(no subject)
Im totally shocked and
(New York City, NY) - Indie starlet Natasha Lyonne, who became a gay film favorite with roles in movies including But I’m a Cheerleader, If These Walls Could Talk 2, Party Monster and Die, Mommie, Die, is fighting for her life in a New York hospital after being diagnosed with Hepatitis C.
The 26-year-old actress hasn’t been seen publicly since a judge issued a warrant for her arrest in April after she ducked out of a court hearing. Lyonne was found last week “struggling to survive” in New York’s Beth Israel Hospital, according to Access Hollywood.
The New York Post reports that Lyonne is battling Hepatitis C, a heart infection and a collapsed lung. Reports also say the actress was found with track marks and is receiving methadone treatment, typically used to help combat heroin addiction.
This is just the latest setback for Lyonne, who exploded on the Hollywood scene with critically acclaimed performances in late ’90s hits Slums of Beverly Hills, Everyone Says I Love You and the American Pie series.
In 2002, she pled guilty to a DUI charge in Miami and was subsequently ordered to six months probation and 50 hours community service. Last December, the actress was charged with criminal mischief, harassment and trespassing after she allegedly flipped out on her New York neighbor, ripping a mirror off the woman's wall and threatening to sexually molest her dog.
Lyonne had been due in court April 19 to answer the charges but left the courthouse early, prompting Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Abraham Clott to put out an arrest warrant. It was her third non-attendance.
The actress was subsequently evicted from her New York apartment by landlord and fellow actor Michael Rappaport, a friend of Lyonne who initially invited her to move in after the two hit it off at an event in 1997.
In April, Rappaport told E! Online Lyonne’s life had been in a downward spiral since the fall of 2003. He said he responded to ongoing complaints from neighbors that Lyonne was partying at all hours of the night and constantly had “random men sprawled out at her place at all times” by confronting the actress.
“I felt sick to my stomach the moment she touched me. Her body was so skinny,” he said in April. “It looked like a grenade had gone off. There was garbage everywhere. There were glasses smashed in the kitchen and standing water in the clogged tub with flies hovering over it. That girl needs help.”
Reports from the New York Post claim Lyonne may have been living on the streets before turning up in New York’s Bellevue Hospital under a pseudonym earlier this month. She was subsequently transferred to Beth Israel.
“I'm crying actually,” Lyonne’s father Aaron Braunstein, a former boxing promoter, told Access Hollywood Friday. “It's terrible, you know. It's my little girl. But she's going to get better. We're praying for her, and she's a tough girl.”
According to a Mayo Clinic report, the primary mode of transmission of hepatitis C is via contaminated blood through needles shared by drug users or through blood transfusions. News reports have yet to confirm whether drugs were found in Lyonne’s system. The disease can lead to potentially serious liver damage.
Braunstein, who told Access Hollywood he visited his daughter last week, says he thinks Lyonne may have picked up the virus while shooting a movie abroad three years ago.
“She's probably with the wrong crowd,” he said. “The main thing, she picked up the liver thing in Bulgaria during [filming of] The Grey Zone.”
Speaking to Access Hollywood, Braunstein disputed the report that Lyonne was homeless and suggested he might take legal action against the paper. “There's a confidentiality between patient, doctor and hospital, so all of this is probably going to be a major lawsuit,” he told the show.
Lyonne has not had a publicist or Hollywood representation for the last several months. She was last seen on the big screen in Blade: Trinity. Her latest film, the indie comedy Max & Grace, about a suicidal couple who break out of a mental institution, premiered at South by Southwest in Austin in March and has been making the rounds on the festival circuit.