father after an emotional four-hour funeral service in the Newark baptist church where she sang as a child. The service, attended by friends, family and superstars such as Oprah Winfrey, Tyler Perry, Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige, Jennifer Hudson and Roberta Flack, was watched worldwide.

The singer of hits including “I Will Always Love You” sold over 170 million records during a nearly three-decade career. She influenced a generation of younger singers, from Christina Aguilera to Mariah Carey.

Unable to hit high notes

But by the end of her career, she was a stunning cautionary tale of the toll of drug use. Her album sales plummeted and the hits stopped coming. Her once serene image was shattered by a wild demeanor and bizarre public appearances. She confessed to abusing cocaine, marijuana and pills and was eventually unable to hit the high notes as she had during her prime.

“The biggest devil is me. I’m either my best friend or my worst enemy,” Houston told ABC’s Diane Sawyer in an infamous 2002 television interview with then-husband Bobby Brown by her side.

She had been attempting a comeback when she died. She had finished filming a remake of the movie “Sparkle” in which she sang the gospel hymn “His Eye is on the Sparrow.”

Interest in her music skyrocketed after her death, pushing her songs back on to charts and into heavy rotation on the radio.

Daughter gets all

Earlier this month it emerged that Houston had left all of her assets to her daughter Bobbi Kristina, born from her troubled marriage to singer Bobby Brown, who gets nothing.

Bobbi Kristina, who is currently 19, will inherit the proceeds from all of the late singer’s money, furniture, clothing, personal effects, jewelry and cars, according to the will published on March 7.

A few days later, Bobbi Kristina said she plans to follow her mother into show business.