Michelle Trachtenberg Avoided Drugs & Alcohol in Fear They Would ‘Ruin’ Her ‘Career’ Years Before Her Death
Jason Pham
Michelle Trachtenberg credited her “protective” mother for her staying away from drugs and alcohol as a child star. In an interview with Complex in 2010, Trachtenberg—who starred in movies like Harriet the Spy and Ice Princess as a child—explained why she never experimented with drugs or alcohol unlike other teen actors from her era.
“My mom was protective, but she just said, ‘It’s your choice—you ruin your career or don’t,'” Trachtenberg said. “If you realize how lucky you are to be sitting in the position you are, then you just don’t drink, don’t do the cocaine.” She continued, “‘The cocaine!’ I call it ‘the weed.’ I’m drug dumb. I don’t know shit about drugs. I just don’t do that because I would never do anything to—God forbid—ruin my career. I value my career.”
Trachtenberg also confirmed that she had been in “situations” where she was around drugs and alcohol, which left her “overly paranoid” about her surroundings. “I’ve been in situations where I’ve been petrified of putting my purse down because I was traveling the next day and I knew that there was stuff on the counter. I’m just overly paranoid,” she said.
Trachtenberg died on Febraury 26, 2025, in New York City. She was 39 years old. Her body was found at 8 a.m. ET at One Columbus Place, a luxury apartment on Central Park South in New York, after police responded to a call for a woman in cardiac arrest, according to TMZ. When they arrived, officials found Trachtenberg unresponsive and she was pronounced dead on the scene. Trachenberg’s mother, Lana, was the one who found her “unresponsive, lying on her back in bed” and called the police.
TMZ also confirmed that Trachtenberg underwent a liver transplant shortly before her death. According to the Mayo Clinic, a liver transplant is a surgery that removes a lier 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.
Though it’s unclear why Trachtenberg needed the liver transplant, a source told People that, in the year before her death, Trachtenberg was “really down emotionally” and had been dealing with “health issues.”
“She told friends she was struggling,” the insider said, adding that Trachtenberg looked “pale, gaunt” and “very thin.” “She was really, really sick and open with those in her circle about how much she was struggling.”
A source also told Us Weekly at the time that those around Trachtenberg knew she was ill but didn’t know how poor her health was until she died. “We all knew she was sick, but we didn’t realize how sick. For a long while, she had back issues and then bone problems; she fell a few times,” the insider said.
The source also claimed that “every time” they spoke with Trachtenberg over the past 10 years, there was something “wrong” with her health. “She lived back and forth between New York and L.A.,” the insider said. “When you asked her what she was doing for work, she would say she was taking care of herself.”
A second source told the magazine that “something felt off” the last time they saw Trachtenberg. “You could sense something was going on when you saw her. She was really frail and had been sick for a while,” the insider said.
A year before her death, Trachtenberg clapped back at concerns over her health amid speculation that she lost weight due to 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 an Instagram post 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.”
