Samantha Mathis was with her boyfriend, River Phoenix, when he died Oct. 31, 1993, of a drug overdose outside of Los Angeles' famed Viper Club. "Joaquin has preferred not to publicly discuss the events surrounding his brother's death. Leonardo DiCaprio Saw River Phoenix on the Night He Died: 'He Disappeared in Front of My Very Eyes' The Stand By Me actor died at 23 years old in 1993 outside The Viper Room River Phoenix died of an acute overdose for about an hour while in the presence of a crowd of people, including his family, his girlfriend, and his … Phoenix had already flatlined by the time the paramedics arrived and was pronounced dead at the hospital. He had died from an overdose of cocaine and heroin. River Phoenix was on a pathway to becoming one of Hollywood's biggest stars before his life was tragically cut short. ‘It just felt fated between us, and there was such chemistry.”‘I think we recognised something in each other,’ she said.‘This sounds incredibly cheesy but I knew I would be with him one day,’ Mathis explained ‘We came from very different families, but perhaps there were some broken parts in each other we recognised. "Samantha didn't realise they were staying at The Viper Room - but the actor wanted to perform with the band P, which included Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Depp.River drank a 'speedball', a lethal combination of heroin and cocaine, dissolved in a drink which meant it took a long time to absorb into his bloodstream.The autopsy report found that River's blood contained a staggering eight times a lethal overdose.Because he drank the concoction, River remained active for up to an hour until his death while the lethal drugs started to build, meaning by the time he felt anything it was too late. On Oct. 31, 1993, Phoenix was a young man –– only 23 –– at the peak of his career. Speaking about his new movie with “I grew up revering River Phoenix as the great actor of my generation, and all I ever wanted was to have just an opportunity to shake his hand,” DiCaprio told “And one night, at a party in Silver Lake, I saw him walk up a flight of stairs. he disappeared in front of my very eyes, and the tragedy that I felt afterward of having lost this great influence for me and all of my friends,” the To make the story even more full circle, DiCaprio said that he ended up flying to New Orleans “to meet about The film takes place in Los Angeles in 1969, and director Tarantino called it a “love letter” to the city in the interview with . .
"I saw him walk up a flight of stairs,” he told Esquire Magazine in 2019. I didn’t see anyone doing drugs but he was high in a way that made me feel uncomfortable — I was in way over my head.”‘Forty-five minutes later, he was dead,’ Mathis said.She recalled the actor’s focus was always on his family, which includes sisters Rain, Summer and Liberty Phoenix.“River said to me in that last year: ‘I just have to make one more movie to put away enough money so my youngest sister can go to college,’ Mathis said.‘I don’t know if that was true, but I remember him saying that.’Mathis told The Guardian: ‘I knew something was wrong that night The two costarred together in 1993’s The Thing Called Love. They met before then when she was 19 “and he bummed a cigarette off me in an LA club,” she told The Guardian.‘This sounds incredibly cheesy but I knew I would be with him one day,’ Mathis explained. It’s been 20 years since the death of River Phoenix at age 23.