Former wrestling champion Chyna most likely died of an accidental overdose of Valium and Ambien, her manager said, though an official cause of death hasn’t been determined.
"It's a 98 percent certainty and 2 percent speculation," Anthony Anzaldo said, according to
The Associated Press.
Anzaldo said he found the body of the World Wresting Entertainment star, whose real name whose real name is Joanie Laurer, on April 20 in her bed. She is thought to have died days earlier.
Anzaldo told the
New York Daily News that Laurer had been taking the legally prescribed medication for years, but took an increasing amount of the drugs over two or three weeks.
“Her normal amount was one thing, but over the course of time she was increasing, and not properly,” Anzaldo told the News.
The Los Angeles County coroner’s office said it could be months before toxicology test results determine whether an overdose occurred,
The Los Angeles Times reported.
Dr. Bennet Omalu, a forensic pathologist and expert on traumatic brain injury, will examine Laurer’s brain, the Times said. Omalu, an expert on chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, in athletes, gained fame when actor Will Smith portrayed him in the film “Concussion.”
Laurer declined to join a lawsuit former WWE stars filed, claiming the organization failed to protect them from repeated brain injury, because she didn’t want to deal with the paperwork, Anzaldo said, according to the Times.
Anzaldo said Laurer wasn’t depressed but was dealing with emotional troubles and may have been "self-medicating a little bit more than she should have,” the
BBC reported. She was seeing a psychiatrist and attending a women's domestic violence group.
Laurer, who beat male wrestlers including Chris Jericho, Triple H, Jeff Jarrett and Kurt Angle, was released by WWE in 2001. She appeared in Playboy Magazine twice, on reality TV shows, including “The Surreal Life,” and made six porn films between 2004 and 2013, the BBC said.
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