The New York City Police Department is investigating the death of Anne Burrell, the popular Food Network star who was found dead in her Brooklyn home on Tuesday morning, as a possible drug overdose, according to an internal document viewed by The New York Times.
The document said Burrell, who was 55, had been “discovered in the shower unconscious and unresponsive surrounded by approximately (100) assorted pills.” Emergency medical workers who responded to a 911 call pronounced her dead at the scene.
A spokesperson for the city medical examiner’s office said Friday that an autopsy had been completed, but that any findings on the cause and manner of Burrell’s death were still pending.
Burrell was an accomplished Italian chef who began her television career as a sous-chef to celebrity chef Mario Batali on the Food Network show “Iron Chef America.” She was best known for hosting “Worst Cooks in America,” which has run for 28 seasons.
With her plume of platinum-blond hair, signature mismatched socks and a way of teaching that included a big helping of unvarnished truth, she became a mainstay for the network, appearing as a guest or judge on several other shows and even once riding on the network’s float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
In January, fans were surprised to see that Burrell was not hosting the new season of “Worst Cooks.” Neither she nor the network has explained the change. An indication of a possible conflict came in a Jan. 10 Instagram post when someone asked her why she wasn’t on the show and Burrell answered, “Honestly I don’t know.”
The night before she died, Burrell had embarked on a new passion: improv. She performed for the first time at Second City New York in Brooklyn after taking classes at the venue’s training center.
Friends and her food television colleagues said she had also talked about undertaking some new projects.
Chef Andrew Zimmern was with her a few months ago for a food festival in Puerto Rico. “She definitely had something cooking,” he said. “She was excited about whatever it was she was working on.”
On Friday, he delivered a tearful tribute to Burrell at the Aspen Food & Wine Festival, where top names in food media, including Padma Lakshmi, Kristen Kish and Food Network star Tyler Florence, have gathered for the weekend. Zimmern called her a “brash, bold, loud New Yorker” with “a tremendous capacity for love.”
A week ago, she showed up at a special event that chef Elizabeth Falkner hosted at the Soho House in Manhattan. The two had been fierce competitors on “The Next Iron Chef” in 2011, and had lost touch but had recently started texting more, Falkner said.
“It was so fun to see her. She seemed really content, like there was a warmer side coming out,” Falkner said. “She hung out all night. When she was leaving she goes, ‘I am so glad we have reconnected. I want to be a better friend.’”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
