A friend and collaborator of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman is talking about how the Oscar-winner was supposedly being blackmailed regarding his addiction.
According to the Daily Mail, Shalom Auslander, the friend in question, writes about the blackmail in his new book, Feh: A Memoir. Auslander and Hoffman first met when Hoffman was looking to adapt one of Auslander’s books.
Auslander says that prior to Hoffman’s death a news site was threatening to expose details about his drug use if he didn’t agree to an interview.
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Hoffman went on to do the interview because, according to Auslander, he didn’t want to bring shame on his children. He also claims that Hoffman had been surreptitiously recorded during an AA meeting.
Their last project together was a TV show called Happyish, in which Hoffman plays a family man struggling with depression. It was just days after the show was picked up to series that Hoffman died of a heroin overdose.
While making the pilot for Happyish, Auslander describes the actor’s behavior as “belligerent, moody,” which he attributes to the actor detoxing off drugs. Addiction aside, Auslander writes about Hoffman’s heart and calls it “the biggest, brokenest heart of anyone I have ever met.”
