Ol’ Dirty Bastard was the heart and soul of the Wu-Tang Clan. Other members were considered better rappers and/or producers, but there was something undeniable about O.D.B. He had charisma and an unpredictability that combined into true star power.
Ol’ Dirty Bastard died tragically young. The Wu-Tang superstar only released two albums during his lifetime, and was only 35 years old when his body was discovered in 2004. An upcoming A&E documentary about the rapper, however, has fans questioning what his cause of death was.
Let’s delve into Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s untimely death, and what the official ruling was.
How did Ol’ Dirty Bastard die?
Ol’ Dirty Bastard died at a recording studio on November 13, 2004. He was pronounced dead at the scene. The medical examiner told MTV News that the rapper had a mixture of different drugs in his system at the time, including cocaine and the prescription opiate Tramadol.
The official cause of death was an accidental drug overdose. During a 2016 episode of Vlad TV, Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s son, O.D.B. Jr, recalled watching the rapper consume the drugs that eventually killed him:
The last time he was here, he got as high as he could ever get. [He passed away] that night. He got as high as he could ever get. He told me to sit there and watch him. Eye-to-eye, we did that. Then that was it.
Ol’ Dirty Bastard was two days away from his 36th birthday.
Did Ol’ Dirty Bastard get shot?
Ol’ Dirty Bastard may have died in 2004, but the rapper had several prior brushes with death. Two men broke into the rapper’s home in 1999 and proceeded to steal an undisclosed amount of money. O.D.B. was then shot in the back and was forced to check himself into St. John’s hospital following the incident.
While the rapper made a full recovery, a hospital spokesperson told Rolling Stone that he could have very easily been killed. “He was very lucky that the bullet didn’t hit any organs and just grazed the body,” they stated. “It could have gone anywhere else and he wouldn’t be here today.”
Ol’ Dirty Bastard was also arrested for crack cocaine possession on at least two occasions. The rapper had an FBI file a mile long, and NME reports that he was linked to several criminal activities during his lifetime. Some of the most notable include car-jacking, the sale of drugs and weapons, and most seriously, murder. But beyond the controversy, it’s his music that’ll truly stand the test of time. R.I.P. O.D.B.