Anne Burrell’s Death Under Investigation as Potential Drug Overdose

Author­i­ties are inves­ti­gat­ing Anne Burrell’s sud­den death as a pos­si­ble drug over­dose, accord­ing to The New York Times.

The 55-year-old Food Net­work star was found dead in the show­er of her Brook­lyn home on Tues­day, June 17. Per an inter­nal NYPD report obtained by the Times, Bur­rell was dis­cov­ered “uncon­scious and unre­spon­sive” sur­round­ed by approx­i­mate­ly 100 assort­ed pills.

A spokesper­son for the NYPD con­firmed to PEOPLE that emer­gency respon­ders arrived on the scene but were unable to revive her. The New York City Fire Department’s 911 call report not­ed the caller believed Bur­rell may have suf­fered car­diac arrest.

Although an autop­sy has been com­plet­ed, the offi­cial cause and man­ner of death remain pend­ing, accord­ing to the Office of the Chief Med­ical Exam­in­er.

In her final weeks, Bur­rell spent time with friends and fam­i­ly and con­tin­ued her efforts to sup­port oth­ers. Her sud­den pass­ing has left the culi­nary world in shock.

Fel­low chef and long­time Food Net­work col­league Duff Gold­man shared that, behind her live­ly on-screen per­sona, Bur­rell had been fac­ing per­son­al emo­tion­al struggles—something she rarely let show to the pub­lic.

On Thurs­day, June 19, Gold­man shared a heart­felt trib­ute on Insta­gram, post­ing a pho­to of him­self with the late chef accom­pa­nied by a long mes­sage.

View this post on Insta­gram

A post shared by Duff Gold­man (@duffgoldman)

“I’ve writ­ten and re-writ­ten this post so many times in the past 24 hours and I just don’t know what to say. Anne and I became friends in prob­a­bly 2006. She was going through some stuff and I had heard that she was feel­ing it so on a trip to NYC from Bal­ti­more I had made her a cake that said “Don’t let the bas­tards win.” She nev­er did”

. We had a com­plex rela­tion­ship and I remem­ber the last con­ver­sa­tion we had before our paths drift­ed was a pret­ty feisty debate about the mer­its of cat­fish. I believe the words “trash fish,” “tastes like mud,” and “cake boy” were used, haha.  Anne and I always had a spir­it­ed and some­what acer­bic back and forth.”

“I real­ly nev­er knew why our paths drift­ed but I always hoped that wher­ev­er she was, Anne was doing well and was find­ing some hap­pi­ness. Then a year or two ago I was at a gala in NYC with my wife and daugh­ter and I took Josephine out to the lob­by to give her a break from sit­ting at a table lis­ten­ing to speech­es. We were play­ing with the mar­ble columns and as we round­ed one we saw Anne.”

“Now, at this point we hadn’t spo­ken in years, and I won’t go into what we talked about but I will say that that con­ver­sa­tion left my heart lift­ed and full of light, for it tru­ly seemed to me that Anne real­ly had found a mea­sure of hap­pi­ness and love. Life is tough, and we have to be tough to get through it. Anne was as tough as they come, but when you got past the armor there was a depth of com­pas­sion and kind­ness that was absolute­ly beau­ti­ful.

“My heart sings when I think of the love and tran­quil­i­ty that it seems Anne had found recent­ly, and her gen­uine smile for my daugh­ter and me in that lob­by are what makes this tragedy just a lit­tle more bear­able. Anne, wher­ev­er you are I hope they have slow mov­ing rivers because when I get there, we’ll get a cou­ple of rods, a pint of chick­en liv­ers, and a six­er and I’ll teach you how to catch and cook the best cat­fish you ever had. Rest up, chef..”