Taylor Hawkins Toxicology Report Finds 10 Substances Including Opioids, THC, Antidepressants
Investigators also reportedly found that the Foo Fighters drummer’s heart was twice the size of an average man’s.
A preliminary toxicology report indicates that Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins had multiple substances in his system at the time of his tragic passing on March 25 at age 50.
“The toxicology test on urine from Taylor Hawkins’ body preliminarily found 10 types of substances, including: THC, tricyclic antidepressants, benzodiazepines, and opioids,” the Attorney General’s Office of Colombia shared Saturday in a statement on its Twitter account, per People.
“The National Institute of Legal Medicine is continuing medical studies to completely clarify the cause of death for Taylor Hawkins.”
Hawkins’ cause of death has yet to be officially revealed since his body was found at a Colombian hotel, near where the Foo Fighters were set to perform at the Estereo Picnic festival in Bogota.
But according to the Daily Mail, forensic experts examining Hawkins postmortem found that his heart weighed “at least 600 grams”—double the 300-to-350-gram weight of an average male’s heart. Investigators believe that he suffered from cardiovascular collapse due to a cocktail of drugs.
Citing Brazilian news site Globo 1, the U.S. Sun reports that Lollapalooza creator and Jane’s Addiction singer Perry Farrell shared an audio message he received from Hawkins on the Thursday night before he died.
“Take care of each other. And I’ll take care of myself. And I’ll see you in Sao Paulo. I love, love, love you. Sleep well.”
The Foo Fighters were slated to headline Lollapalooza Brasil in Sao Paolo on the following Sunday, but canceled the remainder of their South American tour.
Miley Cyrus filled in and dedicated her song “Angels Like You” to Hawkins.
“I would have done anything to hang out with him one more time,” a teary-eyed Cyrus told the crowd, per ET Canada.
“But I know that any time that I get onstage and any time that I get to play with my band, which if anything ever fucking happened to any one of them it would fucking kill me, so I couldn’t imagine how the Foo Fighters felt today,” she said.
Bandmates Dave Grohl, Pat Smear, Chris Shiflett, Nate Mendel, and Rami Jaffee haven’t addressed Hawkins’ death individually, but the Foo Fighters Twitter account posted the following statement as the tragic news broke.
“The Foo Fighters family is devastated by the tragic and untimely loss of our beloved Taylor Hawkins. His musical spirit and infectious laughter will live on with all of us forever. Our hearts go out to his wife, children and family, and we ask that their privacy be treated with the utmost respect in this unimaginably difficult time.”
A bevy of tributes and reactions poured in from Tom Morello, Travis Barker, Lars Ulrich, The Smashing Pumpkins, Slash, LL Cool J, Guns N’ Roses, and several other fellow musicians and celebrities.
During his final in-person interview with Rolling Stone in 2021, Hawkins refused to answer a question about his sobriety, insisting “I just lead a really healthy lifestyle.”
“I’ve been down that road with people so much, and it’s been like a thing,” he shared. “That’s kind of been an arc of my life so much. It’s like my story and the band too, almost sometimes, is my big fucking fuckup in London 20 years ago,” Hawkins said in reference to a 2001 overdose that put him in a two-week-long coma.
He added that he didn’t want substance use to be the “centerpiece” of his legacy.
“I don’t want to talk about it, I don’t want my son reading it,” he added. “Listen, for anyone out there who has problems and their fucking life is a mess, yeah, I get it. You know, my life has been there plenty of times, so I get it.”
Hawkins is survived by his wife Alison and three children.