Celebrity Autopsies With Disturbing Discoveries

Collectively, we become so enamored with our celebrities, the artists and charismatic figures who make TV, movies, music, and sports so transcendently captivating, that we want to know everything about them — how they grew up, who they're dating, who made the clothes they're wearing, and even how they're coping during a personal struggle. The insatiable but pleasurable desire to flesh them out and make them feel like whole people we know personally blurs the lines between public and private, and fact and fiction.

Probably none of these journeys into the off-screen or off-the-record lives of celebrities is more personal, more exceedingly intimate than when their autopsies are entered into the public record, the curious and often sordid factors of their surprising or early deaths laid out for all the world to see. They aren't a fun read, but it is interesting (and also heartbreaking) to learn how those seemingly immortal larger-than-life figures shuffled off that proverbial mortal coil. Here are some recent celebrity deaths that shocked the world, until the surprising details of their autopsies stunned even more.

This article contains reverences to substance abuse and suicide. If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357). If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline​ at​ 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.

Almost as shocking as the death of 31-year-old actor Cory Monteith was the nature of how he died — it was so utterly counter to his public persona and the character for which he was best known, sweet jock-turned-singer (and lunkheaded boyfriend) Finn Hudson on Fox's mega-popular teen musical dramedy "Glee."

In July 2013, according to CNN, Monteith's body was discovered in his room at the Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel in Vancouver. His death came just a few months after he entered a rehabilitation facility for not the first time to treat substance abuse issues, which he'd told Parade two years earlier, began when he was 13, when he'd cut classes to drink and smoke marijuana. Monteith attempted to parlay his struggles into his art, convincing director Josh C. Waller to cast him as a drug-addicted character in the indie drama "McCanick." "He was like, 'I can do this character. I know this character. I was this character. I have lived elements of this,'" Waller told People.

According to a coroner's report (via People), Monteith had been dead for hours by the time he was discovered. Authorities also recovered paraphernalia including a "spoon with drug residue and a used hypodermic needle" and two empty champagne bottles, consistent with the ruling that the actor died of a mixture of alcohol and heroin.

A celebrated author, memoirist, and screenwriter, Carrie Fisher achieved pop culture immortality in her early twenties when she portrayed Princess Leia Organa in the original "Star Wars" and many of its sequels. The franchise's countless fans went into deep mourning in December 2016 when the 60-year-old, according to People, went into cardiac arrest on a flight from London to Los Angeles. As soon as the plane touched down, Fisher was rushed to an L.A. hospital, where she died soon thereafter.

Fisher's use of illicit substances was well-known and well documented, particularly in her own books and one-person shows. "I would tell you, from my perspective, that there's certainly no news that Carrie did drugs," Fisher's brother, Todd Fisher, told Entertainment Tonight. "If you want to know what killed her, it's all of it," he added, referring to the results of his sister's autopsy, made public in June 2017. 

According to the Los Angeles Times, a toxicology review found evidence of methadone, cocaine, alcohol, MDMA (better known as the party drug ecstasy), and opiates, including an "exposure to heroin," in Fisher's body. However, medical examiners listed Fisher's official cause of death as sleep apnea, per The Guardian.

After a white-hot career in the mid-1990s and early 2000s with big roles in "Clueless," "Girl, Interrupted," and "8 Mile," Brittany Murphy's career cooled off considerably. At the same time, she became a tabloid fixture for her personal life, particularly after she married fringe movie industry figure Simon Monjack, who friends of Murphy said in the 2021 documentary "What Happened, Brittany Murphy?" (via Today) was responsible for his wife's rapid weight loss. 

Murphy died at age 32 in December 2009, according to The Guardian. What's shocking was what killed Murphy was something relatively mundane and often preventable: pneumonia. In February 2010, according to Today, a coroner's report cited menstrual flow that triggered a serious case of anemia (an iron deficiency), which left Murphy in such a weak and immunocompromised state that her body wasn't able to fight off the viral infection. "This was not something that she just got a day or so before," retired medical examiner Dr. Lisa Scheinin said in "What Happened, Brittany Murphy?" (via Us Weekly)."She was walking around with this for some time."

Four years after Murphy's death, her father, Angelo Bertolotti asked for a lab report to be conducted on his daughter's remains. Technicians discovered an abnormally high presence of heavy metals in a hair sample, according to ABC News. "I have a feeling that there was a definite murder situation here," Bertolotti worked out on "Good Morning America." "It's poison, yes, I know that."

In June 2009, Michael Jackson was rehearsing for a series of comeback shows he thought might restore him to his status as The King of Pop, a designation earned in the '80s and '90s for huge sales of albums like "Thriller" and "Bad." It wasn't meant to be — on June 25, 2009, his personal physician Conrad Murray found Jackson, 50, not breathing in his bed, according to The Sun.

Murray would later be convicted of involuntary manslaughter for his role in Jackson's death. According to People, Jackson paid Murray $150,000 a month to treat the singer's ailments, including insomnia, delivering a nightly dose of propofol — not a sleeping aid but a powerful surgical anesthetic. That wasn't the only drug found in Jackson's system after his death — examiners also identified midazolam, diazepam, lidocaine, and ephedrine, serious prescription narcotics drugs that "have no place in an unmonitored setting or in unskilled hands," a physician told CNN. Another revelation: "There was no indication from the autopsy that there was anything anatomically wrong with him that would lead to premature death," Dr. Christopher Rogers reported to CNN. He did, however, note some cosmetic alterations to Jackson's appearance, including lips that had been tattooed pink and a portion of the singer's scalp tattooed black to make wigs blend in more naturally with his hairline, according to CNN.

Perhaps the quintessential "video vixen" in the 1980s, the era where hard rock and hair metal bands performed songs about overwhelming feelings of love, lust, and affection, and needed a real-live woman to embody the women of which they sang, a scantily-clad Tawny Kitaen (according to CNN) starred in many music videos, notably "Here I Go Again" and "Is this Love" by the band Whitesnake, whose frontman, David Coverdale, she'd marry and divorce. Kitaen's other notable work includes the Ratt video "Back for More," the 1984 Tom Hanks movie "Bachelor Party," and the early 1990s reboot of "WKRP in Cincinnati." In more recent years, Kitaen's highest-profile appearance was a stint on the second season of "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew" in 2008, in which she sought treatment for her addictions to cocaine and prescription painkillers.

In May 2021, per a notice from the Orange County Coroner's Office, Kitaen died at her home in Newport Beach, California, at age 59. Five months later, that same government agency released the findings of an autopsy performed on the late actor. According to the Times of San Diego, officials ruled her death to be the result of natural causes, specifically dilated cardiomyopathy, or an enlarged heart that can't effectively pump blood. Mild coronary atherosclerosis, a buildup of cholesterol and fatty deposits in the arteries, contributed to the heart malfunction. Additionally, medical examiners found small amounts of prescribed antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications in Kitaen's system.

In the early 2000s, rising star Johnny Lewis landed big roles on "Malcolm in the Middle," "Boston Public," "American Dreams," "Smallville," and "The O.C." Around this time, he also dated Katy Perry for a year, according to Us Weekly, and played Half-Sack on "Sons of Anarchy," until he quit; per Los Angeles Magazine, he'd tired of the show's violent storylines.

After leaving the FX biker drama, Lewis endured a number of personal and legal challenges. According to E! News, he went-through a hard-fought custody battle and was arrested for assault on more than one occasion. When Lewis was released from jail in 2012, the actor's father rented him a room at the Writers' Villa, a mansion operated as a retreat for creatives owned by wealthy arts patron Cathy Davis. After receiving a report of a woman screaming (per E! News) police arrived at the villa and found Lewis dead in the driveway; he had either fallen or jumped off of the building and sustained fatal injuries to his skull. Police then made another grisly discovery: the body of Davis, 81, who, according to a coroner's report, died of strangulation and blunt-force trauma. Detectives believe that Lewis beat Davis (and her cat) to death.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Lewis had a history of drug abuse, and it was assumed that narcotics had something to do with his behavior on the night he died. However, an autopsy uncovered no indication of intoxication.

George Michael was a superstar two times over. In the mid-1980s, he was a sweet and smiling teen idol type as one-half of (but the chief creative force behind) Wham!, a pop duo who churned out bubblegum hits like "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go," "Last Christmas," "I'm Your Man," and "Careless Whisper." By 1987, Michael had gone solo, releasing the blockbuster "Faith" (via Biography), an album full of the music Michael would make for the next decade or so, including mature and sophisticated soul-pop like "One More Try," "I Want Your Sex," "Kissing a Fool," and "Father Figure."

According to Entertainment Tonight, George Michael died on Christmas 2016. The 53-year-old singer-songwriter's U.S. manager reported that Michael had not been sick but had died sometime after he went to bed the previous evening. Michael's partner, Fadi Fawaz (via Twitter), found him "dead peacefully in bed first thing in the morning."

With little to no outward signs or warning of the death, an autopsy was performed on Michael's body. Medical examiners determined that the musician died of a combination of a fatty liver and dilated cardiomyopathy with myocarditis, according to the Irish Times. The latter two causes are diseases of the heart — dilated cardiomyopathy weakens and stretches the left ventricle, diminishing the quality of blood flow, while myocarditis is an inflammation of the whole organ generally brought on by an infection.

In the 2010s, Cameron Boyce was a near constant presence on the Disney Channel. The young comic actor played Luke Ross in nearly 100 episodes of the sitcom "Jessie" and on crossovers with other shows, as well as the villainous Carlos Oscar De Vil, son of Cruella De Vil, in three highly-rated made-for-Disney "Descendants" movies. On the big screen, Boyce portrayed Adam Sandler's character's son in two blockbuster "Grown Ups" movies.

On the afternoon of July 6, 2019, Boyce was found unresponsive in his home in Southern California. Authorities were called, and the 20-year-old actor was pronounced dead shortly thereafter, according to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner. A spokesperson for the Boyce family confirmed the death to ABC News, revealing that the actor "passed away in his sleep due to a seizure which was the result of an ongoing medical condition" not widely publicly disclosed.

The L.A. County Medical Examiner-Coroner announced the results of the autopsy conducted on Boyce and determined that the performer's death was unexpected, accidental, and natural, the result of a seizure related to epilepsy, a neurological condition.

The defensive end and tackle Bubba Smith was named to two Pro Bowl squads and won the 1971 Super Bowl as a member of the Baltimore Colts. After stints with the Oakland Raiders and Houston Oilers, Smith retired from the NFL in 1976 and successfully transitioned to acting, appearing on TV shows like "Charlie's Angels," "Wonder Woman," and "Vega$" before landing his signature role: quiet but forceful police officer Moses Hightower in 1984's "Police Academy," a part he'd play in five sequels.

According to the BBC, Smith, 66, was found deceased at his home in Los Angeles in August 2011. A cause of death wasn't immediately discernible, so the Los Angeles County Coroner's office performed an autopsy on the athlete and actor, determining that Smith died from "acute drug intoxication" — via the weight-loss medication phentermine — and that he also had high blood pressure, several extremely blocked arteries, and a heart about twice the regular size, per the Los Angeles Times.

After his death, Smith's brain was donated for research, where examiners found evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE, a debilitating injury suffered by numerous former professional football players, according to the New York Times.

Natalie Wood was famous for almost her entire life. At age 9, she costarred in the 1947 holiday classic "Miracle on 34th Street" and as a teenager landed the main female role in "Rebel Without a Cause," then starred in the Oscar-winning "West Side Story" in 1961.

One evening in November 1981, Wood, 43, joined friend Christopher Walken and her husband, actor Robert Wagner, on the yacht the Splendor, off the Southern California coast. According to the ship's captain Dennis Davern (via The Daily Beast), the couple got into a heated fight, and there's evidence that Wood left the boat and unsuccessfully tried to sail to land, per CNN. Whatever the circumstances of the night, Wood's body was found by a lifeguard off Catalina Island hours after her disappearance, according to CBS Los Angeles. The Los Angeles County Coroner called Wood's death the result of an accidental drowning.

According to CNN, homicide detectives reopened the case in 2011 after receiving new information about Wood's death that the Los Angeles County Sheriff found "intriguing," in the words of spokesperson Steve Whitmore. After more investigation, Wood's death certificate was officially edited, the cause changing from "accidental drowning" to "drowning and other undetermined factors." The coroner shared more details in 2013 (via CNN), pointing out that Wood had bruises and abrasions on her body and face that she likely suffered before she hit the water, indicating an assault.

The undisputed queen of television in the medium's first few decades, Lucille Ball virtually invented the sitcom with "I Love Lucy," which she starred on and helped run with her then-husband, Desi Arnaz. Ball later starred on two more long-running CBS sitcoms, "Here's Lucy" and "The Lucy Show," and branched out into movies and producing before returning to TV for one final show in the mid-1980s, the short-lived "Life with Lucy."

According to the Los Angeles Times, Ball underwent a six-and-a-half-hour heart surgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in L.A. on April 18, 1989, with doctors replacing an aortic valve and part of the aorta. Within the week, Ball was able to eat and walk around the hospital, only to die eight days later. The cause of death, per Cedars-Sinai spokesperson Ronald Wise: a part of the main artery, the aorta, not the section which had been operated on, ruptured, leading to heart failure. After 47 minutes of revival attempts, doctors declared the comedian dead at the age of 77.

Forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Hunter revealed in the Reelz series "Autopsy" (via People) that while the ruptured aorta is what killed Ball, the heart part was taxed by the long-term use of amyl nitrate, better known as "poppers," a street drug used to boost the intensity of a sexual encounter. Ball probably wasn't using the inhalant for recreational use. "It's original purpose was as a prescription drug to treat pain in the chest," said Hunter.