View Photo Whitney Houston. AFP
Legendary singer Whitney Houston died from accidental drowning after taking cocaine, which might have caused a heart attack, coroners said.
"You have a heart condition exacerbated by cocaine use which, combined, resulted in her drowning," Los Angeles County Coroner's spokesperson Craig Harvey told AFP, adding: "We feel that there was a heart event, complicated by cocaine use," before she drowned.Other drugs, including marijuana, Xanax, Flexiril and Benadryl, were found in the singer’s system but did not contribute to her death and no trauma or foul play was suspected.
"We are saddened to learn of the toxicology results, although we are glad to now have closure," sister-in-law Patricia Houston said in a statement released to E! News.
Houston died aged 48 in her hotel bathtub at the Beverly Hilton hotel on 11 February.
Patricia Houston previously said they knew drugs would somehow play a part in the Grammy-winning singer’s death..
She told Oprah in an interview: "The handwriting was kind of on the wall. I would be kidding myself to say otherwise."
The singer, who possessed a vocal range spanning five octaves, is most famous for her “signature song” I Will Always Love You and sold more than 170 million records worldwide.
Houston was buried next to her father, John Russell Houston, in her hometown of New Jersey after an emotional funeral that was broadcasted worldwide.
She is survived by her daughter 19-year-old Bobbi Kristina – the only child from her marriage to Bobby Brown and to whom she left all of her assets.
