The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office have released a statement regarding the late Juice WRLD, determining the rapper’s cause of death was an accidental overdose of oxycodone and codeine toxicity.
Juice WRLD – real name Jarad Anthony Higgins – died aged 21 on Sunday, 8th December 2019 after suffering a seizure at Midway Airport in Chicago and being taken to a hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois.
It was reported shortly after his death that Higgins was treated with Narcan, a pharmaceutical used to fight opioid overdoses.
When the rapper began to convulse back in December, authorities were searching Higgins’ luggage for contraband, discovering 70lb of marijuana, six bottles of codeine cough syrup and three firearms.
Before his death, Juice WRLD had rapidly risen to fame after the release of his 2017 EP 9, 9, 9 and singles like ‘Lucid Dreams’. He would go on to secure a deal with Interscope Records and collaborate with the likes of Future, Lil Uzi Vert and Brendon Urie, releasing his second studio album Death Race for Love early last year.
Throughout his career, Higgins was open in his music about his drug use, particularly lean – which contains codeine cough syrup – with songs like ‘Lean Wit Me’ and ‘Hurt Me’ explicitly detailing his usage.
In 2018, he released the track ‘Legends’ following the deaths of rappers Lil Peep and XXXTentacion, singing “They tell me I’ma be legend / I don’t want that title now. / ‘Cause all the legends seem to die out.”
