Actor Michael Ok. Williams died of acute drug intoxication, New York City’s health worker stated Friday.
Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
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Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
Actor Michael Ok. Williams died of acute drug intoxication, New York City’s health worker stated Friday.
Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
NEW YORK — Actor Michael Ok. Williams died of acute drug intoxication in what New York City’s health worker stated Friday was an unintentional loss of life.
Williams, identified for taking part in Omar Little on “The Wire” and an Emmy Award nominee this yr, had fentanyl, parafluorofentanyl, heroin and cocaine in his system when he died Sept. 6 in Brooklyn.
Williams, 54, was discovered useless by members of the family in his penthouse condo. Police stated on the time that they suspected a drug overdose.
The metropolis’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner stated it might not remark additional. A message looking for remark was left with Williams’ consultant.
Williams had spoken frankly in interviews lately about his battle with drug habit, which he stated endured after he gained fame on “The Wire” within the early 2000s.
“I was playing with fire,” he instructed the Newark Star-Ledger in 2012. “It was just a matter of time before I got caught and my business ended up on the cover of a tabloid or I went to jail or, worse, I ended up dead. When I look back on it now, I don’t know how I didn’t end up in a body bag.”
New York Police Commissioner Dermot Shea stated in an interview shortly after Williams’ loss of life that he had spoken with the actor earlier this yr about collaborating with the division on neighborhood outreach.
Williams had been working with a New Jersey charity to easy the journey for former jail inmates looking for to reenter society, and was engaged on a documentary on the topic. Another venture concerned reaching out on to at-risk youth.
“This Hollywood thing that you see me in, I’m passing through,” Williams instructed the Associated Press final yr. “Because I believe this is where my passion, my purpose is supposed to be.”
Omar, a rogue robber of drug sellers primarily based on actual figures from Baltimore, was vastly standard amongst followers of “The Wire,” which ran on HBO from 2002 to 2008.
Williams additionally starred as Chalky White in HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire” from 2010 to 2014 and had roles within the movies “12 Years a Slave” and “Assassin’s Creed.”
Williams was nominated this yr for an Emmy for supporting actor in a drama sequence for HBO’s “Lovecraft Country,” however misplaced Sunday to a star of “The Crown.”
Williams was remembered within the ceremony’s “In Memoriam” phase.
