River Phoenix's surviving sister, Rain Phoenix, is revealing how her brother's unintended overdose modified her relationship with and understanding of loss of life.
“Once I was 20, my brother River died,” Rain, 52, wrote in an essay for Another Jane Pratt Thing printed on Friday, October 31. “The expertise of dropping him was unimaginably painful and traumatic. Additional compounded by the extreme media protection round his tragic loss of life which felt invasive and merciless.”
River died by unintended drug overdose on October 30, 1993. He was 23. The late actor, Rain, their brother Joaquin Phoenix and River's then-girlfriend Samantha Mathis spent the night time at The Viper Room, then a Los Angeles membership owned partially by Johnny Depp, the night time he died. River was set to carry out with a band, however backed out as a result of he fearful he had overdosed on a substance.
River went into seizures on the sidewalk outdoors the membership and was transported to a hospital, the place he was pronounced useless.
“Now 32 years and lots of losses later, a deepening curiosity about loss of life, grief and the way we as a society course of it, has come alive for me,” Rain continued in her essay.
Rain revealed that she has just lately begun studying in regards to the “loss of life optimistic motion,” which she stated “encourages folks to talk overtly about loss of life, dying and corpses.”
River's ex-girlfriend Martha Plimpton opened up about her relationship with the younger actor throughout a June 2025 interview on Jesse Tyler Ferguson's “Dinner's on Me” podcast.
“He was not as outfitted, I believe, as perhaps another folks may be to deal with that stuff,” she stated in reference to River's relationship with fame. “As a result of he was a really, at coronary heart, very harmless and a driven-by-love human being. So the contradictions of Hollywood and present enterprise had been way more tough for him. It was simpler for me, as a result of I grew up in New York and I used to be already a cynic by the point I used to be 13.”
River Phoenix and household Dianna Whitley/Getty Pictures
The Goonies star continued: “I believe fame was actually laborious on River. I believe he actually simply didn't know what to do with all of that. He wished to do good. The contradictions of it had been too tough.”
The pair first met in 1986 whereas filming The Mosquito Coast, finally courting for 4 years earlier than calling it quits. Plimpton had a entrance row seat to River's rise to fame as he grew to become one of the crucial celebrated actors of his era. She was additionally by his aspect on the 1989 Academy Awards, when he was nominated for Finest Actor in a Supporting Position for his position in Working on Empty.
Although their relationship ended, the 2 remained good mates till River's premature loss of life.
“We did stay mates. We had been one another's past love,” she shared. “That relationship by no means actually goes away. You possibly can't ever let one thing like that go. It's simply too vital and too, like, altering.”
As she put it, “I imply, it's made you who you're, particularly in these actually youth. I imply, it's an enormous a part of who I'm.”
Whereas River might appear to be an uncommon child identify, it's change into fairly fashionable in Hollywood. When Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara welcomed their first youngster in September 2020, the couple determined to call their son River to honor the Oscar winner's late brother, River Phoenix, who died in 1993 at age 23 of a drug […]
Plimpton additionally insisted River might have overcome his habit points if he had been allowed the time.
“He was fortunate to have me and his household, his brothers and sisters,” she shared. “I believe, you recognize, his persona or his affliction, his sickness was extremely tough for him to handle on his personal. “And he by no means actually bought the assistance that I believe he would've executed amazingly nicely with if he had gotten that assist.”
