Widow of popular grunge rock singer says he did not die of a drug overdose

Scott Weiland’s widow, Jamie Wachtel, wants to set the record straight.

During a recent interview on the YouTube podcast Appetite for Destruction, Wachtel spoke about the legacy of the late Stone Temple Pilots singer. And she was particularly concerned about the manner of his death.

“I feel like he really doesn’t get the recognition and the respect and the recognition that he absolutely deserves,” she said. “I feel like when he died, everyone thought this is tragic, but of course he overdosed, which he did not (expletive), and I wanted to make that clear. He did not.”

Weiland died on December 3, 2015, on his tour bus in Minnesota. He was 48 years old. Small amounts of cocaine and prescription drugs were found nearby. A medical examiner later determined that his death was due to an accidental overdose of cocaine, alcohol, and methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDA).

“Because he had drugs in his system, the medical examiner had to assume an overdose,” Wachtel said. “But the truth is that Scott died because the main artery in his left ventricle was 95 percent blocked. That came from 10 years of heroin use, that came from a life of chain smoking. His heart stopped. Did he have traces of drugs in his system? Yes, he knew that. Did I know he was on drugs? No, I didn’t, because he lied to me because I had caught him before and there were always these huge fights and I was mad at him.”

However, she insisted that Weiland had not taken heroin at the time of his death.

“His heart stopped because his heart had been so badly abused by previous drug use as well as smoking and heavy drinking,” she said.

She also defended herself against critics who accused her of not doing enough to help Weiland or of encouraging his addiction.

“People can say what they want about things I did or didn’t do. But the truth is I did all the heavy lifting with him myself. I was alone with him, trying to protect him and calm him down, get him to the right doctors, get him on stage and get him to rehearsals. I was all alone. I was the gatekeeper for everything,” she said.

“And that was really, really (expletive) hard. So when we talk about the comments that people are making about me, about Scott, about our marriage, I basically want to tell everybody to (expletive) f*** off because they weren’t there. They didn’t know. And to judge and make comments about that is just so mean-spirited and ignorant. It’s just ignorance,” she continued.

“The horrible things that people have said about Scott, the use of the word ‘junkie,’ all of that, I honestly stopped watching all of that years ago. I just stopped watching it,” she said. “I don’t read any of the comments. I don’t read the articles about him. I don’t even watch it because I get so upset by the ignorance and the negativity and the prejudice. It makes me sick. It makes me nervous. It depresses me. So I just don’t watch it.”

In 2019, Wachtel lost a lawsuit she filed against Weiland’s estate over a prenuptial agreement made before their 2013 wedding.

Weiland was the frontman of Stone Temple Pilots from 1989 to 2003 and then from 2008 to 2013. He was also the lead singer of Velvet Revolver from 2003 to 2008 and released four solo studio albums.