Darius Danesh’s heartbreaking autopsy results revealed by girlfriend who says Brit singer had ‘so much love to give’
DARIUS DANESH’s grief-stricken girlfriend has opened up for the first time about his sudden death – and revealed that he suffered from an undiagnosed heart problem.
Lauren Cheek says the former Pop Idol star’s heart had swelled to twice its normal size and he also had a broken neck, a legacy from a 2010 car accident, which caused him recurring pain.
Darius, just 41, collapsed after taking the recreational inhalant and painkiller chloroethane at his flat in Rochester, Minnesota, in the US last August.
We can reveal that he had travelled to the Midwest state to support his Hollywood A-list pal Gerard Butler, who was having a secret operation.
And there was a mysterious delay before Darius’s loved ones were told of his death — leading to accusations of bad “karma” on the part of Butler and his entourage.
In an exclusive interview, businesswoman Lauren, 30, said: “Darius was living with this heart condition that he didn’t know he had.
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Absolute tragedy
“So many things could have taken him, but this one thing did, and he died in his sleep.
“His mum told me they only found out after they did the autopsy. His heart was twice the size it was supposed to be, which was fitting, because that is genuinely how he was — he had so much love.
“The autopsy also found he was living with a broken neck, but he refused to get help or complain about it. I think he used (chloroethane) because he was in so much pain and he didn’t want to take pills, not even aspirin.
“That’s what killed him — the substance mixed with his heart and he couldn’t take it.”
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Darius was found unresponsive in bed on August 11 last year.
The Scottish singer shot to fame in 2001 on ITV talent contest Popstars with his quirky rendition of Britney Spears’s Baby One More Time, even though the judges criticised his performance.
Mean-mouthed Nigel Lythgoe called him a “show-off” and “crazy”, but the following year Darius reached the final in Pop Idol, another ITV talent contest, alongside future stars Will Young and Gareth Gates.
After his death celebrities rushed to pay tribute, with former Pop Idol judge Simon Cowell calling the news “an absolute tragedy”.
Action hero Butler, who had known Darius for 20 years, called him “a true brother in arms” and the “perfect friend” in an Instagram post dated August 19.
It was assumed that Darius had been in Rochester for treatment for his neck injury at the nearby Mayo Clinic’s St Mary’s Campus.
The hospital is rated the best in the US and celebrities including the late Muhammad Ali and the Dalai Lama have had surgery there.
But we can reveal that Glasgow-born Darius — who was booked into a room under the name of Butler’s girlfriend, Morgan Brown — was visiting his Scottish best friend.
One business associate said: “There was a lot of drama going on and Darius was under a lot of stress.
“It was Gerard’s manager or assistant that found the body and there was a long delay, about three days, before his loved ones were informed. Darius’s parents Avril and Booth went straight to the clinic to get his stuff and Gerard, all of a sudden, got a job and had to leave that day.”
The associate said Butler did not go to the funeral near the family home in Bearsden, Glasgow, and added: “They had been best friends for 20 years and Darius saw him as an older brother.
“He even had his own room at Gerard’s house in the Hollywood Hills.
“There are a lot of things that don’t make sense and should have been handled differently.
“Gerard has to live with his own karma, and that’s the truth.”
Lauren refuses to comment on who Darius — who she calls “D” — was visiting but she insists he was always anti-drugs, having seen friends get hooked.
She added that he was plagued with bad luck, and said he first got injured while driving with actor Butler, who has had treatment for painkiller addiction in the past.
At her home in Los Angeles, Lauren said: “He was with Gerry (Butler) in Monaco for the Grand Prix and they slammed into a wall during a race with the Prince of Monaco.
“I don’t think it ever fully healed and then he rebroke it because he got hit by a car in London a year or two before he died when he was riding a bike.
“And then he got into a car accident with his dad in Scotland. D was in the passenger seat, his dad was driving and someone drove into them.
“He was always in pain and I would beg him to see the doctor, but he refused. He was trying to find a natural remedy.”
The couple met in February 2020 at a point when Darius had tired of fame and was focused on running a charity bringing clean drinking water to the Third World.
Lauren now plans to launch a podcast, Grieving Back To Life, on what would have been his 43rd birthday on August 19.
Fighting back tears, she recalled: “D was changing hotels in LA when we bumped into each other. I was walking my dog and it was a moment of fate.
“He said, ‘Cute dog’, then asked if I would go for a drink.
“We ended up staying up all night talking and he pretty much moved in with me afterwards. We were infatuated and would openly talk about marriage.
“D would tell everyone, ‘This is the woman I want to have my children with. I love her. I want to make her my wife’.
“We were planning on getting engaged towards the end of the year and then get married and have kids.
“There is this piece of land right next to his family’s cabin in Scotland that we fell in love with and visited multiple times.
“We either wanted to do it there or somewhere random, like an island.
“The last time I talked to him was the night before he died.
“He was tired and run down and I could tell he was in so much pain. I told him, ‘I’m flying out on Sunday, it’s only a few more days, just hang in there’.
“We had agreed to go to Scotland for his birthday the following week so he could relax and recharge.
“But the next day I couldn’t reach him.
“I texted his mum Avril on the Saturday and said, ‘Hey, I’m sure D just lost his phone, but have you heard from him because he’s not messaging me back?’
“I could see on WhatsApp that the last time he saw his phone was on Wednesday. His phone was going straight to voicemail.
“I started freaking out and I got a call from his mum on Monday morning.
“She told me she had just found out the previous day. I couldn’t believe it was real. Darius was going to do the Pop Idol reunion, but his real purpose and intention was to promote this project called Awe, which was about providing clean water, air and energy for everyone on the planet. That was his life’s goal.
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“I still can’t believe he is gone because it was so sudden and heartbreaking. I keep thinking he is going to call me or walk through the door.
“When someone you love that intensely is ripped away from you, it’s too much.”
