Following the Cars’ frontman Ric Ocasek‘s death on Sunday, fans are mourning his death and wondering how it happened. Although no official cause of death has yet been reported, Page Six reports that the rocker died of natural causes.
Ocasek was found dead in his Manhattan home on Sunday. He was 75, according to the New York Police Department, although The New York Times reports other records show he was 70.
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A spokesman for NYPD confirmed Ocasek’s death and said that he was found “in his bed and unconscious and unresponsive” after a 911 call came in a little after 4 p.m. on Sunday for a male in need of aid inside a residence on East 19th Street.
Page Six reports that Ocasek’s estranged wife, model Paulina Porizkova, found him “around 4:14 p.m. inside his Gramercy Park pad.” TMZ also reported that Ocasek was already dead when he was found and that no foul play is expected.
Ocasek shared two children with Poritzkova, 54, and had previously been married two other times. He had six children in all. Poritzkova announced in May 2018 that they had separated a year prior, but she was present with him at the Cars’ Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction that same year.
In her separation announcement, Poritzkova described their family as a “well-built car.”
“When the four of us are together, we can go wherever the road takes us. But as a bicycle, my husband and I no longer pedal in unison. So, we’re ditching the bicycle,” she wrote. “Ric and I have been peacefully separated for the past year. The photo of our happy family are, in fact, happy family photos; we are just no longer a couple.
“The love we have for one another is so wide and deep it’s practically tangible, and that sort of love can never disappear,” she wrote.
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Along with his Cars bandmates, Ocasek was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last year alongside Dire Straits, Bon Jovi, Nina Simone and The Moody Blues. The group reunited for the Cleveland ceremony where they were inducted by The Killers’ Brandon Flowers, who fittingly described the band as “a slick machine with a 340 V8 under the hood that ran on synergy, experimentation and a redefined cool. They had it all: the looks, the hooks, Beat romance lyrics, killer choruses.”
Ocasek is survived by Porizkova, their two children — Jonathan Raven Otcasek and Oliver Otcasek — and four sons from previous marriages: Christopher, Adam, Eron and Derek.
Photo credit: Kevin Mazur / Contributor / Getty
