US actor Michael K Williams died after overdosing on a combination of heroin, cocaine, fentanyl and p-fluorofentanyl, the New York Chief Medical Examiner has confirmed.
Williams, 54, was found unconscious and unresponsive by his nephew at his home in New York on 6 September.
The Chief Medical Examiner’s office had determined his death was accidental.
Williams shot to fame for his role as Omar Little in HBO’s The Wire that ran from 2002 to 2008 and is re-watched constantly in streaming.
Williams was also a ubiquitous character actor in other shows and films for more than two decades, creating another classic character as Chalky White in HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire” from 2010 to 2014, and appearing in the films “12 Years a Slave” and “Assassin’s Creed.”
Williams was born in 1966 in Brooklyn, the son of a mother from Nassau, Bahamas, and a father from South Carolina. He was raised in the Vanderveer Projects in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, and went to George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School
His first forays into entertainment were as a dancer for artists including Missy Elliot, Ginuwine, Crystal Waters and Technotronic.
Williams had been working with a New Jersey charity to smooth the journey for former prison inmates seeking to reenter society, and was working on a documentary on the subject.
During an interview in 2020 of his rough time growing up, he had struggled with drug addiction, which he had spoken frankly about in recent years.