Houston died from drowning, coroner says

This photo from 2009 shows singer Whit­ney Hous­ton at the BET Hon­ors in the Warner The­atre in Wash­ing­ton. Coroner’s offi­cials said Thurs­day that Hous­ton drowned, but her death was also caused by heart dis­ease and cocaine use that sug­gested she was chron­i­cally using the drug. Hous­ton died Feb. 11, in Cal­i­for­nia at the age of 48. (Asso­ci­ated Press file)

ANTHONY McCART­NEY

AP Enter­tain­ment Writer

LOS ANGELES — Whit­ney Hous­ton was a chronic cocaine user who had the drug in her sys­tem when she drowned in a hotel bath­tub, coroner’s offi­cials said Thurs­day after releas­ing autopsy find­ings that also noted heart dis­ease con­tributed to her death.

The dis­clo­sure ended weeks of spec­u­la­tion about what killed the Grammy-winning singer on Feb. 11 on the eve of the Grammy Awards.

Hous­ton was found sub­merged in the bath­tub of her room at the Bev­erly Hilton Hotel, and her death was ruled acci­den­tal. Sev­eral bot­tles of pre­scrip­tion med­ica­tions were found in her hotel room, but coroner’s offi­cials said there weren’t exces­sive quantities.

“We are sad­dened to learn of the tox­i­col­ogy results, although we are glad to now have clo­sure,” Patri­cia Hous­ton, the singer’s sister-in-law and man­ager, wrote in a state­ment to The Asso­ci­ated Press.

Bev­erly Hills police said in a state­ment there was no evi­dence of wrong­do­ing in con­nec­tion with Houston’s death.

Coroner’s Chief of Oper­a­tions Craig Har­vey said cocaine and its byprod­ucts were found in Houston’s sys­tem, and the drug was listed as a con­tribut­ing fac­tor in her death. He said the results indi­cated Hous­ton was a chronic cocaine user.

Tox­i­col­ogy results also showed Hous­ton had mar­i­juana, Xanax, the mus­cle relax­ant Flex­eril, and the allergy med­ica­tion Benadryl in her sys­tem. Hous­ton died just hours before she was sched­uled to appear at pro­ducer Clive Davis’ pre-Grammy Awards bash.

The singer also had buildup of plaque in her arter­ies that can restrict blood flow. Assis­tant Chief Coro­ner Ed Win­ter said the con­di­tion is com­mon in drug users, although he said it wasn’t clear whether Hous­ton had a heart attack on the day she died.

“It just beats up their heart and they will go to use and they will have a heart attack,” he said.

The exact amount of cocaine in Houston’s sys­tem was not dis­closed Thurs­day but will be con­tained in a full autopsy report to be released in about two weeks, offi­cials said.

Cocaine use has been known to cause dam­age to the heart and could have cause 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.

Fam­ily and friends said after Houston’s death that they didn’t believe she was still abus­ing drugs.

“I don’t think drugs was an issue for her before her death. I don’t know what hap­pened that day,” Patri­cia Hous­ton said in a recent inter­view with Oprah Winfrey.

Hous­ton, 48, was buried in a New Jer­sey ceme­tery next to her father after an emo­tional four-hour funeral ser­vice that was attended by friends, fam­ily and super­stars such as Oprah Win­frey, Tyler Perry, Ali­cia Keys, Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige, Jen­nifer Hud­son and Roberta Flack

Hous­ton, a sen­sa­tion from her first, epony­mous album in 1985, was one of the world’s best-selling artists from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s, turn­ing out such hits as “I Wanna Dance With Some­body,” ”How Will I Know,” ”The Great­est Love of All” and “I Will Always Love You.” But as she strug­gled with drugs, her majes­tic voice became raspy, and she couldn’t hit the high notes.

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

She influ­enced a gen­er­a­tion of younger singers, from Christina Aguil­era to Mariah Carey, but Houston’s drug use derailed her career and took a heavy toll on her once pris­tine voice.

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 Hous­ton sang the gospel hymn “His Eye is on the Spar­row.” Pro­duc­ers of the film have said the singer was a com­plete pro­fes­sional on the set.

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