The death of wrestler Chyna, whose real name was Joan Laurer, was a tragic event that shocked the wrestling world and beyond. This article delves into the circumstances surrounding her death, the findings of the coroner's office, and the legacy she left behind.
Chyna at the AVN Awards
Discovery and Initial Reports
Chyna was found dead in her Redondo Beach apartment on April 20, 2016. She was 46 years old. Her manager, Anthony Anzaldo, discovered her body after not hearing from her for several days. He went to her residence to check on her welfare and found her deceased. Initial police reports suggested a possible accidental drug overdose or natural causes.
The death initially was reported as a possible overdose with prescription drugs, "but we don't know," coroner's Assistant Chief Ed Winter said.
Cause of Death: Coroner's Findings
The Los Angeles County Coroner's Office determined that Laurer died from the combined effect of alcohol and drugs. The coroner's office said Laurer died accidentally from a combined effect of alcohol and drugs.
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According to toxicology tests, the drugs in her system included valium, oxycodone, and the narcotic painkiller, oxymorphone. An autopsy of wrestling star Chyna revealed she died of a lethal combination of muscle relaxers, painkillers and alcohol this spring, according to a coroner’s report.
Toxicology tests indicated that Chyna, whose real name was Joan Marie Laurer, had taken a mix of alcohol and diazepam, which is marketed as Valium; nordazepam; oxycodone; oxymorphone; and temazepam, a medication used to treat insomnia, according to a Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner report.
Chyna’s mother told investigators her daughter was an “alcoholic and drank cheap wine, and she was addicted to prescription medication,” according to the report. The 46-year-old had a medical history of drug abuse.
When Chyna was found in bed, a pool of blood and foam that came from her nose and mouth was on the pillow under her face. Decomposition, according to the coroner’s report, had just started to set in. She was lying on her right side, and her head rested on a stack of pillows. She wore a black tank top and a pair of multicolored, patterned pants, according to the report.
Inside her bedroom, investigators found multiple bottles of prescription medications, a metal pipe resembling a cigarette, a green plastic grinder, a small wooden box and a blue glass pipe on top of a nightstand, according to the autopsy report. In a bottom drawer of the same nightstand, investigators found a blister pack of pills inside an envelope. Another pack of pills, which was empty, was found near the nightstand.
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Loose pills were found on the floor of her bedroom and on a dining table.
Manager's Perspective
Chyna's manager, Anthony Anzaldo, believed she may have died two or three days earlier. He said that with the consent of Chyna's mother, he donated her brain to Dr. Bennet Omalu, a forensic pathologist who has investigated possible links between the brain injury, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and concussions in athletes.
Anzaldo said he suspects that Chyna had been "self-medicating a little bit more than she should have" because she had begun seeing a psychiatrist for the first time, was attending a women's domestic violence group and had visited the grave of her estranged father. She was trying to deal with issues of abandonment and violence from previous relationships, Anzaldo said.
"A lot was going on in her life emotionally. But she wasn't depressed; it was just a lot to deal with," he said.
The drugs may have clouded her memory so that she took more than she realized, Anzaldo said. "She accidentally, over the course of two or three weeks, misused her legally prescribed medication," Anzaldo said. "They're not going to find, like, 60 pills in her stomach."
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Anzaldo, who was making a documentary with and about Chyna, said he was concerned and was in the process of trying to get Chyna free rehabilitation by making her a subject on A&E's celebrity addiction reality series, "Intervention."
"This would have been the quickest possible way" to arrange for rehab, he said.
Anzaldo told The Times that Chyna had been taking the legally prescribed pills over the course of three weeks, but wasn’t using them properly, he said. Her death was the result of an accidental overdose, Anzaldo insisted, not suicide.
Chyna's Struggles
Chyna was open about growing up in a home with alcoholism and would later have her own documented struggle with drugs. Chyna has acknowledged struggling with addiction in the past. Anzaldo said she had been known to binge drink but had not had a drink for several weeks, and there was no alcohol in her home at the time of her death.
Days before she was found dead, Chyna appeared rambling and disjointed as she wandered around her apartment wearing headphones and a feather in her hair in a 13-minute video she posted online. Days before her body was found, Chyna had posted a rambling and sometimes incoherent video on YouTube.
She also posted a smiling selfie April 17 on her Instagram account that appeared to have been taken in her bedroom. “Happy Sunday my lovelies I hope you all enjoy your day with your family,” she wrote. “Be Happy, Love each other, and Live in Peace!
In January 2005, Waltman said that she was battling drug and alcohol addiction, as well as mental illness. Days after the domestic dispute between Waltman and Laurer, it was reported in the New York Post that she had removed her clothes and jumped into a fish tank in a New York nightclub.
That month, she made another appearance on The Howard Stern Show, where she was described as "slurring her words, contradicting herself and launching into random tangents that were impossible to follow." On the program, she said she did not want to do drugs anymore, but said that if a line of cocaine was in front of her, she would do it.
After her appearance, she entered a facility specializing in depression recovery, and decided to stop drinking. In early 2008, she appeared on the VH1 reality TV show Celebrity Rehab with Dr.
Laurer had a strained relationship with her family. She last saw her mother at the age of 16, and she said that her father was never able to get over her decision not to pursue a career in law enforcement with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. She also alleged that her father took out several student loans in her name without her knowledge, leaving her with $40,000 in debt.
Professional Wrestling Career
Chyna first rose to prominence in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)) in 1997, where she was billed as "The Ninth Wonder of the World". A founding member of the stable D-Generation X as the promotion's first female enforcer, she held the WWF Intercontinental Championship twice and the WWF Women's Championship once.
She was also the first woman to participate in the Royal Rumble match and King of the Ring tournament, in addition to becoming number one contender to the WWF Championship. She is considered one of the biggest stars of the Attitude Era.
With singles victories over several prominent male wrestlers - including multiple-time world champions Triple H, Kurt Angle, Chris Jericho and Jeff Jarrett - she left what WWE called "a lasting legacy as the most dominant female competitor of all time". After leaving the WWF in 2001, she wrestled sporadically, with New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) in 2002 and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) in 2011.
Laurer made her WWF debut on February 16, 1997, at In Your House 13: Final Four; her character emerged as a plant from a ringside seat, choking Marlena while Goldust was in the ring with Triple H. The next night, she appeared on Raw and bearhugged Marlena. Her original role in the promotion was as the laconic enforcer/bodyguard for D-Generation X, which was founded by Shawn Michaels, Triple H and Ravishing Rick Rude.
A week after her storyline with Henry, Chyna was the 30th entrant in the Royal Rumble, becoming the first woman ever to enter the eponymous match. In the match she eliminated Mark Henry before being eliminated by Stone Cold Steve Austin.
One day later, she turned heel by betraying Triple H and aligning herself with his enemies Vince McMahon and Kane. She teamed with Kane at the St. Valentine's Day Massacre pay-per-view against former allies X-Pac and Triple H. At WrestleMania XV, she turned on Kane in his match by attacking him with a chair, appearing to rejoin DX.
Chyna and Triple H, however, turned against DX later that evening when they helped Shane McMahon defeat DX member X-Pac. The duo became part of The Corporation and later Shane McMahon's Corporate Ministry. In June 1999, Chyna became the first woman to qualify for the King of the Ring tournament.
She was also the first woman to be the number one contender for the WWF Championship, but lost the spot to Mankind before SummerSlam in August. Later that year, she became a fan favorite again during her long feud with Jeff Jarrett.
She challenged the British Bulldog to a match on the October 4, 1999, Raw, and defeated him. At Unforgiven, she had a match for the WWF Intercontinental Championship against Jarrett, which she lost. She defeated Jarrett for the title at No Mercy in his last WWF match, a Good Housekeeping match on October 17, in the process becoming the first and only woman to win the Intercontinental Championship.
She also gained the services of his valet, Miss Kitty. Chyna then feuded with Chris Jericho over the belt, defeating him at Survivor Series, but losing the title to him at Armageddon. They faced off again in a match on the December 28 edition of SmackDown!, which ended controversially with both wrestlers pinning each other.
Not long after losing the Intercontinental title, Chyna became the onscreen girlfriend of Eddie Guerrero. At the same time, Chyna posed nude for Playboy magazine's November 2000 issue. It was also worked into a WWF storyline (based, in part, on a real-life legal feud between the WWF and the socially conservative Parents Television Council), in which it drew the ire of the Right to Censor (a group of morally conservative wrestlers).
Shortly after, Chyna began a feud with Ivory, a member of the Right to Censor, over the Women's Championship. She left the WWF on November 30, 2001, several months after she had been taken off of television. Various accounts of her departure have circulated over the years.
After the end of her WWF career in 2001, Chyna made her way to Japan in 2002 where she had a relatively brief but productive stint with New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW). Her first appearance was at the New Japan Thirtieth Anniversary Show, refereeing a bout between the Steiner Brothers and Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kensuke Sasaki.
On August 8, 2002, Chyna defeated woman boxer Chika Nakamura for Universal Fighting Arts Organization, beating Nakamura in the first round by TKO. In September and October 2002, she wrestled several matches for the promotion.
After losing to Masahiro Chono on October 14, 2002, Laurer performed her final match on October 26, teaming with a fake Great Muta played by Troy Enders in a loss to Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kenzo Suzuki.
During the May 3, 2011 tapings for the May 12 edition of Impact!, Chyna made her Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) debut, introduced by the returning Spike TV network consultant Mick Foley. He introduced her as Kurt Angle's business associate (she had been previously referred to as his "Mistress") and tag team partner at Sacrifice, where they would face Jeff Jarrett and Karen Jarrett.
4 male Superstars defeated by Chyna: WWE List This!
Other Ventures and Appearances
Outside of wrestling, Chyna appeared in Playboy magazine twice, plus numerous television shows and films. She was considered a sex symbol. In 2005, she was a cast member on VH1's The Surreal Life, which led to several other celebrity reality appearances on the network, including The Surreal Life: Fame Games in 2007 and Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew in 2008.
Chyna was also known for her tumultuous relationship with fellow wrestler Sean Waltman, with whom she made a sex tape released commercially in 2004 as 1 Night in China, which won a 2006 AVN Award for Best-Selling Title.
In 2001, Laurer released her autobiography, If They Only Knew. Laurer appeared on The Howard Stern Show in 2000, where she claimed she "made [an ass] out of [her]self." She acted in three episodes of 3rd Rock from the Sun as Janice, a police officer who briefly dated main character Harry Solomon. She also filmed several commercials for nutritional supplement Stacker 2.
In 2001, she was a guest on a special celebrity edition of Fear Factor. She lost in the final round of the competition to Coolio. She provided her voice for stop-motion animation renditions of herself in Celebrity Deathmatch and Gary & Mike. Also in 2006, Laurer appeared in Just Another Romantic Wrestling Comedy and Illegal Aliens, the latter of which was the last movie featuring Anna Nicole Smith.
On Cristina's Court, a syndicated court-themed reality show, Laurer appeared in an episode originally airing July 14, 2007, in a civil dispute against a breeder of teacup chihuahuas. Laurer made her adult film debut with the 2004 video 1 Night in China. Laurer and Sean Waltman approached Red Light District Video to distribute the homemade video, which was released in 2004. Laurer appeared in her second adult video, Another Night in China in 2009.
Key Moments in Chyna's WWE Career
Relationships
From 1996 until 2000, Laurer dated fellow wrestler Paul "Triple H" Levesque. They initially hid their relationship from their co-workers because she felt people might think she "[slept] her way to the top". They also lived together for some time. There is some debate as to whether Levesque started his relationship with Stephanie McMahon while still with Laurer.
Beginning in 2003, Laurer had a tumultuous relationship with fellow wrestler Sean Waltman. They were engaged for a period in 2003, then broke up, then became engaged again, a pattern that continued for the next two years. In 2004, they released a sex tape which was filmed in 2003.
On February 8, 2007, a visibly upset Laurer appeared on Larry King Live to speak about her friend Anna Nicole Smith, who had died earlier that day. She also had problems with substance abuse. She said that her "life was spinning out of control" around the time she made the sex tape.