The photographer Jamie Wachtel Weiland, who is the widow of the late legendary vocalist Scott Weiland, talked about his legacy in an interview with Appetite for Distortion (Transcribed by Blabbermouth). When talking about his death, she wanted to set the record straight about the cause, saying it wasn’t an overdose.
According to her, the musician’s heart stopped because of years of drug abuse and smoking. He passed away back in 2015 at the age of 48. Scott Weiland was famous for being the vocalist for Stone Temple Pilots and the supergroup Velvet Revolver.
Scott Weiland’s widow sets the record straight about his death cause
“I feel like he really does not have the accolades and the respect and the recognition that he absolutely deserves. I feel like when he died, everybody was kind of, like, that’s tragic, but, of course, he overdosed, which he didn’t fucking overdose, which I tried to get that point across. He didn’t. Because he had drugs in his system, the coroner had to rule it an overdose.”
“But the truth is Scott died because the main artery in his left ventricle was 95 percent blocked. That came from 10 years of heroin use, that came from an entire adult life of chain smoking. His heart stopped. Did he have trace amounts of drugs in his system? He did. Did I know he was using? No, I didn’t, because he lied to me, because I had caught him before and it would always be this huge fight and I would be furious at him.”
She continued:
“To be doing this stuff, but to also to lie to me about it… And I remember even talking to the coroner in Minnesota when everything happened and saying, like, ‘How could he lie to me about this again?’ And the coroner was so kind. And he said, ‘I think he just really didn’t wanna disappoint you.'”
“But, yeah, I really wanna clear up, that was not an overdose — it was not. He was not using heroin. He did not overdose on drugs. His heart stopped because his heart had been through so much abuse because of prior drug use in his life and smoking and heavy drinking,” Jamie Wachtel Weiland said.
With Stone Temple Pilots, Weiland recorded six studio albums. Besides the two records with Velvet Revolver, he also released one with Art of Anarchy and four solo albums.