Nearly six months after her death, a coroner revealed that Carrie Fisher’s death was not caused by a heart attack alone.
On Friday, the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office declared that the actress, best known for her role as Star Wars‘ Princess Leia Organa, died from sleep apnea and other undetermined factors, according to multiple reports.
Per the Associated Press, the coroner also stated that Fisher suffered from atherosclerotic heart disease and “drug use.” However, no specifics were provided. “The manner of death has been ruled undetermined,” the report concluded.
Meanwhile, Fisher’s daughter, Billie Lourd, addressed the report with a somber statement, telling People, “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.
“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.”
As previously reported, Fisher went into cardiac arrest on Friday, Dec. 23, 2016, during a flight from London to Los Angeles. Though paramedics removed her from the flight and rushed her to a nearby hospital, where she was treated for a heart attack, she died four days later on Dec. 27. Her mother, Debbie Reynolds, died Dec. 28.
As fans of Fisher may already know, she had long been open about her struggle with bipolar disorder and substance abuse, beginning at age 13, when she began smoking marijuana. She later experimented with drugs like cocaine and LSD. In her 1987 best-selling novel, Postcards From the Edge, Fisher opened up about her struggles with addiction.
“I couldn’t stop, or stay stopped. It was never my fantasy to have a drug problem,” she told PEOPLE in 1987. “I’d say, ‘Oh, f— it, I haven’t done anything for a couple of months, why not? Let’s celebrate not doing them by doing them.’ I got into trouble each time. I hated myself. I just beat myself up. It was very painful.”
