Philip Seymour Hoffman lost his family because of his heroin addiction said friends of the tragic Oscar winning actor who died on Sunday with 70 bags of heroin and 20 used needles inside his home. Refuting all suggestions that the 46-year-old had been kicked out by his partner of 14-years because of an affair – friends confirmed that Hoffman had been asked to leave for the sake of his three children as he was battling a huge drug habit. ‘It was known that he was struggling to stay sober, and girlfriend Mimi O’Donnell had given him some tough love and told him he needed some time away from the kids and to get straight again,’ a Hollywood source told the New York Post. ‘They were living separate lives,’ a law-enforcement source said of Hoffman and O’Donnell. He was living over here, she was living over there. You do the math.’ Devoted father Hoffman moved only a few blocks away from the home he had shared with his partner and children around three months ago according to the New York Post.
Tragically he was found stone-cold dead on his bathroom floor with a syringe sticking out of his arm on Sunday – and apparently had been lying there for hours. ‘He was apparently in the throes of a major heroin addiction’ when he died, a law-enforcement source said, adding that there was no evidence of another woman. ‘Sex is the last thing on your mind’ when you’re so drug-addicted, the source said. ‘Your sex is your drugs.’ Hoffman and O’Donnell had three children together, a 10-year-old son named Cooper and daughters Tallulah, 7, and Willa, 5. Hoffman, who had been sober for 23 years, seems to have relapsed and displayed strange behavior in the weeks leading up to his untimely death. Two weeks ago, at the Sundance Film Festival, he told a complete stranger ‘I’m a heroin addict’, when asked what he does for a living.
Magazine publisher John Arundel hadn’t immediately recognised the actor, who took off his ‘sloppy hat’ and continued to say he had recently been in rehab, according to the New York Post. And six weeks ago, he told a friend he knew heroin would kill him. Having relapsed, the Capote star went back to AA in a desperate bid to kick the habit of three-day binges, TMZ reported. When someone asked him how addicted he was, he replied: ‘If I don’t stop, I know I’m gonna die’. His estranged partner, Mimi O’Donnell – who told police that the actor appeared high when she saw him the day before he died. Indeed, the Oscar winning actor was pictured in an Atlanta bar on January 30 drinking, smoking and repeatedly running in and out of the restroom. The actor was seen by a diner in a restaurant next door to the Hyatt in downtown Atlanta who said the 46-year-old appeared, ‘sketchy.’ He apparently was with a woman at the bar and made ‘multiple trips’ to the bathroom – which alerted the fellow patron’s attention.
Apparently Hoffman appeared intoxicated and was later seen at the airport, where he was described as ‘drunk and disheveled’. Pictures taken on-board his flight and obtained by TMZ reveal the Hunger Games star passed out almost immediately after his drinking session in the downtown Atlanta bar. According to the passenger who took the pictures, Hoffman was out like a light almost as he took his seat for the New York bound flight on Thursday last week. Later, the Oscar winning actor came to and was described as ‘groggy and disheveled’ and as soon as the flight touched down he was put on an airport cart and driven away. O’Donnell told NYPD that she last saw the actor at 2pm on Saturday on the street near to the West Village apartment he was living in.
She told investigators that he appeared to be under the influence of drugs and when she spoke to him again at around 8pm on Saturday – he also sounded high. So far officers have found no evidence of a struggle inside the apartment where his body was found Sunday morning by close friend and playwright David Bar Katz and British assistant Isabella Wing-Davey, who had been asked to check up on him by Miss O’Donnell. The pair found Mr Hoffman in his underwear on a bathroom floor at apartment 4D, 35 Bethune Street around 11:30 a.m. Allegedly, he had a syringe still in his arm. Hoffman had apparently arranged to meet them at a nearby playground just a block and a half away. When O’Donnell was told that he had been discovered slumped on the bathroom floor she put her kids in her car, rushed to the West Village apartment and left her children in the running vehicle as she dashed inside, shouting, ‘I have to see him!’ Police initially barred Miss O’Donnell from the scene, but she was later allowed to enter the building and appeared teary-eyed.
After remaining in the apartment all day, the actor’s body was finally taken from his home just before 7 p.m. The medical examiner is set to perform an autopsy today to determine the cause of death – with a drugs overdose strongly suspected. According to police sources who spoke to CNN, Hoffman had in his possession, the blood-pressure medication clonidine hydrochloride; the addiction-treatment drug buprenorphine; Vyvanse, a drug used to treat attention-deficit (hyperactivity) disorder; hydroxyzine, which can be used to treat anxiety; and methocarbamol, a muscle relaxer. Police also discovered several other bags containing white powder and a charred spoon in the sink. On Monday, the NYPD announced a massive citywide search to find the drug dealer or dealers who sold heroin to Philip Seymour Hoffman. ‘An internal email went out to all supervisors asking if anyone has had any experience with those brand names of drugs,’ a law enforcement source told The New York Post.
‘They’re going to try to find the source.’ Investigators found eight empty bags stamped with ‘Ace of Spades’ and ‘Ace of Hearts’ inside the actor’s Manhattan apartment, according to officials. They usually contain a lethal mix of heroin laced with fentanyl – an opiate used to soothe the pain of cancer patients. The card-inspired brand names are among hundreds of stamps used by drug distribution crews to mark products, but they haven’t been seen in New York since 2008, according to CNN. Their lethal contents – also known as ‘Bud Ice’, ‘Income tax’ and ‘Theraflu’ – have been linked to more than 100 deaths in America – with more three dozen deaths in Maryland since September. Meanwhile, there have been almost 20 related deaths in Pennsylvania in this month alone – with officials estimating a further 22 people dying of heroin-fentanyl overdoses in Rhode Island during the first two weeks of this year, according to the Providence Journal.
Fox News reported a man has come forward claiming they he saw Hoffman buying drugs earlier in the evening. The passerby claims he saw a ‘very sweaty’ Hoffman withdrawing a large sum of money from an ATM by his home before handing it over to two men wearing messenger bags. The man reportedly added Hoffman looked ‘like s**t’. Police are now seeking surveillance videos from the bank. In a touching gesture, Australian actress Cate Blanchett appeared teary eyed as she arrived at the apartment Hoffman once shared with O’Donnell – just a block and-a-half from the apartment he was found dead in. Carrying bags, including a telescope – presumably for Hoffman’s children, the Oscar winner emerged from a black Cadillac and with the help of an assistant. Blanchett declined comment.
Blanchett, who worked with Hoffman on the 1999 movie, The Talented Mr Ripley is also up for another Oscar this year for her part in the Woody Allen movie, Blue Jasmine. Broadway announced Monday that it would dim its lights for one minute at 7:45 pm on Wednesday in memory of the celebrated stage and screen actor. Charlotte St Martin, executive director of the Broadway League, described Hoffman as a ‘true artist who loved theater. ‘We’ll always be grateful for his boundless and profound talent that he shared with us on the Broadway stage. Our thoughts go out to his family, friends, and fans,’ she added. ‘There are lots of people we’re all aware of who have had abuse issues and it’s just shocking and terrifying that it can rear its head.’ Meg appeared in Candlesticks, which was directed by Bella and listed Philip as assistant director.
When asked about his recent split from long-term girlfriend Mimi O’Donnell, with whom Phil has three young children, Meg said: ‘Whatever was going on they kept it very quiet, all I knew is that Phil was a devoted father and was especially close to his son. He saw the children every day.’ Describing Mimi as a ‘fantastic costume designer and wonderful mother’, Meg told how Mimi had run the Labryinth Theater in New York when Philip took a leave of absence, saying: ‘She’s a fantastic The superintendent of Hoffman’s building, who declined to give his name, said that Hoffman had been there two months. A man in his 60s who said he was the dog walker however said it was sooner, and six weeks at most.
He said: ‘I’m in and out of that building 30 times a day and it has been a matter of weeks he’s been here’. Earlier, a neighbor at the $4.4 million apartment Mr Hoffman and Miss O’Donnell owned together in Jane Street, less than three blocks away from his rental home, described him as ‘a troubled soul’ to the New York Post. The couple bought the three-bedroom, 2-1/2-bath apartment in 2008. ‘He did not look well recently — like he was out of it,’ the woman said. ‘I think him and his woman friend were off and on.’ ‘He lived down here for a long time and was well liked, but everyone knew he had substance-abuse problems,’ she added. Just over a week ago, Mr Hoffman was spotted in the audience at the Broadway revival of ‘Waiting for Godot.’ Mr Hoffman won the best actor Academy Award for the 2005 film, Capote, and has been hailed by the film industry as one of the finest actors of his generation.
The Fairport, New York, native reportedly told TMZ in May that he began taking heroin again after 23 years of being clean. He said he’d progressed from prescription pills to ultimately snorting heroin. He claimed that he only used heroin for a week before he realized he needed help and checked himself into a detox facility on the East Coast. He spent 10 days receiving treatment and credited a ‘great group of friends and family’ for helping. ‘I saw him last week, and he was clean and sober, his old self,’ Mr Katz, a screenwriter, told the New York Times Sunday. He said he called 911 after finding Mr Hoffman. ‘I really thought this chapter was over.’ A relative told The Post: ‘We’re just really devastated that this could happen.’ ‘There had always been a concern with the business he was in,’ said Doris Barr, 76, whose son is married to Mr Hoffman’s sister.
After Mr Katz called 911, emergency workers rushed to the scene where Mr Hoffman was declared dead on arrival. Just before 7 p.m., after CSU investigators, wearing white plastic suits, spent the entire afternoon and much of the evening going in and out of Mr Hoffman’s apartment, the crime scene van moved to make way for the medical examiners wagon to pull up to the building. Police flanked both sides of the van all the way to the buildings entrance. After 10 somber minutes, a stretcher was wheeled out carrying a figure covered in black plastic and was loaded into the wagon before being quickly whisked away with blaring horns and blinding blue and red lights. Earlier, neighbors said the actor looked ill when they last saw him.
‘Just the other day I saw him getting out of his mini cooper with his kids and his wife I guess. He was in sweatpants and a beanie and he looked disheveled,’ said Olivia De Santis as more than 100 people gathered outside the actor’s home. The family of the actor issued a statement to the media in the aftermath of his death to thank everyone for their support. ‘We are devastated by the loss of our beloved Phil and appreciate the outpouring of love and support we have received from everyone. This is a tragic and sudden loss and we ask that you respect our privacy during this time of grieving. ‘Please keep Phil in your thoughts and prayers.’ In 2006, Mr Hoffman admitted his history of substance abuse after he graduated from NYU’s drama school.
‘It was all that drugs and alcohol, yeah. It was anything I could get my hands on…I liked it all,’ he told 60 Minutes at the time. Mr Hoffman, who was no matinee idol figure with his tubby build and scruffy blond hair, made his career mostly as a character actor. He was nominated for Oscars four times in all — best actor for Capote, which he won, and best supporting actor in The Master, Doubt, and Charlie Wilson’s War. In one of his earliest films, he played a spoiled prep school student in ‘Scent of a Woman’ in 1992. A breakthrough role came as a gay member of a porno film crew in ‘Boogie Nights,’ one of several movies directed by Paul Thomas Anderson that he would eventually appear in. He often played comic, slightly off-kilter roles in movies like ‘Along Came Polly,’ ‘The Big Lebowski’ and ‘Almost Famous.’ Just weeks ago, Showtime announced Mr Hoffman would star in ‘Happyish,’ a new comedy series about a middle-aged man’s pursuit of happiness.
In ‘The Master,’ he was nominated for the 2013 Academy Award for best supporting actor for his role as the charismatic leader of a religious movement. The film, partly inspired by the life of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, reunited the actor with Anderson. He also received a 2009 supporting nomination for ‘Doubt,’ in which he played a priest who comes under suspicion because of his relationship with a boy. Meanwhile, in ‘Charlie Wilson’s War’ he played a convincing CIA officer. Mr. Hoffman appeared in more than 50 films in a career that spanned less than 25 years. Born in 1967, Mr Hoffman was interested in acting from an early age, mesmerized at 12 by a local production of Arthur Miller’s ‘All My Sons.’ He studied theater as a teenager with the New York State Summer School of the Arts and the Circle in the Square Theatre. He then majored in drama at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
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