Heath Ledger - News Accounts

[yb]

Cute gossip of the day:

Eric Roberts, who worked with Heath on 'The Dark Knight' described him as "A real sweetie pie."

Who knew?  Sounds like Roberts was quite taken with our boy!

I've watched the clip of his interview.  It is obvious he likes Heath very much, in fact, he has 'sweetie pie' many times.

[Fran]

http://heathledgermemorialblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/michelle-williams-says-heart-broken.html

This story has already been posted, but this photo of Heath is a new one for me.  It's beautiful.  If you click on it, it gets even larger.  (The photo wasn't cooperating with Photobucket.) 

[Sandy]

There's no way to describe how I feel when I talk to somebody about Heath's death and they say "Oh well, he was addicted to drugs, wasn't he?" I want to kick and scream, I want to yell at those goddamn assholes in the media for mocking Heath by deliberately and maliciously making him look like a drug addict. I want to yell at all those stupid people for believing it.

Me too- even if he was a drug addict, does that make his death any less tragic?

I for one don't believe that he was into hard drugs.  I wish they would show the full, unedited video showing EVERYONE that he didn't do hard drugs, and his reasons for that.  I know weed is legal in the Netherlands, and I must say that although there is a lot of chat about declassification in the UK, not many people care.  I have never been to a party where weed was not being smoked!

My main point however is that the police say there were NO illegal drugs around his apartment.  If he was a habitual drug user, would there not have been some drugs somewhere?  Maybe not near him, but surely there would have been drugs somewhere in his apartment?  If he was a regular drug user, I find it incredibly difficult to believe that he only bought enough drugs to use on the day and would go back over and over again when he wanted more.  That just doesn't wash with me.  Even if there were no drugs, there must have been some sort of indication showing recent drug use.  There wasn't. 

Regarding the painkillers, apparently there were three different kinds of prescription painkillers that had been prescribed in the UK.  I don't know how it works with celebrities, however I can tell you that very strong (addictive) drugs are only prescribed (to people like us) in the most extreme circumstances.  If there was doubt over the prescription, I would have thought the UK press would have been all over the story and the doctor named and questioned. This leads me to believe that the painkillers found in his apartment have not been the opiates that people are assuming were found.  Of course, I can only give my opinion and have no evidence to back it up, just my experience of reading the UK press. 

[Verona]

Sandy, that's what I was saying a few days ago. If he were a "drug addict," there would have been illegal drugs in his apartment because you can't just turn that on and off, and unless he committed suicide (which he did not) he couldn't have planned a nice drug-free scene to be found in.  And the autopsy would have found track marks, nasal damage, organ damage etc. and other signs of chronic drug use, which probably would have been reported as a possible cause of death.

[Marge_Innavera]

Sandy, that's what I was saying a few days ago. If he were a "drug addict," there would have been illegal drugs in his apartment because you can't just turn that on and off, and unless he committed suicide (which he did not) he couldn't have planned a nice drug-free scene to be found in.  And the autopsy would have found track marks, nasal damage, organ damage etc. and other signs of chronic drug use, which probably would have been reported as a possible cause of death.

It's also a fact that forensic experts don't just look for a needle, a bag of pot or a little stash of coke -- they look for residue, which a habitual drug user wouldn't be able to remove just by throwing stuff away.

One of the first things reported was a "rolled-up $20 bill" found in the apartment. It was all over the news that they were testing it for drug residue; but the follow-up that reported that they found nothing -- I only saw that in one mention on CNN.  Same creative approach to news reporting we can come to expect.

[mvansand76]

One of the first things reported was a "rolled-up $20 bill" found in the apartment. It was all over the news that they were testing it for drug residue; but the follow-up that reported that they found nothing -- I only saw that in one mention on CNN.  Same creative approach to news reporting we can come to expect.

Exactly what makes me so sick about the media. 

[Ellemeno]

Here are some more thoughts from when I watched that video of Heath in that hotel room.  The version I saw had captioning at key points, because the audio was kind of hard to hear.

One caption was something like "I used to smoke 5 joints a day for twenty years."  When I read that, I thought "HUNH??"  He would have had to start that habit when he was 6 years old and ended it the day before he said it for that math to be true.  So I replayed it a few times, listening as intently as I could, and decided that I think he said "two years" not "twenty."  How come I haven't seen anyone writing about that?  How can they keep saying 20?  Makes no sense.

The other thing I want to emphasize is that my interpretation is that Heath felt wary and uncomfortable.  He seemed to want to accept these people with good will, but wasn't finding it easy.  I felt like the woman was prancing for the camera, and her push up bra I found incredibly annoying.  I would say that clearly, from the portion of the video that got shown, the only mistake Heath made was walking into that room.  He didn't make any mistakes on the tape.  

[Verona]

Here are some more thoughts from when I watched that video of Heath in that hotel room.  The version I saw had captioning at key points, because the audio was kind of hard to hear.

One caption was something like "I used to smoke 5 joints a day for twenty years."  When I read that, I thought "HUNH??"  He would have had to start that habit when he was 6 years old and ended it the day before he said it for that math to be true.  So I replayed it a few times, listening as intently as I could, and decided that I think he said "two years" not "twenty."  How come I haven't seen anyone writing about that?  How can they keep saying 20?  Makes no sense.

The other thing I want to emphasize is that my interpretation is that Heath felt wary and uncomfortable.  He seemed to want to accept these people with good will, but wasn't finding it easy.  I felt like the woman was prancing for the camera, and her push up bra I found incredibly annoying.  I would say that clearly, from the portion of the video that got shown, the only mistake Heath made was walking into that room.  He didn't make any mistakes on the tape. 

OMG! YOU ARE SO RIGHT!

[louisev]

Did you folks catch the followup link I made to the Daily Telegraph story that the video was made as a sting?  The paps were putting on the party and chatted him up and brought him to it, lying in wait with a camera and then pumping him with questions about doing drugs.  It was scripted, and he found out in the midst of it that someone had a camera on the balcony and got upset and left.

[Fran]

Did you folks catch the followup link I made to the Daily Telegraph story that the video was made as a sting?  The paps were putting on the party and chatted him up and brought him to it, lying in wait with a camera and then pumping him with questions about doing drugs.  It was scripted, and he found out in the midst of it that someone had a camera on the balcony and got upset and left.

Too bad he didn't think to get the tape or make them erase it... but maybe he didn't feel it was necessary because he had only  been sitting there before he realized he was being set up.

As a side comment, I've often wondered why it seems that celebrities tend to only date/marry other celebrities.  Heath's setup kind of answers that question for me.  Who else can they really trust?  How can they let their guard down enough to get close to someone not in the business?