Anthony Anzaldo, Chyna’s manager and longtime friend, says the ex-WWE star died of an accidental overdose of her prescription sleeping aid and a tranquilizer.
Anzaldo discovered 46-year-old Chyna, whose birth name was Joan Marie Laurer, dead in her Redondo Beach, California, apartment on April 20.
“It’s a 98 percent certainty and a 2 percent speculation,” Anzaldo told AP of the lifelong insomniac, who had been prescribed Ambien and a generic valium for anxiety.
He believes Chyna may have died two or three days prior to him finding her, due to a clouded memory that led her to take a higher dose than she realized.
“She accidentally, over the course of two or three weeks, misused her legally prescribed medication,” Anzaldo said to AP. “They’re not going to find, like, 60 pills in her stomach.”
The cause of death has yet to be released by the Los Angeles County coroner’s office, pending results of toxicology report. Her death initially was reported as a possible overdose, but the coroner’s Assistant Chief Ed Winter said he wasn’t sure.
With the consent of Chyna’s mother, Anzaldo donated Chyna’s brain to Dr. Bennet Omalu, a forensic pathologist who has investigated links between brain injuries such as ‘chronic traumatic encephalopathy’ and concussions in several sports.
Actor Will Smith played Dr. Omalu in the recent film “Concussion.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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