EXCLUSIVE Philip Seymour Hoffman's close friend says star's 'ghost' visited him the night he died - and reveals a secret blackmail plot haunted the actor Actor was secretly recorded at rehab, talking about his darkest addictions He had been sober for 23 years before relapsing - and died in February 2014 READ MORE: Philip Seymour Hoffman's sister writes emotional tribute By Ruth Walker For Dailymail.Com Published: 12:33, 21 July 2024 | Updated: 12:35, 21 July 2024 e-mail 36 shares View comments Just a few months before his death from a heroin overdose, Oscar-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman was blackmailed by a news website, which threatened to expose his most intimate drug abuse secrets. In his new book Feh (a Yiddish word that means ‘yuck’), Shalom Auslander reveals the outlet had bought secretly recorded tapes of Hoffman talking frankly about his addictions, and planned to publish them unless he gave an exclusive interview.
Hoffman said he couldn’t bear the thought of his children - Cooper, who was 10 at the time, and daughters Tallulah and Willa, seven and five - hearing him talk about his habits. The thought that they’d be mocked or shamed at school about their ‘pathetic father’ was horrifying to him. So, reluctantly, he agreed to the interview.
Auslander and Hoffman became dear friends after the actor had expressed an interest in adapting Auslander’s novel Hope: A Tragedy . They bonded over their similar upbringings and the traumas left in their wake - .