Catherine O’Hara’s Official Cause of Death Revealed After Claims She Looked Noticeably ‘Gaunt’ at Her Final Appearance
Jason Pham
Hollywood has lost another legend. Catherine O’Hara, an Emmy-winning actress best known for her roles in Schitt’s Creek, Beetlejuice and Home Alone, has died.
TMZ broke the news on January 30, 2026, that O’Hara had died at 71 years old. O’Hara’s manager also confirmed the death to People. She’s survived by her husband, production designer Bo Welch, and her two children: sons Luke and Matthew Welch.
What was Catherine O’Hara’s cause of death?
A representative for O’Hara revealed to Rolling Stone that the actress died from a “brief, unspecified illness.” A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Fire Department also confirmed to People that they received a call at 4:45 a.m. on January 30 for an “approximately 70-year-old” woman at O’Hara’s home address, who was transported to the hospital in “serious condition.”
Weeks later, The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed that her cause of death was a blood clot in the lungs, which caused a heart attack. Her immediate cause of death is listed as a pulmonary embolism, with rectal cancer as the underlying cause. O’Hara’s diagnosis cancer diagnosis wasn’t public before her death. The death certificate also states that her body was cremated and her remains were given to her husband.
O’Hara’s last public appearance before her death was in October 2025 at the Angel Awards. A guest at the event told the Daily Mail that O’Hara “looked very slender,” adding, “It was noticeable.”
“Her face was almost gaunt, but she still looked very pretty,” the source continued. “She is a striking-looking woman — and she had a touch of glam going on. She hid her figure in a bulky green pinstriped suit.” The insider added, “She seemed to be in great spirits, however, and was very friendly and upbeat and lovely.”
What was Catherine O’Hara’s health like before her death?
In a 2021 interview, O’Hara revealed that she had cardiac inversus, also known as dextrocardia with situs inversus, a rare congenital condition in which a person’s heart and other internal organs are on the other side of the body. “I’m a freak, yeah!” O’Hara said.
In the interview, O’Hara explained that she learned she had the condition after she and her husband went to the doctor to get tuberculosis tests before their son started nursery school. “I love Western medicine, I just don’t want to be a part of it,” she said. After undergoing “baseline tests,” such as an EKG, O’Hara was told she would have to use a different machine before the nurses informed her that the doctor wanted to perform an X-ray.
“He calls us into his office and says, ‘You’re the first one I’ve met!’ And it’s, ‘OK, I don’t even know the name, ’cause I don’t want to know the name.’ Something cardi-inversa. And then dexter-cardia-and-something-inversa,” she said. “People are going to think I’m so ignorant not to know this, but I kind of don’t want to know. ‘Cause I didn’t know before that.”
While O’Hara’s parents “had left the world” before she discovered the condition, she remembered driving home from the doctor, “wondering about my other siblings, if they know where their hearts are.” (O’Hara is one of seven children.) By coincidence, she called one of her brothers only to learn from her sister-in-law that he had undergone quadruple bypass surgery that same day. “So, he kind of scooped my story that day,” she said. O’Hara confirmed that her brother’s heart was on the left side.
As for her husband’s reaction, O’Hara recalled that when the doctor informed her that her heart and other organs were flipped, Welch immediately joked, “No, her head’s on backwards.”
