Philip Seymour Hoffman died 'after injecting drug cocktail dubbed Ace Of Spades'

 
'Overdose death': Philip Seymour Hoffman in a photo potrait taken on January 19
Phillip Seymour Hoffman poses for a portrait at The Collective and Gibson Lounge Powered by CEG, during the Sundance Film Festival, on Sunday, Jan. 19, 2014 in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Victoria Will/Invision/AP)

Oscar-winner Philip Seymour Hoffman’s life spiralled out of control in the months leading up to his death after he split from the mother of his three children.

The 46-year-old actor, who was found dead with a hypodermic needle sticking out of his left arm in an apparent heroin overdose, had moved out of the £3 million New York apartment he shared with long-term partner Mimi O’Donnell last October.

Philip Seymour Hoffman

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Sources close to the actor, who went into rehab for 10 days last summer, said he started taking drugs again after the break-up.

It was claimed today that Hoffman could have injected a drug cocktail linked to more than 100 deaths in America. Investigators are believed to have found eight empty bags stamped “Ace of Spades” and “Ace of Hearts”, which usually contain heroin laced with fentanyl — an opiate used by cancer patients.

A Hollywood insider said: “Phil relapsed sometime after cleaning up in rehab last June. The break-up of his long-time relationship hit him hard. He was devoted to his kids.”

Hoffman’s body was found by his friend, the playwright David Katz who went to his apartment in Greenwich Village yesterday morning after he failed to collect his children from Miss O’Donnell.

Mr Katz found the actor in the bathroom wearing just boxer shorts with two translucent envelopes containing what police suspect to be heroin near his body. The emergency call was apparently made from the phone of Hoffman’s personal assistant Isabella Wing-Davey after Mr Katz asked her to unlock the door.

Miss O’Donnell, the mother of Cooper, 10, Tallulah, seven, and Willa, five, was seen weeping as she entered the apartment building yesterday.

Mr Katz said he believed his friend had beaten his addictions. “I saw him last week, and he was clean and sober, his old self. I really thought this chapter was over,” he said.

Hoffman sought help last summer after up to a year of using heroin again. In an interview last year he said he had been clean for 23 years. Friends became concerned when he behaved strangely and looked dishevelled at a film festival last month.

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