REPORT: Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Last Days Were Predictably Dark

Now that a few days have passed details have begun to emerge about Philip Seymour Hoffman’s final hours. In particular, a New York Times report out today lays out his last days alive in somewhat chilling detail. Take, for instance, this passage

At Sundance, a magazine publisher who did not immediately recognize him asked him what he did. Mr. Hoffman replied, “I’m a heroin addict.”

Wow.

The story notes that Hoffman had recently “moved out from the Jane Street home of his companion, Mimi O’Donnell, and their three children.” There have also been rumors floating around that Hoffman had being prescribed prescription painkillers for some sort of injury is what caused Hoffman to fall off the wagon. Specifically, when his doctor pulled him off of them, he started using heroin again as a replacement. Then, his recent separation from his long-time partner caused him to relapse again and that was ultimately the recipe that spelled disaster for the actor. That’s the word on the street, anyway.

The Times story goes on

He arrived in Atlanta last week to shoot scenes for the final “Hunger Games” film, due in 2015. A diner photographed Mr. Hoffman sitting in a bar in downtown Atlanta, but it is unclear, from the photo, what was in his glass.

As Mr. Hoffman returned from Atlanta, his condition was such that Theresa Fehr, a home warranties executive based in Houston, mistook him for “a street person.”

Ms. Fehr was flying home, like the actor, from Atlanta that day. She noticed a man — not immediately recognizing him — being escorted to the security checkpoint by a Transportation Security Administration agent. “I just thought it was really odd that this street person was at the airport,” she said. “He put his shoes on the belt and just threw his belt there. You could tell he was very intoxicated.”

She turned to the agent and said, “ ‘You know, it’s funny, he looks like that actor that has three names.’ She looks at me and goes, ‘Yeah, it is.’ He’s trying to put his belt on. His pants are about to fall off and his belly is hanging out. I said, ‘Dude, I hope you don’t lose your pants.’ He just kind of looked at me with this dazed, glazed look,” she said.

After the flight to La Guardia Airport — during which he was photographed, again by a stranger, slumped over in his seat — he was driven away from the gate in a motorized cart.

“He passed me and my fiancée,” said Andrew Kirell, editor of Mediaite, a blog that covers the media. “It was remarkable how awful he looked.” They recognized him right away: “My fiancée and I are huge fans.”

By Saturday morning, Mr. Hoffman was back on track, it seemed, showing up for his standing order — a four-shot espresso — at Chocolate Bar.

The Times piece goes on to note that over the course of last Saturday people who saw Hoffman said he did not look good. His ex said he appeared high when she and their kids met up with him. Then, after having dinner at a bar in West Village, police told the Times that Hoffman withdrew $1200 from an ATM at a grocery store. The paper noted that Hoffman made six withdrawals of $200 each and that “there were gaps of several minutes between withdrawals, lasting about an hour in all.”

At 8:44 he text a friend about watching the second half of the Knicks game somewhere. He was never heard from by anyone again.

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