Freddie Starr died from a heart attack while watching TV, autopsy reveals

FREDDIE Starr died from a heart attack, an autopsy has revealed.

The 76-year-old had coronary artery disease and had a quadruple bypass following a heart attack in 2010.

A post-mortem carried out this morning at the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Malaga confirmed the heart attack theory as his cause of death.

Police sources had said immediately after the discovery of heavy smoker Freddie’s body at his Costa del Sol home yesterday afternoon there seemed nothing suspicious about his death and everything was pointing towards it being the result of natural causes.

The fallen comic’s carer found him slumped on the floor by his sofa after returning from a quick shopping trip.

A well-placed source said: “Freddie Starr died from a heart attack. There is absolutely no doubt.

“He had a history of heart problems and the autopsy has revealed a heart attack was the cause of his death.”

CARER'S SHOCK

Nelly, Starr's live-in carer of four years, said the entertainer had been fine when she headed to the shops for 30 minutes on Thursday, returning about 3.30pm local time.

Reliving the moment she found the comic, Nelly said: "I went to the supermarket for maybe 30 minutes and came back he was dead.

"He was fine before.

"He had many problems but I never knew he was bad.

";He was watching TV, he never said he wasn’t OK or he wasn’t feeling well. He was playing with his cat, nothing was bothering him."

The carer, from Bulgaria, said she had not realised Starr, who struggled with asthma, was famous after they met.

Wiping away tears, she said: "One time we went for a coffee and people kept asking for photos. I had no idea why, I assumed they were friends.

"Then one day he showed me his impressions of Mick Jagger and Roy Orbison and I realised. These were not friends, they were fans."

HAUNTING FINAL POST

The entertainer was one of the biggest stars of the 70s, 80s and 90s.

Fans loved his wacky, wild, and unpredictable behaviour.

But Starr's haunting last Facebook before his death was today revealed - with the comedian admitting he was "getting tired more".

He wrote: "I’m OK getting tired more now but otherwise I’m doing good.

“I just have to say thank you all from the bottom of my heart for all the kind comments and messages it really does mean a lot so thank you to each and everyone of you thanks so much. Freddie.”

Starr had recently become a recluse after a recent comeback bid flopped.

He starred on I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here in 2011 just a year after recovering from quadruple bypass surgery following a heart attack.

But he left the jungle show due to ill health.

Neighbours in the resort of Mijas told how Freddie had been a shadow of his old self after being hammered with a £960,000 legal bill defending historical sex abuse charges.

He was forced to sell his £700,000 UK home and moved to Spain in 2015, despite never being charged over claims he put his hand up a girl’s skirt in 1974.

Chain-smoking Freddie was reduced to living in a pokey one-bedroom flat — but still loved a laugh.

As recently as February he had posted a wacky Facebook snap of himself with cigarettes stuck in his mouth, nose and ears.

Freddie Starr’s body was removed from his home to an ambulance at 8.10pm local time.

His carer was described by locals as a foreign woman called Neely who had grown close to Freddie.

The Merseyside-born comic, impressionist, singer and actor had a history of heart problems and asthma.

Police sources said he is believed to have died of natural causes. There were no suspicious circumstances.

A neighbour told The Sun: “Freddie hadn’t looked well for some time and rarely ventured out.

“Whenever he appeared recently his head would be down and he’d be smoking.”

One of Freddie Starr’s last performances was a shambling karaoke Elvis impression at a bar in Fuengirola. Videos of a bloated Freddie in a T-shirt and shorts belting out hits with locals surfaced on Facebook.

A pal said: “He was mortified when that footage got out and realised how far he’d fallen. He wasn’t his old self after that.”

The neighbour added: “It was such a sad end from someone who’d been loved by millions.”

Tributes have since poured in from fellow celebs including Lord Sugar, Bobby DAvro and Jim Davidson.

Writing on Twitter, Lord Sugar said: "According to some news reports Freddie Star has died in Spain. If true sad news, he was a very funny man RIP."

Davidson simply posted: "Just heard the news. Freddie Starr was the greatest."

Heartbroken Davro, who impersonated Starr on his Bobby Davro On The Box show in the 80s, shared: "I've just heard that Freddie Starr has died. He was the funniest man I have ever seen. I'm so sad we have lost one of our greatest comedy talents. RIP Freddie."

Paddy McGuinness tweeted the famous Sun headline "Freddie Starr ate my hamster" and added: "It was probably a euphemism? #rip #FreddieStarr."

Jest in peace

By Mike Ridley

FREDDIE Starr was a king of TV comedy who had millions of fans in fits of laughter for decades — but he will always be remembered for inspiring a classic Sun headline.

It was a Thursday in March 1986 that our front page declared: “Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster” — later voted the most memorable headline of the 20th century.

Dave Shapland, the paper’s deputy editor at the time, remembers bursting into laughter on hearing the story in the news conference.

He said: “Starr was massive and at the top of his game back then. He was also known for pulling outrageous pranks on people.

“It had all the classic ingredients. You had a huge celebrity and a story with a headline that stops you dead. As soon as you saw it you either had a little smirk on your face or you thought, ‘What is this?”

The story claimed Starr returned from a show and demanded a pal make him a sandwich — but put her pet hamster in the bread and ate it when she refused.

Realising you could not buy such publicity, Starr flew The Sun’s showbiz reporter Kevin O’Sullivan by helicopter to his Berkshire mansion for a photoshoot with a hamster bought from a pet store.

However, the hamster keeled over and they feared it was dead. Kevin said: “Freddie suggested we nip into Maidenhead to buy another one, but I felt bad for this poor little animal so I got two fingers and did CPR. It suddenly went ‘pluff’ and came back to life!

“We took Freddie outside for pictures but the hamster, sitting on his shoulder, was still in shock and pooped down his white leather jacket.

“Freddie burst into hysterics and photographer Steve Lewis got a great shot which made the front page.”

Freddie’s multi-million pound home on the banks of the Thames in Sonning was a world away from the poverty he was born into in Huyton, Liverpool, in 1943 as Frederick Leslie Fowell.

In an interview in 2007, the comic described his dad as a violent man who broke both his legs. He said he had to be taken away from home for two years aged six due to his father’s behaviour.

But he used his poor background to his advantage and once joked: “I was so unlucky that if I fell into a barrel of nipples, I’d come out sucking my thumb.”

He fell in with a gang of robbers for a time and watched as a suspected grass was shot with a nailgun and badly hurt.

Showbiz became his escape from a life of crime in the 1960s and he formed a band called the Midnighters.

Boyhood pal Tony Cartwright, who became his manager, claimed Freddie was Liverpool’s first real rock ’n’ roll star.

He said: “Freddie had a great voice. He had all the attributes to become a big singing star and would do crazy stuff such as jumping into the audience.”

Starr was topping bills when The Beatles were just starting out and further down the line-up.

Tony added: “There were lots of pranks, which John Lennon found hilarious. In those days, when The Beatles came on people would drift off to the bar as they were there to see Freddie.”

Lennon reportedly once asked Starr to join The Beatles, but was told: “I’ve got my own band and I’m bigger than you.”

While Lennon and Co went on to international superstardom, Freddie was still working clubs around the North until 1970 when he appeared on TV talent show Opportunity Knocks.

But it was his routine for the Royal Variety Performance in that year that launched his comedy career — singing the heart-wrenching ballad Vincent to a backing tape that kept speeding up and slowing down.

At the height of his fame, Freddie met Elvis Presley and wowed the King with his impressions. He was still in touch with Lennon and Paul McCartney, too.

A chat show regular, he appeared on Des O’Connor Tonight more than any other guest and also sat alongside boxing legend Muhammad Ali on Parkinson in 1981.

Host Parky recalls: “During a break, Freddie was dancing round the studio saying he was faster and prettier than Ali and was going to whup him.

“Ali stood and whispered to me, ‘Get behind me and grab my arms’. Then Ali said, ‘Let go’. As I did, he glided forward and flashed five left jabs around Freddie’s head — each missing him by centimetres.

“Any punch, had it connected, would have caused serious damage to Mr Starr’s smile. Freddie calmed down after that.”

Despite his working class roots, Freddie hated the Labour Party and he was so confident they would lose the 1992 General Election that he promised to give then-leader Neil Kinnock £500,000 if they won.

They didn’t.

Joker Freddie then backed winning horse Party Politics in that year's Grand National.

His own horse Miinnehoma won the race two years later.

Although he was not a big drinker due to his childhood experiences in a violent household, Freddie did have his addictions. He was a heavy smoker and for 20 years was reliant on Valium — which left him with slurred speech.

He first took them to calm down after a manic performance on stage, adding: “After 20 minutes I felt like a weight had been lifted off my mind and I felt balanced. I thought, ‘These are good’.

“But after three years I was destroying myself, destroying my marriage, destroying a lot of things. And that was self-inflicted. I hold myself totally responsible.

“One of the worst side-effects is that it makes you feel you are never wrong. And that’s a bad thing.

“You are there to be shot down in flames. When you have a clear mind you can look in the mirror and face your own image. I’ve done that. And I realised my purpose is to make people laugh — that’s all.”
Starr’s health and private life were not a barrel of laughs.

He married four times — splitting from fourth wife Sophie Lee in 2015 — and has six children.

None of them were in regular contact with the funnyman in his later years and he admitted to being a natural loner.

Sophie, 40 years Freddie’s junior, said he became impossible to live with, adding: “Freddie would fly off in rages and take it all out on me daily. He started to give me constant verbal abuse, telling me that I was useless and things like that. Our marriage was hell.

“On one occasion I was left with a black eye.”

Starr admitted being an “a**ehole”, but claimed his “behaviour and attitude” had changed.

His life was then turned upside-down in 2012 when he was arrested under Operation Yewtree — the police investigation into historic sex abuse allegations.

In all, he was arrested four times before being released without charge after 18 months on bail.

He said in 2015: “I don’t know where to turn. Most of my old showbusiness friends have forsaken me. I need help.

“I have no money left and I’m too ill to work. I don’t see a very pleasant future ahead.”

Facing legal bills of more than £1million he left the country and moved to Spain’s Costa del Sol.

Despite a long and varied career full of highs and lows, Freddie was still stopped in the street more than 30 years on and asked: “Did you really eat that hamster?”

The comedian insisted the story was made up by his then- manager Max Clifford.

Freddie Starr later said: “I have never eaten or even nibbled a live hamster, gerbil, guinea pig, mouse, shrew, vole or any small mammal.”

But the headline, like Freddie’s enduring comedy spirit, lives on.

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