EXCLUSIVE: Inside Cindy Crawford's Heartbreak After Son Presley's Death

This past spring, Presley Gerber traveled to Mexico for a last-ditch experimental treatment he hoped could help him put years of addiction and mental-health issues behind him, RadarOnline.com can reveal.

In a March 26 Instagram post showing a quick moment "before everything changed," he admitted he was "absolutely terrified" before taking an intense dose of ibogaine, a controversial psychedelic derived from an African plant that's sometimes used to treat addiction.

Afterward, he was hopeful.

"I faced what I had been running from, and somewhere in all of it, I started finding my way back to myself," he wrote, adding: "We shall see... Praying it's the last time..."

Yet six months later, he was desperately seeking help again.

At 10 p.m. on Sept. 19, a law enforcement source told NBC News, the 27-year-old son of supermodel Cindy Crawford, 60, and Casamigos tequila cofounder Rande Gerber, 64, checked into Resolutions Living, a sober-living residence in Santa Monica, Calif.

The next morning, however, he was found unresponsive in his bedroom and "cold to the touch," per law enforcement. At 9:35 a.m. on Sept. 20, emergency dispatch audio referenced both "cardiac arrest" and an "overdose."

Presley was pronounced dead 10 minutes later.

The official cause of death has not been determined as the medical examiner awaits toxicology results, though authorities are investigating it as a suspected overdose and have said there is no indication of foul play.

Still, questions are mounting over what happened during the troubled model's final hours – including why he was admitted to a structured recovery residence rather than sent to detox.

A TMZ report claimed people who'd had contact with Gerber in his final hours said he looked like he was under the influence when he arrived.

And his devastated family is struggling to comprehend the loss.

"Cindy is in absolute shock. She and Rande are going through h--l right now," as is their daughter, Kaia Gerber, 25, a source told RadarOnline.com. "Cindy's kids are everything to her. Losing a child is truly her worst nightmare."

People who were in regular contact with Presley told TMZ a doctor had been prescribing him ketamine – a dissociative anesthetic also used to treat depression and substance-use disorders, which can be misused recreationally – despite knowing about his history of drug addiction.

Sources close to Presley also told the outlet the drug had become a recurring problem for him and revealed he'd spoken to friends about his struggles with it.

In recent years, Presley had been candid about how serious his troubles had become.

In 2024, he revealed he'd survived a fentanyl overdose that left him in a coma for several days.

"I'm dealing with a current, very high opioid addiction, and I've been on and off of them for years now," he said in an Instagram Story that August.

His issues began when he was just a teen. In December 2018, Presley was arrested for DUI in Beverly Hills at 19 after police pulled him over for speeding in his Tesla. By February 2020, he was a successful model, but felt compelled to tattoo the word Misunderstood on his moneymaking face.

"You don't know how I feel," he hit back at online critics. "You're not in my head."

He later had the ink removed.

By 2023, Presley shared that he wanted to chart a different path, revealing that he hoped to move away from modeling and wanted to get his real estate license.

As he later explained, what the public sometimes saw as acting out was part of a much deeper issue. Two years ago, he launched what he called "Mental Health Mondays" on Instagram, hoping, he said, to "spark real conversations about the stuff most people hide" and to talk about his experiences with depression, panic attacks and night terrors.

Presley, who once said dealing with his mental-health issues was a "24/7 job," also shared his frustrations over getting conflicting advice about when and how to take his medications.

"I'd like doctors to be like, 'Take this three times a day,'" he said in one video.

"But every psychiatrist I've had – and I've had 15 – are like, 'Here's 20 medications and take this if you feel like this, take this as needed.' And I'm like, 'No, don't give me that much leeway.' I need some direction."

Behind the scenes, Crawford and Rande spent years trying to get their son help. "They put him in front of the best psychiatrists they could find, they paid for the finest rehabs money could buy and didn't question his decision to try experimental treatments," the source told RadarOnline.com. "They did everything they could possibly do to get him better"

One of those treatments was ibogaine, the psychedelic Presley turned to in March. His typically private family rallied around him afterward. "You are a warrior!" Crawford commented on his Instagram post about the ibogaine.

"Walked thru the fire to find yourself! So proud!" Rande told his son: "Facing what's hard takes real strength and watching you find your way back to yourself is everything."

Kaia added: "That's my brother I am so d--n proud."

Presley's issues took a toll on those who loved him most. In an interview with Vogue published in August, Kaia explained what it was like growing up amid her big brother's battle with addiction.

"When something like that happens in a family, it kind of levels everyone," she said, adding that she tried to be "the easy one." She "never wanted to ask for help," she explained, because "it felt like too much to have two children who were needing."

The Shards actress also praised Presley's determination to stop hiding his struggles.

"My parents for most of our lives were very, very private and didn't share anything – and now we have this absolute teacher, my brother, who says, 'I'm gonna be very human for everyone,'" she explained.

"There's only so much you can hide from the world. And trying to put a lid on something just makes the person feel like you're ashamed of them."

For Crawford, Presley's death echoes the unimaginable grief she witnessed after her younger brother, Jeffrey, died of leukemia when he was 4 and she was just 10.

Reflecting in 2010 on how her mother maintained her "fight" despite losing a son and enduring a divorce after Crawford's father had an affair, the supermodel said becoming a parent had given her a new appreciation for her mother's strength.

"Now I'm a mom myself, I've really come to appreciate her outlook on life," Crawford said. "I can't imagine the pain of losing a child."

Now the family's closest friends are rallying around them. George [Clooney], 65, and Amal Clooney, 48, were seen arriving at Kaia's L.A. home in the days following Presley's death. George, said the source, knew Presley since he was born and considered him "like a nephew."

For a family that spent years hoping Presley would find his way, accepting that he's gone is only beginning.

"They are all shattered and in a state of utter disbelief," said the source. "They are trying to stay strong and somehow find a way to carry on."