All of us that have been fol­low­ing Ledger over the past few months knew this already, but it’s reas­sur­ing to get some con­fir­ma­tion. After all those defam­ing rumors cir­cu­lat­ing in the tabloid press, we can tell you that Heath Ledger did not pur­pose­fully take his own life.

From the BBC:

Hol­ly­wood actor Heath Ledger died of an acci­den­tal over­dose of six dif­fer­ent types of pre­scrip­tion drugs, New York author­i­ties have revealed. […] The city med­ical examiner’s spokes­woman said Ledger died “as the result of acute intox­i­ca­tion by the com­bined effects” of the dif­fer­ent drugs.

“While no med­ica­tions were taken in excess, we learned today the com­bi­na­tion of doctor-prescribed drugs proved lethal for our boy. Heath’s acci­den­tal death serves as a cau­tion to the hid­den dan­gers of com­bin­ing pre­scrip­tion med­ica­tion, even at low dosage.”