The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Philip Seymour Hoffman has been found dead in his New York apartment. “The New York Police Department is investigating, and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to determine exact cause of death,” the brief story reports. “The official said Mr. Hoffman, 46 years old, was found dead at his apartment at 35 Bethune St. in the West Village neighborhood of Manhattan.”

A 5.31.13 L.A. Times story by Nardine Saad stated Hoffman “has left a detox center that he entered to get ahead of drug problems that are said to have been spinning out of control, according to reports. The Master actor revealed to TMZ that he’d [begun] using drugs again about a year ago, starting off with prescription pills then escalating to snorting heroin.

“[Hoffman] said the heroin use only lasted about a week, but he decided to check himself into a detox facility on the East Coast to take control of the problem.”

This is the saddest, most shocking, most cataclysmic loss since the death of Heath Ledger six years ago.

Sidenote: Hoffman’s death was reported fraudently yesterday. Some kind of stupid internet hoax (which it was at the time). Denied, laughed off, more internet b.s.