Michelle Trachtenberg Addressed Claims She Looked ‘Sick’ Months Before Her Death
Jason Pham
Hollywood is mourning the loss of another young life, and with the news of Michelle Trachtenberg’s death, there have been a lot of questions around how her health in the months before her passing.
Did Michelle Trachtenberg have an illness before her death?
While Trachtenberg’s exact health issues haven’t been confirmed, law enforcement sources told TMZ that she underwent a liver transplant in the past year that may have been rejected by her body, causing complications. Police also told the site that Trachtenberg died of natural causes and that criminality was not suspected in her death.
According to the Mayo Clinic, a liver transplant is a surgery that removes a liver that no longer functions properly due to liver failure and replaces it with either a healthy liver from a deceased donor or a part of a healthy liver from a living donor. Per the organization, cirrhosis — scarring of the liver — is the most common cause of chronic liver failure and the most frequent reason for a liver transplant.
The major causes for cirrhosis include Hepatitis B and C; alcoholic liver disease due to excessive alcohol condition; nonalcoholic fatty liver disease caused by fat build up in the liver; and genetic diseases such as hemochromatosis (which causes excessive iron buildup in the liver) and Wilson’s disease (which causes excessive copper buildup in the liver.) Other causes for a liver transplant include diseases that affect bile ducts that carry bile from the liver, such as biliary cirrhosis, primary sclerosing cholangitis and biliary atresia.
Trachtenberg was found dead at 8 a.m. ET on Wednesday, February 26, 2025, by her mother, according to TMZ. Law enforcement sources told the site that police and paramedics were called to One Columbus Place, a luxury apartment on Central Park South in New York City, for a woman in cardiac arrest. When they arrived, officials found Trachtenberg unresponsive and she was pronounced dead on the scene.
A year before her death, Trachtenberg responded to concerns over her health amid speculation she had lost weight due plastic surgery, drug use or an eating disorder. “I’ve received several comments recently about my appearance. I have never had plastic surgery I am happy and healthy. Check yourself haters,” she wrote in January 2024.
In another post that same month, Trachtenberg also addressed claims that her different appearance was due to malnourishment. “Fun fact. This is my face. Not malnutrition no problems. Why do you have you hate? Get a calendar,” she wrote on Instagram. She also shared another post further shutting down rumors she underwent plastic surgery in March 2024. “It’s good to be #natural 💙💋,” she wrote.
In the comments of another Instagram post at the time, Trachtenberg responded to followers who claimed she looked “sick.” “Explain to me how I look sick,” she wrote in response to one commenter before explaining that her different appearance was due to her becoming older and not a disease. “Did you lose a calendar and not realize I’m not 14. I’m 38. How sad for you to leave such a comment.”
Trachtenberg was a child star who appeared in projects like Harriet the Spy, Inspector Gadget, and Ice Princess.
