Lawsuit Alleges Ledger Used Cocaine
http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Movies/04/11/ledger.video.ap/index.html LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- A lawsuit against a photo agency and two paparazzi who allegedly filmed Heath Ledger in a hotel room where drugs were being taken claims that the late actor was also using cocaine that night.
Actor Heath Ledger, 28, died January 22 in an apartment in New York's Manhattan borough.
The lawsuit, filed Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court by a woman who was not named, alleges that two Splash News paparazzi lured Ledger to her room at the Chateau Marmont Hotel on January 29, 2006. It says they gave him cocaine and secretly filmed the actor, who also had some of his own cocaine.
The woman is listed as Jane Doe in the court documents for "fear of consequences and repercussions," but it identifies her as a People magazine freelance reporter covering a Screen Actors Guild Awards afterparty at the West Hollywood hotel.
The lawsuit names Splash News, managing partner Gary Morgan and paparazzo Eric Munn and Darren Banks, whom the lawsuit says the woman was "occasionally dating." Her claims against them include fraud, negligence, trespassing and intentional infliction of emotional distress, among others.
A People magazine representative confirmed that the woman was freelancing for the magazine at that time and they were aware of the alleged encounter with Ledger, but there were too many questions surrounding the circumstances for People to write about it. The representative said the woman has not been associated with the magazine since last year.
Calls to Splash News and Ledger's representative were not immediately returned Friday.
The lawsuit says that Ledger found out he was being taped and was very upset about it throughout the evening but that the paparazzi calmed him down several times, supplied him with more cocaine and insisted the tape would be destroyed. A cocaine dealer arrived in the hotel room later in the evening, the lawsuit adds.
The woman, who the lawsuit says appears in the video with her face blurred, claims she forgot about the tape until "Entertainment Tonight" began advertising footage. After airing a preview of the video in January, "ET" and sister show "The Insider" decided against broadcasting the footage.
At that time, they said the video did not show Ledger using drugs.
The video later surfaced internationally. On it, Ledger said that he was "going to get serious (word bleeped) from my girlfriend" for being in the hotel room. The video also showed Ledger rolling cigarette paper and saying, "I used to smoke five joints a day for 20 years."
The 28-year-old actor died January 22 in his Manhattan apartment after taking six types of painkillers and sedatives.
Author
