Following news from the Los Angeles County coroner’s office that Carrie Fisher died from sleep apnea, the full autopsy report now reveals the actress had cocaine, heroin, and MDMA in her system when she went into cardiac arrest on December 23, 2016.
The report concluded Fisher died of sleep apnea and “a combination of other factors,” though they haven’t been able to determine how, if at all, the drugs contributed to her death. The AP reports:
“Ms. Fisher suffered what appeared to be a cardiac arrest on the airplane accompanied by vomiting and with a history of sleep apnea. Based on the available toxicological information, we cannot establish the significance of the multiple substances that were detected in Ms. Fisher’s blood and tissue, with regard to the cause of death,” the report states.
Fisher herself has always been open about her drug use, addiction, and mental illnes. In a statement to CNN, her daughter, Billie Lourd, noted: “She was purposefully open in all of her work about the social stigmas surrounding these diseases.”
Her brother, Todd Fisher, echoed a similar sentiment to the AP:
“I would tell you, from my perspective that there’s certainly no news that Carrie did drugs,” Todd Fisher said. He noted that his sister wrote extensively about her drug use, and that many of the drugs she took were prescribed by doctors to try to treat her mental health conditions.
“I am not shocked that part of her health was affected by drugs,” he continued. “If you want to know what killed her, it’s all of it.”