Anne Heche's Cause of Death Revealed

Anne Heche died of smoke inhalation and thermal injuries suffered after she crashed her Mini Cooper into a Los Angeles home Aug. 5, the county coroner's office revealed Wednesday. The actress also suffered a "sternal fracture due to blunt trauma," typically caused when a driver's chest hits the steering wheel during a car crash, the Los Angeles Times reports. Heche's rep previously said the actress lost consciousness shortly after the crash and never regained it; she was hospitalized with severe burns and her rep said she suffered a severe brain injury due to lack of oxygen. She was taken off life support Sunday, days after being declared legally dead.

Meanwhile, past interviews of Heche's were being picked up once again in the wake of her death. In the last interview Heche ever gave about her relationship with Ellen DeGeneres, she told her podcast co-host and friend on Better Together last year that DeGeneres was a big part of why Heche was "canceled" after their breakup in 2000, Newsweek reports. Asked why she left DeGeneres, Heche said, "Her goal was to have a lot of money and mine was to find love." She later added of DeGeneres: "She was a b----." She also claimed, per Fox News, that she warned Portia de Rossi against pursuing a relationship with DeGeneres. Heche and de Rossi starred on Ally McBeal together. (More Anne Heche stories.)