Los Angeles County coroners reported Friday that Carrie Fisher’s death was due to a combination of factors including sleep apnea and “other conditions: atherosclerotic heart disease, drug use.”
The coroners office released a short summary on Friday detailing its findings, but no single cause of death was identified. The statement determined that “the manner of death has been ruled undetermined.”
While Fisher was very public about her struggles with mental illness and addiction,
the kind of drugs taken and the extent to which they contributed to her death is not known; the coroner’s summary stated “How Injury Occurred: Multiple drug intake, significance not ascertained.”
“My mom battled drug addiction and mental illness her entire life. She ultimately died of it. She was purposefully open in all of her work about the social stigmas surrounding these diseases,” Fisher’s daughter, Billie Lourd, said in a statement given to People Magazine.
“She talked about the shame that torments people and their families confronted by these diseases. I know my Mom, she’d want her death to encourage people to be open about their struggles. Seek help, fight for government funding for mental health programs. Shame and those social stigmas are the enemies of progress to solutions and ultimately a cure. Love you Momby.”
Fisher died on December 27, 2016 at age 60, four days after suffering an apparent heart attack while flying from London to Los Angeles. Her mother, Debbie Fisher, suffered a stroke and died the next day.