The late Partridge Family star David Cassidy was admitted to a Ft. Lauderdale, Florida hospital in 2017 with liver and kidney failure. He died three days later at the age of 67. Experts say the illness stemmed from his excesses in the 1980s when two divorce settlements and bad investments left him half a million dollars in debt.
“He had nothing and he was turning to alcohol. He actually confessed to having blackouts,” says celebrity journalist, Nina Myskow.
Cassidy became one of the biggest teen idols the world had ever known thanks to songs like “I Think I Love You” and “I’ll Meet You Halfway.” The music catapulted him from a little-known actor to a wildly successful artist who sold tens of millions of records across a showbiz career spanning five decades. But against a squeaky-clean image, Cassidy’s real life was marked by stress, alcohol abuse and rehab.
“What he does in a stressful event is he begins to drink and this happens time and time again,” explains psychologist Dr. Linda Papadopoulos, a regular contributor to “Autopsy…”
But salvation came in 1991 when he married his third wife, songwriter, Sue Shifrin, and together they became parents to son Beau Cassidy. “That, to David, was the most wonderful moment of his life when Beau was born,” Myskow says.
But despite his attempts to remain sober after his son grew up, David continued to battle alcoholism. This came to a very public head when he was pulled over for driving under the influence in November 2010 and police dash-cam footage turned the event into nightly news.
“One night I watched a state trooper pulling David over in the car and giving home a DUI,” says famed rock ‘n’ roll photographer Henry Diltz.
“It was hard for us to watch, see his mugshot,” recalls Teri Cote, David’s longtime drummer.
It wasn’t until Cassidy slurred his lyrics and fell off stage during a February 2017 concert in Agoura, California, that the Partridge Family legend announced he had dementia and would stop touring.
Nine months after the announcement, Cassidy died of multiple organ failure. So what happened?
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Tune in to Autopsy: The Last Hours of… David Cassidy, Sunday, August 2, at 8 ET / PT on REELZ for all the details.
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