Nick Gordon, the ex-fiance of Whitney Houston‘s daughter Bobbi Kristina Brown, died on New Year’s Day at age 30 from a drug overdose. The controversial figure also reportedly suffered an overdose a month ago, but was revived with Narcan, a drug that can reverse the effects of opioids. Sources told The Daily Mail Gordon was also homeless in the weeks leading up to his death.
Gordon had two suspected heroin overdoses in the span of a month, sources told the outlet. In the first incident, a family member used Narcan to revive him. Unfortunately, the second overdose happened in the early hours of New Year’s Day and first responders could not get to his Orlando hotel in time to save his life.
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In the past year, Gordon was working in construction and had a positive outlook for 2020, his father, Jack Walker Jr., told The Daily Mail. “He told me 2020 was going to be better than 2019,” Walker said.
However, Gordon was reportedly homeless at the time of his death, and had been living in the Sheraton Orlando North Hotel for the last two to three weeks of his life.
Walker said he spoke with Gordon during his final hours and thought his son was doing well.
“I spoke with Nick during the day. He seemed happy, he seemed calm, everything was going good,” Walker told the Daily Mail. “He was a free spirit, he was in a good state of mind. Everything that Nick was doing was great. He told me 2020 was going to be better than 2019. He had a great job.”
Gordon was found unresponsive in his hotel room on Wednesday. A person who called 911 reported there was “black stuff coming out of his mouth” and he was “not conscious” and “not breathing.” He was then rushed to Advent Health Altamonte Springs hospital, where he suffered multiple heart attacks and was declared deceased.
An autopsy has been completed, but the toxicology test results have not been made public. However, his family and friends believe he overdosed on black tar heroin, a cheaper and dangerous version of the drug.
“While I cannot speak to the specific circumstances of his death, I can say that it’s been truly heartbreaking to have witnessed first hand the total devastation that drug addiction has wreaked upon a group of young friends, all of whom were loved and had immense potential,” Gordon’s lawyer, Joe S. Habachy, told PEOPLE in a statement.
“Our father called me early and said, ‘Son, get to the hospital. Nick is in ICU and it does not look good,’” Gordon’s brother also told the magazine. “From what our dad told me, the police found him in the hotel room at 6 a.m. Apparently he had been dead for 15 minutes. The paramedics got his heart beating again, and at the hospital, it kept stopping so they had to keep bringing him back.”
“When I arrived at the hospital they had him attached to so many tubes, they were literally bringing him back to life again and again,” he continued, “It was too late.”
Gordon was known for his connection to Brown, the only daughter of Houston, who was found dead in a bathtub in 2012 at age 48. Brown, whose father was singer Bobby Brown, died in 2015 at age 22. She was found dead unconscious in a bathtub after a drug overdose and was in a coma for six months before her death. A civil court later found Gordon guilty for his role in Brown’s death and ordered him to pay $36 million to her estate. Gordon denied any wrongdoing and claimed he tried to save her life.
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