Heavy D Died of Pulmonary Embolism

Heavy D speaks during the 51st Annual Grammy awards pre-telecast show held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

An autopsy performed on Heavy D has revealed his cause of death to be a pulmonary embolism. The Los Angeles County coroner's office found that the rapper died of a blood clot in his lung, and also suffered from a deep leg vein thrombosis and heart disease at the time of his death.

The blood clot was "most likely formed during an extended airplane ride," said Craig Harvey, chief of the Los Angeles County department of coroner. The rapper had just recently returned to L.A. from London before his death on November 8th.

Heavy D's death was initially reported to be connected to pneumonia. A toxicology report after his passing showed the presence of medication for this illness in his system, but only on a therapeutic level.

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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