Red Hot Chili Peppers’ John Frusciante and the Death of River Phoenix

0:00 This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners. Please check the show notes for more information.

0:07 Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is the story about the guitar players some have accused of killing his famous friend, actor River Phoenix. It's a story about drugs, friendship, and using music to escape. It's also about Johnny Depp's Viper Room Hollywood in the nineties, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and they're incredibly soulful. Guitarist John Frusciante a man who makes great music. Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show. That wasn't great music.

0:54 That was a preset loop from my melotron called mellow Down Sleazy m K one. I played you that lute because I can't afford the rights to dream Lover by Mariah Carey. And why would I play you that specific slice of wouldn't throw her out of bed for eating crackers cheese?

1:14 Could I afford it?

1:16 Because that was the number one song in America on October thirty first, nineteen ninety three, and that was the day River Phoenix died from a drink spiked with deadly drugs, which some allege was given to him by Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusconte on this episode Drugs Friendship, Music as Escapism, nineties Hollywood. How River Phoenix really died in the Red Hot Chili.

1:47 Peppers John Frusciante.

1:50 I'm Jake Brennan in This is Disgrace Slam. Did Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Fruciante kill River Phoenix? There are some on the Internet that believe he did. There are dozens of Reddit conversations, YouTube quote unquote documentaries, and TikTok videos that try to make this case, the case that River Phoenix didn't just take too many drugs and die, but that he is alleged to have been given a lethal dose of those drugs purposefully by John Frucientte. There's also a pretty successful director who calls what allegedly happened between the actor and the guitarist homicide. More on this director year later. The John Fruchiante River Phoenix wormhole is deep.

3:04 And it is wide.

3:06 John Fruchiante is one of my favorite guitar players and River Phoenix is one of my favorite actors. So when I heard about this theory. Naturally, I was intrigued, especially because this is the exact type of misadventure that history, in particular music history, tries to cover up. All the elements are there, drugs, celebrity career stakes. We've seen this with celebrities before, particularly with musicians. A rock star dies and for whatever reason, the cause of the rock star's death is covered up, misunderstood, or obscured. Jim Morrison did not die from heart failure. He died from a heroin overdose, a mistake in heroin overdose and excesses. Michael Hutchins did not die from autoerotic asphyxiation. He ended his own life depressed,

3:58 possibly impacted by CTE and Taylor Hawkins from Foo Fighter as well. The cause of his death is still officially unknown. So the idea that perhaps the death of River Phoenix wasn't what we were told it was, well, this idea didn't surprise me at all.

4:14 But how could this be true?

4:16 This allegation that John Fruciante, famous rock star, killed River Phoenix, one of Hollywood's brightest stars, and got away with it, not only got away with it, but continues to get away with it to thrive, actually is one of the biggest rock stars on the planet in one of the most recognizable bands, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, a band that to this day continues to fill stadiums and sell loads of records. It's not like the Red Hot Chili Peppers are some fringe group.

4:45 They're not.

4:45 They're massive, one of the biggest selling, highest grossing rock and roll bands of all time, a band that, in twenty twenty six, is currently writing a new album of music for their fans, many of whom, like myself, were also fans of River Phoenix, a friend John Frusciante, allegedly killed by giving River a liquid speedball, a lethal cocktail of alcohol, heroin, and cocaine. The drink sent River into an overdose. Back in the early morning hours of October thirty first, nineteen ninety three, at Johnny Depp's Viper Room, Rivers stumbled out of the Hollywood club, collapsed onto the Sunset Strip, and went into cardiac arrest right there in front of the freaked out clubgoers, spilling onto the street.

5:34 Once the ambulance got River to Cedar Sinai Hospital, he was officially pronounced dead. Red Hot Chili Pepper's Bassis Flee, another friend of Rivers, was with.

5:44 River's body in the hospital.

5:46 Flee was with River on the street holding him in the moments before he died, and Flee was with River in the ambulance on the ride to Cedar Sinai trying to help.

5:57 Chili Pepper's guitarist.

5:58 John Fruchiante, meanwhile, was nowhere to be found. He'd been at the viper room earlier, just like Flea, and with River in the moments before his death, But after the ambulance took River Phoenix away, John Fruciante was gone, and for a long while after the death of River Phoenix, John Fruchiante was nowhere to be found. After River's death, River's father, John Lee Bottom told the Australian magazine TV Week, the Frucionte quote may have gone back into the woodwork now.

6:30 But he'll have to answer.

6:31 He's keeping out of my way because he knows I'm looking for him. If you see him, tell him I'm going to strangle him unquote. Before John Fruchiante was receiving threats from the father of one of the world's most famous actors, he was just a kid from southern California, who played guitar and obsessed over his favorite band, the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Specific John obsessed over Chili Pepper's guitarist Hello Slovak.

7:04 John sat in his bedroom and learned all of.

7:06 Hellell's parts, just like he learned Jimmy Hendricks riffs.

7:10 And when HELLEL.

7:11 Slovak overdosed on heroin and died in nineteen eighty eight, John Fruciante found his way into an audition of SERTs with his favorite band. John's playing, even at the age of eighteen, was soulful, vulnerable, informed by masters like Jimmy Hendrix in Parliament Funkadelics Eddie Hazel, but uniquely his own.

7:33 John Freuchiante was on his own trip, and he seemed to be wholly compelled by music and music alone. Aside from girls, there wasn't much else John Fruchiante concerned himself with other than listening to and making music. These two interests were also the only things that concerned the surviving members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea and singer Anthony Keatis and new drummer Chad Smith. John Fruciante fit perfect like a vintage stratocaster slung over Bony's shoulders.

8:06 So imagine that you're eighteen years old and you join your favorite band. You join your favorite band. This is what John Fruciante did in nineteen eighty eight. He went from learning Chili Peppers riffs in his bedroom to being in the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and by November of eighty eight, John was in the studio with the Chili Peppers, and in the spring of nineteen eighty nine, he and the band emerged with their fourth album, the album that would be their commercial breakthrough, Mother's Milk and a new sound.

8:39 A more melodic sound, shifted in large part by John Fruchiante's playing two singles, Knock Me Down and a scorching cover of Stevie Wonders Higher Ground, helped propel the band onto MTV at across college radio stations, and into a recording contract with Warner Brothers Records and back into the studio with produce Rick Rubin. In nineteen ninety one, the Red Hawk Chili Peppers began recording their Blood Sugar, Sex Magic album in a Laurel Canyon house known simply as the Mansion. The Mansion was where Houdini used to hang out, where it was rumored Houdini's wife held seances the ghosts in the mansion. It was said that their spirits could still be felt. John Fruchonte tapped into the supernatural vibe

9:30 at the mansion and played his ass off Ghosts, Mansions, Houdini, whatever.

9:42 There's no denying it.

9:43 John Fruchonta's guitar playing on Blood Sugar Sex Magic is undeniably great g r e. A T. Fruschante is a motherfucker of a guitarist, and there is no better example than every single note on this album. Back in the early nineties, I wasn't the only one apparently who thought this. Blood Sugar Sex Magic was released on September twenty fourth, nineteen ninety one, the same day as Nirvana's never Mind, A Tribe called Quest the low End Theory in Pixie's Trump lamont. Even among this group of iconic releases, Blood Sugar Sex Magic distinguished itself by becoming the second highest selling album of the bunch, selling over fourteen million copies, less than Nevermind's thirty million, but far more than a

10:32 Tribe called Quest one point five million, or the Pixies five hundred thousand and trouncing the sales figures for any and all previous Chili Peppers releases. John Fruciente was suddenly famous, not that he cared. In fact, being famous was not something John Fruchiante wanted at all. He sat as Hollywood bungalow hi, waiting on the return of his famous friend River Phoenix. River was one of the most talented and promising young actors in Hollywood. His star turn roles in films such as Stand By Me, Running on Empty, A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon, and Gus van Zantz My Own Private Idaho had led to a consensus in Hollywood. River Phoenix was the next big thing, the next Robert Redford, the next Jack Nicholson, the next Harrison Ford,

11:26 pick your next Whoever. By nineteen ninety three, it was River Phoenix's time. Like many young celebrities, River Phoenix partied, and yes, like his friend John Fruciante, River Phoenix used drugs. River had recently played a junkie in My Own Private Idaho, but John Fruciante was an actual junkie, and John was of course also a musician, a great musician, and so John had something River wanted in escape. To River Phoenix, music was always an escape, not just listening to music, but playing music, as River did in his band Aleka's Attic.

12:10 For River, playing.

12:11 Music was an escape from the pressure of being a celebrity and playing music with John Frusciante at John's house, at the home of one of the world's greatest young guitar players, a guitar player from the Red Hot Chili Peppers that gave River something that acting never could, an unassailable type of artistic credibility.

12:32 River wasn't just some good.

12:33 Looking mattin eighteen Idol the next big thing. No. With this buddy, John Fruchiante, River Phoenix was a musician. But lately there was more to John Fruchiante than just music. There was also an undeniable darkness, a turn from weed to cocaine and heroin, a turn that would play out one of Hollywood's saddest riffs right there on the sunsets striped sidewalk outside the Viper Room, on the night Whereriver Phoenix died. River Phoenix wasn't the only one for whom music was an escape.

13:38 The same could be said for John Fruchiante.

13:41 In fact, music was more than an escape, an escape from life's drudgery, from the straight world, from authority, from having to hold down a traditional job. Music was life. Music, specifically, making it was John Fruchianti's life's blood. Music was holding up in a haunted Hollywood mansion with his bandmates and Houdini's ghost and not leaving for months, smoking heroic amounts of weed with flea and using his guitar to tap into a different frequency to create something that hadn't existed before, something that was beautiful, something that couldn't be held or touched, only felt something sounds, songs that would bring joy to people that John Fruciante would never meet.

14:25 Music was love.

14:27 Music was as close to God as one could get, and music was all that mattered to the Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarists. All of that can be felt on Blood Sugar Sex Magic. This soulful, spiritual connection between John and the rest of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and because of this, the music they made on Blood Sugar Sex Magic was directly responsible for the huge success that the album achieved. It was beyond anything Fruciante imagined and far beyond anything John Fruciantai could handle. The voices started during the recording sessions. First, there were whispers, fragments of words tangled up in the blues falling off of the color wheel that John Fruchiante spun from.

15:16 During guitar takes.

15:18 He could manipulate the colors that he saw bleeding between the mansion's floors and ceilings by bending his strings on his Fender stratocaster.

15:28 John had powerful hands like Robert.

15:31 Johnson's or Jimmy Hendrix's. Tonality was merely suggestive tone. Real tone sprung from one's body, from one's life, from the way it was lived, from the way one walked, talked, even from how one had sex. No matter the vibe of the song John Fruchiante's bandmates were going for, John could wrangle the essence from the frequencies floating throughout the mansion and wrestle them into a rift or a solo that elevated whatever rhythm or lyric. The Red Hot Chili Peppers were aiming to.

16:05 Get down onto tape.

16:06 With producer Rick Rubin, But those voices, they wouldn't go away. In fact, they only got stronger as the recording sessions progressed. They were warning him get out. John didn't understand here. He was creating the greatest music of his life, music that he knew in his heart would touch millions, But now something inside him was telling.

16:32 Him to run.

16:35 The music had once been the solution, but this music was about to become the problem. It was so good, so powerful, so tapped into something else, perhaps something like what Alistair Crawley called magic with a k maagiic k the art of using your mind and actions to shape the world exactly as you intend. Except John Frusconte wasn't the only one in that studio. There were three other musicians using their minds to shape the world as they intended.

17:10 And what they intended to achieve with their music was different from what John Fruschonte intended. Flee, Anthony Keatis Chad Smith. Their intentions went beyond the spiritual. Their intentions were in part material. The Red Hot Chili Peppers, regardless of what John Fruchiante wanted, were going to become one of the biggest bands on the planet as a band. During the recording of Blood, Sugar, Sex Magic, they tapped into something bigger, something cosmic, and as a result, the music they created was just too damn good, a slinky, soulful, sexual vibe that was at once totally unique and universal. Songs like give It Away, Funky Monks, under the Bridge, Suck My Kiss, Breaking the Girl, the examples are endless. There's not a

18:07 bad song on Blood Sugar Sex Magic. Despite its whopping seventy three minute runtime, the album was not going to be denied. It spawned five hit singles, including the massive chart toppers under the Bridge and Give It Away, which drove constant music video rotation on MTV and radio airplay worldwide.

18:29 The exposure fueled what seemed like a never ending global tour that saw the Chili Peppers graduating from small clubs to sold out arenas, an explosion of international demand and magazine cover features. It all rocketed the group to the center of early nineties pop culture. The ghosts saw it coming.

18:55 The voices in the Mansion told him so, beware, get out, oh Run. Before Blood Sugar Sex Magic was even finished, John Fruciante knew that he would have to quit the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Imagine that you're John Fruciante. You're eighteen years old. Your favorite band is the Red Hot Chili Peppers. You know all their songs. You sit in your bedroom and play them over and over again. Their guitar player, Hello Slovak, is a hero to you. He overdoses on heroin and dies, and somehow you get to replace him in the Red Hot Chili Peppers. You make an album called Mother's Milk, but you're the new guy along for the ride. And by the time you get into the studio at age twenty one to record Blood Sugar, Sex Magic, everyone knows you're the shit, including your bandmates

19:45 who are more experienced than you. But you're a monster of a player, and you pour your heart and soul into the music along with your bandmates, and the four of you create something undeniably great. The record is huge as it sh and now you're famous. It's every kid's dream, but not yours. You don't want the fame. You can't handle the fame. You just want to make music and play it to kids like yourself in small clubs like the ones you used to go see the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Playing the fame, the pressure, the people, it's all too much. It's all too much like the drag of life you were trying to escape through music in the first place. So you realize you have to quit playing in your favorite band, and your bandmates don't understand that.

20:34 You can't make them understand, so you show them on Saturday night live in front of ten million people. You sabotage yourself and the band, and when it comes time to play your hit single under the Bridge, you decide to experiment with the opening riff and play something that is nearly unrecognizable, because fuck it, why not.

20:55 You sing the backup vocal in.

20:57 A different key than your singer Anthony Keatis he's tripped up with the ghosts aren You're singing in tune with the voices in your head and no one else who cares if the rest of the world can't hear it.

21:09 You hate this song, and you.

21:11 Hate with this song what this music has done to your relationship with music. You don't want to tour, and you don't want to play arenas or go on television or answer questions from reporters. You want to sit in your house and play guitar and paint and smoke weed and drink wine and listen to Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa.

21:30 But you can't because you're a rock star, and because you're in a band. But your bandmates can't handle your unhappiness. You all head to Japan, and while there you finally do what the voices have been telling you to do all along. You quit your band. You quit playing guitar in your favorite band. You quit the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and you retreat inward. You seclude yourself in your Hollywood bungalow, makes strange, dissonant music. You graduate from wine and we to heroin and cocaine, and eventually to crack. You light your furniture on fire. You sleep with your stratocaster. You are constantly high mainlining junk, and you smoke so much.

22:16 Crack your teeth start to deteriorate.

22:18 You spray paint the walls of your home, and the graffiti obscures the blood that splatters from your veins. You've traded your bandmates for new friends, and one of them is a famous actor. By nineteen ninety three, Jeff Fruchiante had completely descended into drugs since departing from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, with the band having replaced John, initially with a Rik Marshall. John spent what little lucid time he had between drug binges making music for what would become his incredibly dissonant, disjointed first solo album, Neandre Ladies and usually Us to t Shirt. John's main endeavor during this time may have bet his drug use, but his reputation was still that of a serious musician, a guy

23:09 who played his heart out on the Red Hot Chili Pepper's hit album, achieved fame and was too cool for it all, and walked away while on top. John Fruchiante was an artist's artist, a musician's musician, a musician who descended almost completely into the darkness. A musician who every day took his life into his own hands by injecting dangerous concoctions of heroin and cocaine speedballs. A musician who lived in Squalor high above the Sunset Strip. A musician who, in the last days of October nineteen ninety three, was waiting for his friend to arrive, waiting for River Phoenix.

23:55 We'll be right back after this word word word. In nineteen ninety three, the Viper Room on Hollywood Sunset Strip was quite literally one of the coolest clubs in the world. It wasn't just Hollywood glitz, and it wasn't Hollywood glamour. It was a real rock club with real rock stars hanging out with real actors and artists and real people milling about them all. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were the first band to play the Viper Room when it opened in the summer.

24:34 Of ninety three.

24:35 Beck played one of his very first shows at the club as an unknown Johnny Depp owned the Viper Room. It was Johnny's own clubhouse. It was where he hung out nightly, where he could escape the pressures of celebrity sort of and make music himself on stage with his friends who were also musicians. Johnny played in a band called Pete. Its members included Gibby Haynes from The Butthole Surfers, who'd gained mainstream recognition as part of the first lollapaloosatur Tom Waite's collaborator Chucky Weiss, and sometimes Steve Jones from the Sex Pistols and Flee from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, along with a small crew of other musicians who drifted in and out of the band's live sets.

25:18 On the Viper Room stage.

25:20 Among the members of p there was a crew of young talented musicians who were Viper Room regulars, and they formed a tight knit social circle with Johnny Depp. And they included Bob Forrest of the band Thelonious Monster, Al Jorgensen from Ministry, Evan Dando of the Lemonheads, John Fruchiante from the Red Hot Chili.

25:40 Peppers, and River Phoenix.

25:43 River, like Johnny Depp, was an actor first and the musician second, but hanging with the rock stars at the Viper Room boosted River's estimation of himself as an artist.

25:54 And playing with Johnny Depp's.

25:56 Bamp on stage as he and John Fruchiante were playing to do well, that would cement River's reputation is not only an actor, but as a musician as well. Playing music on stage at the Viper Room may have represented an escape for River Phoenix and for Johnny Depp. But out on the street outside the club, the Viper.

26:18 Room was a snake pit of paparazzi.

26:21 Occasionally, the intrusive vipers made their way inside to capture on film compromising candids of young famous Hollywood actors and musicians. In private or worse, in private embarrassing moments that they could then sell to the highest bidder. So another level of privacy was needed. This is where John Fruchante's house came into play. The car was out back behind the Viper Room waiting. John Fruschante's house was just a two minute drive away, and in those two minutes the paparazzi those snakes with their cameras. They could be vanquished as long as they'd played everything right, and Johnny Depp knew how to play a part. Johnny bolted out the back door.

27:10 Of the club.

27:11 He dove into the back seat of the waiting car his friend Bob forres. The felonious monster was the Wheelman. Bob's band was great, but Bob was not famous, not yet, so the snaky paps wouldn't recognize Bob. Bob drove past. The snakes were none the wiser. John's Place was private. John's Place was where Johnny, Bob River, Phoenix, Gibby, Haynes, Al Jorgenson, where the whole crew from the Viper Room hung out when they weren't at the Viper Room. It was where they met up before they went out. It was where they met up after.

27:44 They went out.

27:45 It was their first stop when they made it back into town after being out on tour or on set. It was their last stop before heading out of town for tour or to the set. And that's because John Frusciante's house was where they kept the drugs. It should be said that although Johnny Depp and River Phoenix were tight with these musicians, Johnny Depp and River Phoenix were not hardcore drug users. By nineteen ninety three, John Fruchiante was a full blown heroin addict. Cocaine, crack cocaine, and heroin were all readily available and frequently used, not only by Fruchiante, but also by Bob Forrest and the rest of the Viper Room rock stars who made up Johnny Depp's crew. By October nineteen ninety three, John Fruchante's drug

28:34 use had led to a precipitous decline into darkness. By this point in his life, it's no stretch to say that drugs had consumed John Fruchante. They had become his primary endeavor, and his home reflected it. There's a short film, a so called documentary called Stuff that Johnny Depp had made with Gibbie Haynes during this period, and it's about, well, I guess it's about how John Fruchiante was living at the time.

29:01 It's hard to tell.

29:03 It just looks like a squalid depiction of an artist's drug life, a slow motion descent into hell. The camera drifts like a stoned ghost throughout John Fruchonte's home. It's soundtracked by the guitar players dissonant and creepy home recordings, and the walls are covered with spray paint, and the furniture is mostly torn apart, empty and abandoned beer and wine bottles. They compete with overfilled ash trays to occupy every last inch of surface space. John Fruchiante lases about, and he's prone and ghostly. Winona Ryder's godfather, the beat icon an LSD researcher, doctor Timothy Leary. He stands frozen in the kitchen statuesque in a junkie's lean. Johnny Depp may not have lived like John Fruchiante, but for whatever reason,

29:57 he was determined to document how excessive drug use had influenced the former Red Hot Chili Pepper's life. In fact, the way John Fruchante lived was too dark even for the hardest of hardcore drug users amongst the Viper Room crew. It was because of this that Bob Forrest made it a point to warn River Phoenix to stay away from John Fruchiante's place. In the fall of nineteen ninety three, River Phoenix returned to Hollywood from Utah, where he'd been filming a thriller entitled Dark Blood.

30:30 There are differing.

30:30 Accounts of River Phoenix's relationship with drugs and alcohol during this time. Some, like his girlfriend Samantha Mathis, say that during the shooting of Dark Blood, he'd been mostly clean. Others contend that River's alcohol and cocaine use were a constant for the young actor. To River's friend Bob Forrest, there is no question about River state when he got back into town. To Bob, River appeared to be clean and healthy, and for River Phoenix in nineteen ninety three, a healthy lifestyle paired with what to that point was an unimpeachable acting career and undeniable on screen talent, meant that the sky was the limit.

31:10 For the twenty three year old.

31:15 River Phoenix was living up to his name. In a skyscape glowing with stars. He was streaking, burning brighter than most. This and genuine concern for his friend were the reasons Bob forrest Fell compelled to warn River, upon his re entry into the Hollywood scene, to stay away from John Fruchiante's house. But River Phoenix wouldn't listen. Bob ran into him at a party on sunset. River looked good. Bob told him that John Fruchonte did not. John's eyes were hollowing out, his teeth were starting to rot. His speech was erratic, his mind was shot. John Fruchonte was in a bad way. Listened but said little look. Bob said, you don't understand. You haven't done drugs for months.

32:07 You shouldn't go up there.

32:08 It's passed the point of fun up there these days.

32:12 River kept quiet.

32:13 Bob leaned in to try to make his point one last time. River, it's bad. It's so bad that just walking in the door John's place and taking a deep breath might lead to an od.

32:25 River didn't get it. Bob bounced.

32:27 River Phoenix went straight to John Fruchante's home and hold up for days. Crack cocaine through the pipe. Liquid cocaine shot directly into the vein, and then heroin to come down. They repeated the cycle over and over again for days. River, Phoenix and John Fruchiante were beyond high, high on drugs and high on the idea that the two of them were going to grab their guitars and head down to the Viper room to sit in on stage with Johnny Depp and his band p Flee and Al Jorgensen.

33:00 Were going to be there and on stage with Pea as well.

33:04 And that's exactly what was happening. On the evening of October thirtieth, nineteen ninety three, River and John arrived. It was clear they were walking disasters. Among the clubgoers Christina Applegate, Scott Ian of Anthrax, House of Pains, Everlast, among others. On stage, John appeared even worse than when he arrived. Mercifully, the first set ended, John let the stage, River stumbled through the crowd. River wanted desperately to get up on that stage, but he was wasted, and Flee told him that that wasn't going to happen. Pea eventually started their second set. River and John watched from the side of the stage. River then stumbled to a table to sit down.

33:49 A cup was passed around. It contained a drug concoction of unknown origin. River, like many others, sipped from it. Then he gulped down the cup's entire contents. River turned white. He stumbled into the crowd. A commotion broke out, shouting, then screams from outside the front door. Out on Sunset Strip, River Phoenix lay convulsing on the sidewalk. His brother, Joaquin, just nineteen, called nine to one one from inside. His sister Rain gave River mouth to mouth. His girlfriend Samantha screamed out in fear. Flee tried steadying River, but the convulsions were too much. River's body was failing him, completely overrun by the drugs in his system. The ambulance pulled up outside the viper room. River was loaded in the back.

34:38 Flea jumped in to accompany him. It was minutes before they arrived at Cedar Sinai, but by then it was too late. River Phoenix was pronounced dead at one point fifty one am on October thirty first, nineteen ninety three. He was just twenty three years old. The Red Hawk Chili Peppers loved River Phoenix. Anthony Keatis had become close with River during the recordings for Blood, Sugar, Sex Magic.

35:29 Anthony was so enamored with the young actor that he wrote about him in the song give It Away. There's a River born to be a giver. Keep you warm, won't let you shiver. His heart is never going to wither. Come on, everybody, time to deliver. Flee grew close with River during the filming of My Own Private Idaho, the Gus vans Ant film that Flee also had a part in.

35:52 The two hung out, constantly listened to music, and played music together, and Flee cared so much about River's well being on that night at the Vice Upper Room that he was the one who jumped into the ambulance to be with his dying friend. John Fruchiante, on the other hand, at that time, in nineteen ninety three, was on the outs with the Red.

36:10 Hot Chili Peppers. He'd quit the band.

36:13 Not only had he quit, but Anthony Keatis believed John betrayed the band by sabotaging their set on Saturday Night Live. And now in ninety three, John was consumed by drugs and River Phoenix was dead from drugs officially from an overdose cocaine and morphine, unofficially from a liquid speedball. At least, that's the accepted public explanation of how River died, but part of the Internet believes that John Frusciante killed River Phoenix from Reddit, John's role in the Night of River Phoenix's Death from Medium, The Curious Case of River Phoenix's Death from YouTube, who gave River Phoenix the fatal drugs?

37:01 The John Fruciante.

37:02 Theory, and the reason the Internet believes this is because sometime around twenty twelve twenty thirteen, River's friend, the director William Rickert, who directed River.

37:15 In A Night in the Life of Jimmy.

37:17 Reardon, he gave an interview in which he stayed at point blank his opinion that John Fruchionte killed River Phoenix. Rickart claimed that he learned this from River's girlfriend, Samantha Mathis, who was at the Viper room that night. Rickart said Samantha Mathis told him that John Fruchiante came up to the table that she was sitting at and said, drink this River, It'll make you feel fabulous, and that River drank the entire cup and then stumbled off into his overdose.

37:48 Rickert goes on in the interview to clearly state it's called homicide. The interview is very compelling, but there's only one problem with There's no record of Samantha Mathis ever saying any of this. There's only William Rickard's claim that she said it. This is where the entire theory stems from from hearsay. What Samantha Mathis actually said about the events of that night, as she recounted to The Guardian, was quote, I didn't see anyone doing drugs, but he was high in a way that made me uncomfortable.

38:27 Unquote.

38:28 Okay, let's assume for a minute that what William Rickards said Samantha Mathis said is true. That allegedly John Fruchante gave River Phoenix a drink filled with cocaine and heroin and said, drink this, riv It'll make you feel fabulous. Why wouldn't River Phoenix's family sue John Fruchante.

38:47 Hell, why wouldn't William Rickard sue John Fruchante.

38:51 The director had a track record of bringing lawsuits against those who he felt aggrieved him. He sued the Writer's Guild of America. He sued the Director Guild as well. These are over separate issues, but I don't want to digress. The point here is that the man wasn't afraid of spending money on lawyers. Beyond these questions, though, the bigger question for me, and the biggest challenge to this theory that John Fruchonte was allegedly responsible for the death of River Phoenix's Why would the Red Hot Chili Peppers let John Fruchionte back into their band. River was their friend.

39:27 John Fruchonte had once been their friend. Sure, but John had betrayed them. He embarrassed them on live television. Doesn't it seem more likely that if one of your friends, a friend who abandoned you, was responsible for the death of another friend, a friend you loved and who loved you, well, wouldn't you not want to have anything to do with the bad friend, the one who killed the good friend.

39:53 The last thing you would do would be to invite.

39:55 Him back into your band.

39:58 But that's exactly what the Red Hot Chili Peppers did nineteen ninety eight, Hollywood. John Fruchante is alive, but barely.

40:15 It's been five.

40:15 Years since River Phoenix's death. Two years since John's home burned down the one depicted by Johnny Depp in his documentary, and John's living conditions now in his new Hollywood Hills home are somehow even worse. John's teeth are rotted into skinny shards.

40:34 They're brown and yellow.

40:36 His fingernails are inexplicably gone in their place putrid, hardened black blood, and the skin on his arms appears to be dripping off.

40:45 Of his bones.

40:47 There are massive abscesses infections from improperly shooting heroin and cocaine. His legs are scarred from the lit ends of his cigarettes. A junkie is occupational hazard caused by not off while smoking. John is a visitor today his old friend Bob Forrest. Bob is still using, but he's not nearly as bad off as.

41:12 Bob.

41:12 Has a message, John, You're going to die at any moment if you don't.

41:17 Let me take you to rehab right now. For whatever reason.

41:21 On that day of all days, John Fruchionte gets the message. He makes a bargain with himself. He'll go to rehab and he'll get clean, and he'll stay clean for a year, and if after a year's time. He can't handle life sober, he'll kill himself. John Fruchiante did not kill himself. He got clean, and he stayed clean, and it wasn't long before he got another visitor. This time it was his old friend Flee checking in on him. John was clearly doing much better, and Flee told John that if you ever wanted a jam again with the band, that he'd be open to it. Eventually, a rehearsal was set up and the magic was still there. John was asked to rejoin the Red Hot Chili Peppers in nineteen ninety eight.

42:14 When Flee called him to give him the news, John broke down in tears of gratitude. He was clean, yes, but now once again his life had purpose. Music had provided that purpose another escape. John Fruchante escaped drugs by turning once again toward music. River Phoenix had attempted to use music as an escape as well, but drugs overcame him on that night at the Viper Room. Back in nineteen ninety three, John's returned to the Chili Peppers, it wasn't all smooth sailing. He left the band again in two thousand and nine due to exhaustion, and then returned a second time in twenty nineteen. When he did flee, posted on so media, John's back and River Phoenix's sister, Rain commented with a simple heart emoji. So I ask you,

43:09 oh mighty Internet, why would River's sister, the one who was with him on the sidewalk outside of the viper room the night he died, why would she publicly show her support to the dude who supposedly killed her brother. She wouldn't because she doesn't believe the guitarist is guilty. I don't believe John Fruschanti is guilty of killing River Phoenix either, or.

43:32 That he's even guilty of manslaughter.

43:35 River drank a liquid speedball from a cup that, yes, perhaps had been handed to him by someone else, and there are accounts that multiple people sipped from that cup that night, but River was the only one who gulped it down entirely. River Phoenix was young, but he was an adult who made his own decisions, and this one was a stupid, unnecessary decision, one that cost him his life and cost us fans a career will never get.

44:02 To see play out.

44:04 Imagine River Phoenix instead of Leonardo DiCaprio and The Departed.

44:07 By the way, but I digress.

44:10 What this decision costs River Phoenix's family and friends, yes, even his friends in the Red Hot Chili Peppers. It was immeasurable pain. This isn't me defending a famous rock star who I'm a fan of. Those who know me and have listened to Disgrace and for years understand that I'm not shy about challenging the chosen and often false narratives put forth by famous musicians. See our past episodes on Foo Fighters, Jerry Lee Lewis and others for exhibits A, B, and C through Z. No, this isn't me defending John Fruchante.

44:46 It's me defending the truth. Admittedly there's a thin line between the truth and the conspiracy, but the evidence does not support what the Internet has been claiming.

44:58 That's a bum out for the Internet.

45:00 And the conspiracy theorists and the generators of AI slop. But it's a win for humanity, and that's anything but a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland. All right, guys, thanks for checking out this episode of Disgraceland on John Frusciante and River Phoenix. I want to know what you think.

45:25 I laid out the case here pretty much as best I could in its entirety as I see it, with all the relevant facts. Do you think that John Frusciante had something to do with River Phoenix's death? Let me know six one seven nine oh six six six three eight, voicemail and text. Hit me on the socials at disgracelanmdpod disgrace lampod at gmail dot com. Make sure you got auto downloads on Apple turned on.

45:48 Here comes some credits.

45:51 Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis, the Exactly Right Network in iHeart Podcasts. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelampod dot com. If you're listening as a disgracelan All Access member, thank.

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