Anne Heche died at the age of 53 from the injuries sustained in a car crash that occurred on August 5th.
Her friend, Nancy Davis, revealed the news in a memorial post on Instagram, writing: “Heaven has a new Angel. My loving, kind, fun, endearing and beautiful friend Anne Heche went to heaven. I will miss her terribly and cherish all the beautiful memories we have shared.”
Heche suffered a “significant pulmonary injury” and “a severe anoxic brain injury” after crashing her car into a Los Angeles home, “requiring mechanical ventilation and burns that require surgical intervention.” The crash caused the home to catch on fire, which took 59 firefighters over an hour to put out and pull Heche to safety. She lost consciousness shortly after her rescue and remained in a coma up until her death.
On Thursday evening, a representative for Heche announced that the actress was “not expected to survive,” and added that she was being kept on life support to determine if her organs were “viable” for donation.
After Heche’s accident, the Los Angeles Police Department launched an investigation into the actor for allegedly driving under the influence and fleeing from an earlier hit-and-run, the Los Angeles Times reported. Police confirmed to the Times that they obtained a search warrant to test the actor’s blood alcohol level.
LAPD confirmed to TMZ on Aug. 11 that Heche had cocaine in her system during the accident.
“In preliminary testing, the blood draw revealed the presence of drugs,” the LAPD statement said. “The case is being investigated as felony DUI traffic collision.”
In her 2001 memoir, Call Me Crazy, Heche discussed her traumatic upbringing and the mental health issues that arose in her adult years.
“I’m not crazy,” she told Barbara Walters during an interview with ABC News. “But it’s a crazy life. I was raised in a crazy family, and it took 31 years to get the crazy out of me.”
Heche’s acting career began in 1987 when she starred in the long-running soap opera Another World. In 1991, she won a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Younger Actress in a Drama series for the show.
The actor dated comedian and television host Ellen DeGeneres from 1997 to 2000. She was married to cameraman Coleman Laffoon from 2001 to 2007. Heche was also in a relationship with actor James Tupper from 2008 to 2018. She is survived by her two sons: 20-year-old Homer Laffoon, whose father is Coleman Laffoon, and 13-year-old Atlas, whose father is James Tupper.
